Task 1 - Myself as a character

An introduction to design and pre- 

-portions. 

For a few years now i have been trying to make my drawing and designing skills better, i have been given this assignment about creating a character sheet for myself in my favourite game.

Having looked at different ways of looking at pre portions and faces it was a relief when i got sheets helping me and explaining the pre portions, although the following images are not the greatest quality it is my first attempt at using the guidelines i have been given.

This is the front of the first character that i have thought about generating, as you can see i have left the pre portion lines and notes on so we know that the pre portions are correct.

I also tried to draw my first figure at another angle for the character design sheet, i know it is not the best drawing ever done however i do see this as a starting point. I can see that parts like the nose and chin maybe are not out enough but as a first try i think its a good start and my drawing skills can only get better from here.

Finding Inspiration

We were asked too look at our favourite games, myself it was Uncharted 3 i think that the gameplay, storytelling and graphics are incredible. Also watching videos on the game itself i found out that research is a big part of naughty dog games, from location and settings to clothes and design of characters at different locations around the world.

So i thought that i would start by looking at different locations in the game and look at some design and get my inspiration for my character from there.

This desert location is one that i have always admired, the sky, the sand and even the ancient architecture.  I have seen videos of the Naughty dog team actually going to the desert too see just how people would walk and crawl over the sand dunes. So then i began looking at the characters that were used in this location.

Thugs

Chloe Frazer

These were a couple of the concept art images that i found of characters from the desert part of the game. I knew that it was important too look at both males and females to get an idea of what clothes they wear, like jackets and scarves.

I also noticed that the men wear darker colours than the women, and this could link into semiotics and what i have learnt about signs and meaning within games and the real world. For example the fact that the women are dressed in bright (red) colours could show they are desirable, but can also show their venerability in certain cultures.  On the other hand the men are dressed in dark colours like blacks and blues, this shows us their dominance and when contrasted with the womens clothes their power over the women in the game.

This is an early concept design that i found of Nathan Drake the main character, and i don't want too look at him in particular as my assignment was too create myself as a character too fit with within the uncharted world.  However it does give me and idea of what my character could be wearing, again as semiotics has taught me he is a good character so is dressed in bright neutral colours, unlike the thugs dressed in blues and blacks above.  So this will be something i will have to take into consideration when looking at myself am i good? or bad?

This type of scarf is used in the desert part of the game, i found this image off google and is the stereotypical scarf worn by locals and armies in the deserts.  We can also see on the image above that Nathan Drake and the thugs are wearing these which makes this a must for my character.

More Inspiration!

This is the second part of my research, i have chosen uncharted again, however i have gone with an entirely different idea. From the heat of the desert to the cold mountains of Tibet.  I have chosen to look at this as well so i can get a wider view on what looks good and what ideas work better than others.

Obviously if i was too choose this idea over the desert there are certain things that i will need to research in order to make my character look and feel authentic to the game. This idea feels less intense than the last, it feels that maybe i could be slightly more creative with my character.

Tenzin and Drake

As you can see from the image above that clothing is a big part of helping an audience not only relate to a character, but relate to where they are in the story.  We can obviously see just from the fur coats they are wearing that they are in a cold environment, and should i choose to pursue this path instead of the desert idea i will need too look at winter clothing in detail.

Final design ideas

This is my idea for the front view of my character, there are still a few developments that i need to make it better, i still need a holster over his shoulder and i need to make his shoulders and torso, however i really think this is a great leap from my last uploaded drawing.  As you can see i have gone for the desert look as i have added a scarf round his neck to protect him from the sand storms.

This is my as a character in drakes fortune that i created at the end of the module and i think it shows how my skills have progressed through the past few months.

Task 2 - My Scarecrow Model

Scarecrow design and model

Here is the inspiration that i took from Batman Arkham Asylum, i chose this image because you can see the full extent of what the scarecrow looks like, when showing a friend this image they thought i had traced the image however you can see that the preportions and posture are not the same i just left it in the background to show my refrence.  I really love this pose because it shows that my character is ready for action and is in a heightened state of awareness.

You can see significant differences from my last screenshot, my character now has all detail added from his hood, his body and his weapon, i chose to give my character a scyth and this is because this is a weapon that is generally associated with farming and that is where the scarecrow would be situated in the crops.  I also like the hood on my character i thought that it would be important for my character to be dark and mysterious.

This is just showing a little detail that i have added in the clothing and the cloak, i thought that it would be important to have the cloak ripped and torn and this is too show how scary he is, showing he is not perfect and that he has been in some fights with ripped and torn clothes.

This is showing the shading that i will be using, i have chosen to use these brown and light brow/beige colours because these are stereotypical of what scarecrows wear, it would have been confusing for people too see a model that looked like a scarecrow in blues and reds, and we can also see that i will be shading it from the bottom and middle of the left of the painting as the shades get darker to the right of the image.

As you can see from my various images of my model that it was not the best model ever created however i feel that it was a good result for my first try.  I think that the hand holding the scythe is too bold and big however by the time i had created it i was unable to go back.  However i do think that you can see it resembles my model i created inside photoshop, when cooking the model i did burn the top which you can see however i think that this just adds to the meaning of the scarecrow, as it is an entity from hell and an evil character so the burnt the top of him is fitting within the scarecrows world. 

Task 3 - Silhouettes and shapes

Photoshop characters.

My Zombie Doll

Inspiration.

I admittedly find it hard sometimes to create concepts in my head to maybe design a certain character or setting/landscape.  However when an idea comes to me i still find myself challenged to come up with great ideas however i have the drive to move forward and research what it takes to make a great character.  A big inspiration to me was silent hill and specifically silent hill revelations, my first character that i designed was a nice small turtle with a walking stick and with my second character i really wanted to take my design in a completely different direction.

This outline below is my original idea plan for character, i have chosen to have his head lay back and his shoulders relaxed, this is typical of the monsters/zombies that i am wanting to design, because of the posture of his head and shoulders i had to bring his waist out as if he is standing with his stomach in front of the rest of his body.  I have made his arms simple and relaxed because again this is stereotypical of the zombie look and body i am trying to re create.  I really like this body and it is my favourite because the pre-portions are correct and i feel that personally this is my best idea because of my research of zombie body posture.

All of my research for this character has really helped my imagine the character that i wanted to create, the clothes, the posture and the overall feel of the character.  I have researched clothes and this is an important part of defining a character as the way someone is dressed within a game changes the way the character is perceived.  It was images like the person below that inspired me to create my character in a suit, i think that the way that i wanted my character to have a life before he was a zombie.  This raises questions before you speak to a character like this in a game.

Below is my final idea and concept for my zombie, you can see the silhouette, the outline, the image without the line art and my final image.  You can see from my research where my ideas have come from and how i have got from just an idea of creating a zombie to actually having a character.  I have used the suit and smart clothes because i think it gives the player certain expectations, but also because i enjoy the way that clothing as smart and clean can be corrupted and ripped and torn, creating almost an oxi-moron, seeing the two contrasts the normal and the extra ordinary.

I really love the line art and the pre portions with this image, i think that because of the research i put in, into the posture and body language of a zombie really paid off when there actually isn't any blood on my character and because i researched about what was needed, we can tell the character is a zombie because of the posture and the clothing of the man/doll.

My Turtle Guru!

I began thinking about creating a character that was not of a humanoid shape, i began looking at the most famous characters from TV from the past 20 years and i really took inspiration from characters that i grew up with as a child.  I looked at the Teenage mutant ninja turtles because they were a big part of my child hood life, i chose not to go down the ninja route however and went down the teacher/guru route.  I did this because i did not want to end up copying the teenage mutant ninja turtles just take some inspiration from the characters.

I have chosen to show the image above because i have been taught to use silhouettes as well as actually drawing a character with pre portions, i love the image and it really shows how just by using silhouettes and illuminating the background we can create certain emotions just from silhouettes, there is no detail on the image and after seeing an image like this i will be using the silhouette route from now on as well as using my drawings and pre portions.

This is my final image for my Turtle guru character, and again like with the zombie doll we can see clear areas where i have taken my inspiration and used it too my advantage, obviously my turtle would be green however his belly is yellow, with this area i could have used maybe a dark green or a very pail orange, however after looking at my research and also referencing the colour wheel, i knew this would have to be yellow, like wise with the red shirt which is the contrasting colour opposing the green.

Task 4 - Heroes and Villains

Hero's and Villains.

Villain.

Above is the first screen shot from my villain that i am creating, i have chosen to have him this posture as a non threatening not only because i have not tried a pose like this yet but also because in his bio he is not a conventional villain, he is seen by most as a hero and only one 
person knows his true identity, so it was important for him to have a calm and welcoming pose.

As you can see that from my last screen shot a lot of detail has been added, scars have been added and this is to go along with the theory that villains are often scarred or disfigured in some sort of way, for example Darth Vader wears a mask to help him breath leaving him disfigured, i knew that with my villain i needed a disfigurement but as in the bio he needs to be a hero to the public so the disfigurement can not be too damaging so he still looks normal.

Here is where i began too add colour to my villain, i wanted him to be neutral but deadly.  I have chosen an ice cold blue to signify that he is a villain however i have chosen a neutral blue as again as i have said he needs to be seen as a hero to others apart from our protagonist.  I have chosen red scars as this contrasts with the blue and shows that he is evil and like i explained disfigured.



Design choices

As you can see from the image above i have chosen to give my character this satchel that he is holding and that is red because it symbolises the dangers that are within in, within the bag is a large amount of poisonous gases that kill people, and the hat has a yellow lamp on it, that is there because when he is in the gas after he has released it he can then see where he needs to go and work his way through the gases.  I have chosen to give him a scar through his eye as this symbolises a serious disfigurement and also the claw marks around his neck in a series of three showing possible collision with an animal in the past.

Here is his lower half, here we can see the lower half of the satchel that he keeps his poisonous gases in but what is most important here are the red syringes that we can see around his waist.  These are important because the gas that he releases in poisonous and will kill all who get caught in it, however the gas will disperse after an hour and this syringe contains a cure that makes him immune to the poisonous gases allowing him to move around freely in the gas.




final character and bio.

This is my finished villain, he was an employee that worked for the biggest gas company in Britain however after being faulsy accused of stealing dangerous gases from the science department, he lost his job and for not being able to pay the the bills he lost his house, wife and son.   He became determined on revenge against those who framed him for the theft of dangerous gases and in his search he became stronger and more powerful from exposure to these dangerous gases.  After he had revenge he still felt empty, it had not brought back his wife and son and with no where to go or anyone too see he found a way to capture these gases, control them and used his new found evil personality that had taken over him completely to rid the world of people and civilisations that he did not see fit into his warped idea of what a world should be.

He found an antidote that he could use in situations to make his body immune from the gases, over the years the gases became more and more dangerous making him have to use up more and find a stronger anti dote that he can use when the gases have been released.  When he was first discovering what the gases could do he took a trip to a small location out in the moors in England too see just how affective they were at wiping out small villages, he found a village and released a small amount of gas that worked its away around the village wiping out the humans as it crept through streets and houses, however in the mist he was attacked by a massive dog the size of a great dane, however obviously changed by the gas to have sharp claws, black eyes and razor sharp teeth, this is where the scarrs on his face come from.  The dog died from the gas however from this small village a boy would survive who hell bent on his own mission to find who killed his family when he was young and destroy the gas man himself.







Hero

On the screen shot below you can see that as i have chosen too use black and dark colours to represent my hero, this goes against conventions of having characters and heroes being in bright and bold colours to represent their heroism and bravery.  However my character is an anti-hero, he is perceived as being the villain that actually turns out to be the hero at the end, other characters like this that i could relate the character too could be maybe Dante, from the devil may cry series.

I had too invert the outlines so that i could see where the outline of my character was so that i could colour the character properly and to the best of my ability.

Final character bio

This is a man named Dexter Williams, he is a boy who grew up in a small village in the middle of the english moors until one night when a mysterious myst fell over his village.  As his parents perished in the gas that mysteriously appeared he runs out to the town square with his jumper over his mouth and nose.  He hears the high pitched squeal of a dog dying as he turns he see's a man...a man at the centre on the gas's origin wearing a shirt and with an open sack of gas pouring out.  He makes eye contact with this mysterious man who then vanished into the darkness.
He was about to take his last breath when the gas disappeared, with his life and his memories of his villages demise he began training and declared that he would find this gas man and take revenge for everyone he hurt.  In his older years he follows the gas man around the world, shadowing him and rescuing civilians when he released the gas making himself a hero, waiting for the perfect opportunity to take out the gas man for his family and his village.