Industry Practice: Character Design Feedback

 Industry Practice: Character Design Feedback

This week we had a lengthy group meeting surrounding our character designs. One of the reasons we did this is because one of our greatest strengths is our character design, and we feel that if we focus on reflecting upon our design decisions, we can make them even better than they already were. Also linking back to one of the issues that I want to be aware of going forward is the fact that we want to avoid stereotyping these conditions. One way to do this is by having real world roots in parts of our character designs. Therefore we all looked at each others characters critically and gave feedback on what we think would be good to change or look into.

I think this is a great process to follow, linking in with the real game industry, as we can justify our own decisions and make our designs the best they can be. First impressions can be everything to players, so this is a highly important process.

Giving the character multiple masks that can switch

A good reference for this idea that was brought up was the Mayor character from The Nightmare Before Christmas  (Walt Disney Pictures 1993). Overall I think this is a good idea, but I won't implement it in the exact same way. Instead, the Jester would take their mask off and put another one on showcasing a different emotion for different sprites.

More experimentation with colours

I have considered this and even tried it with the colour variation below. As the character art lead, I don't think this works as well for representing depression. I think semiotics and colour as a language is really important for character designs, and this doesn't represent the condition as well as the original black and white scheme does. In the game industry, this would be a completely different scenario if I was working with a client, but since we are working as a studio with equal roles in this project, the original scheme is what I am going with.


Things on the jester hat move depending on emotions like animal ears

I think this is a great idea for sprite designs. It does a lot for the character, making them look more lively between sprites, as well as separates the character and the monster, making it look like the mask is a separate entity to the person underneath being controlled by it.

Have the jester wear a fishtail coat like old-fashioned butlers

Although these coats look better and would create a much different feeling than the trench coat he is wearing in his current design, I really like the juxtaposition between his trench coat and the pattern on it, since it looks like he is simultaneously shutting himself off from the world as well as putting on a front.

Make the character more spindly and spider-like

I think this a really good idea. I have to make sure not to overdo it though, since I want the character to not looking overly creepy (still being conscious of the age-rating). I also want the character to be more expressive, and this would help achieve that.

more extravagant coat details like a collar

This is something else I am considering: making the collar more elongated and pointy, feeding into the same shape language as the rest of the design.

Decaying of the coat throughout the therapy

This is a great idea, but I most likely wont implement it into the game. This is because the game is about setting these characters onto the road to recovery, and this makes it seem like an instant recovery over only a 10 minute game. On the same note, I don't think this amount of effort would help achieve any better result of raising awareness for depression and the signs of it. In the games industry, developers and artists have to be efficient, and one way they achieve that is by trying to make their workflow as smooth as possible without any big detriment in quality.

Add dripping effect to the sleeves of the coat

This is something else I will implement into the actual sprites, since it brings more life to the character, and it makes the appearance of the monster form look almost corrosive to the person under it, which I think is a great use of semiotics.

With this feedback, I moved onto the next stage of this project, and kept all of this in mind for my next set of thumbnails, as well as the sprites.

References:

Selick, H. (1993) The Nightmare Before Christmas. [Film] Produced by T. Burton. Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Pictures. [Accessed 8 November 2024].



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Toolkit 3D - Character Sculpt Project

Image
 Toolkit 3D - Character Sculpt Project Research and Thumbnails For the 3D side of toolkit, our project was to create a character from one of many briefs. With a specific style and inspiration I am already fond of, I chose brief number one: the Cybernetic Samurai. Looking at the brief I have chosen, it states that the character needs to be " A fusion of traditional samurai armour with futuristic robotic enhancements, glowing energy veins, and a mask that combines human features with mechanical parts." This is a lot of specific details to unpack, so I created a diagram of the different features that I could add to as I research. By treating these different sections as whiteboards, I can research them individually so that I have lots of ideas I could add into the thumbnails.  As usual with 3D modelling, I started with researching specific styles to use as inspiration. Style Research To start with, I began by looking at games before individual artists. I first looked at Bomb Rus...
Read more

Toolkit 3D - In-Engine 3D Character Modelling Process

Image
 Toolkit 3D - In-Engine 3D Character Modelling Process This blog will include the timelapse, and timestamps referring to said timelapse with explanations. I normally take screenshots as I work, and annotate those, but I feel that I want to try a different method of documenting my process since screenshots can be disruptive. Firstly, as a refresher, my final design for my character is below. Normally, I would bring this into the 3D software so I could have the reference there, but I opted not to do this. I find references in ZBrush to be disruptive more than anything towards my workflow, and I prefer working with the reference in another monitor whilst sculpting, rather than it being in the software. Here is the timelapse, which I will reference when giving a timestamp and explaining my process. STEP 1: CREATING THE MESH The Body For this model, I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone a lot more than last project. Last time, I heavily relied on Blender, only really using ZBru...
Read more