Re: Character
For my re-submission, I'd like to go over my work and review my choices and decisions properly.
During our initial workshop for character, we were asked to talk about character traits. I brought up the trait 'Betrayed/Betrayal'. Our tutor, shaun, questioned if this was a character trait. I took that a challenge, and wanted to convey this theme of betrayal through my character design. While my initial attempt at the piece did have a hint at this, I want to take the chance to further convey this aspect of betrayal - and I have a pretty specific idea on how to do it.
However, before we get onto all of that - let's go over what I had originally submitted.
Quoting my original post:
For my Character piece, I wanted to create a feline rogue of sorts - something that indicates betrayal. To begin, I started thinking of character traits and keywords:
Now, while that does cover the basics of things, I feel like I should go into more depth. Specifically, why I ended up going with those traits and keywords. You see, at the time of having to create this piece, I was actually playing Gigantic (Here's some gameplay for some context). The thing that drew me to that game the most was actually the art style and character design. Due to it being free, I thought I'd give it a go.
Here's the collection of concept art from the game that I made in my first submission. The name 'Samora' was the name I had when creating the final piece for the submission. Unforunately, there's no significance to this name other than it sounds nice and feels like it'd fit the character. At least, I can't remember any specific reason for picking that name.
I really liked this game. Well, there were certainly issues with it, but for the core concept and the fact that it was a beta (at the time) I really enjoyed it. I thought it had potential to be a really fun game. When I get in that sort of 'state' with games, I usually end up thinking of ideas, changes and additions for the game that I'd love to see. I'm sure a lot of people do that. Well, I was in that state when we had to do this project.
I wanted to go for a feline stealth character, as I felt that the game could use more stealth orientated characters. Oh, and my favourite animals are cats - due to them being known for being stealth predators, they felt like a perfect fit.
So that's what this character is. I don't know why I didn't state this during my initial submission, but this character is effectively a character design for the game itself. I even had abilities and mechanics in mind for the character at the time. I won't go into detail for the abilities, as it's a little out of focus, but I thought it'd be good for you to know that this is what I was thinking when I first made the character.
Now, the initial 'sketches' that I had originally. Oh, but this time I've flipped them around (for visibility) and added labels to what's what.
Now instead of just posting these and moving onto the next thing like I did last time, I'd like to explain my actions a little. I mentioned before that I asked friends (who were in the workshop at the time) what their preferences on the selection of tail, ear and claw designs I had made. The circled ones were the designs I ended up going with for my character, as you may notice in my original submission.
Unfortunately, I didn't take note of peoples preferences at the time, and since that was quite a while ago, I don't remember what they said. What I can give, however, is my opinions on the selected choices now.
Tail Design:
For the tail, the chosen design has the most variety to it - with a thin base and a thicker tip, the design 'pops' out more than the other two. Along with that, the tail itself could (this is a stretch) actually hint towards the character personality. The character I had in mind was a rogue, someone stealthy, sly, and not really trustworthy. Having a purely thin tail could potentially indicate the character is 'on the straight and narrow'. With the slowly enlarging tail though, the character could also be seen as predictable - as the tail gets thicker at a consistent rate. The tail with the thick tip, however, is thin for the most of it and suddenly turns thick - almost unexpectedly. This matches the idea I had for the character perfectly - a sly rogue who does the unexpected at the last moment.
I know, you could call this 'pulling it out of nowhere' (that's the politer way of saying it), but that's what I'd say if I had to analyse the tail design. Which I did. If I had to put a reasoning to the tail choice, that'd be the long and complicated reason. The short reason? It's the most varied - it pops out the most, and it is more interesting than the other two.
I'll try to keep the other explanations shorter.
Ear Design:
The ear 'design' itself I was more set on, but rather it was the way it was (normally) positioned on the character that I wanted feedback on. Should the ears be forward facing, straight, or back facing? In the end, I believe that the back facing ears were chosen simply due to the 'emotion' the shape conveys. Having back facing ears usually indicate trying to hide, or avoiding things; this is what cats actually do when they are submissive, anxious or worried. Although these are negative emotions, they usually are the type of emotion that indicates 'I don't want to be seen right now' with cats. As this character is meant to be stealthy, having back facing ears seems most appropriate. However, this doesn't have to be how they always are - in the context of attacking or being in active combat, the characters ears could quite easily be facing forward. The potential to show emotion through the ears is unique to animals like felines, so taking advantage of that in the character design and animation is quite an easy choice to make.
Okay, still too long. Last one is short, promise.
Claw Design:
This choice was simple - did I want her 'weapons' to be her actual claws, or rather a weapon attached to her wrists/hands. Choosing the weapon being being attached to the wrists rather than being her actual claws allows multiple things: Visual clarity, and potential for variation in design. In Gigantic, characters have alternative 'skins' that players can equip. Having wrist-based weapons allow for more varied designs on these claws, making them the suitable choice.
Other designs:
The rest of the drawings in the pieces were experiments - poses and proportions, mainly. I didn't go and get feedback on these designs as there wasn't much to go back on, but I did talk to friends about what possible poses I could use for my piece.
The resulting images:
Now, in my original post I went straight into just showing my final piece. This time, I'll be going over what I ended up doing. As you may notice, I took all of the design decisions into account with my final design. What I didn't go over, however, was the colour and clothing decisions.
When it came to designing the character, I had the preconceived idea of it being a rogue-like character. With typical fantasy rogue designs, you find the colour of brown being the most prominent (due to it being the typical colour of leather in fantasy settings). To get across this idea of a rogue, I decided to go with these colours.
The fur colour, however, was also specific in it's colour choice - due to being a stealth character, having a bright or obvious fur colour would clash with the theme of stealth. Going with a very dark, faded blue felt like it would best blend into shadows, making the fur colour appropriate for the stealth theme. The dark red of her trousers was to compliment the brown and add variety to the colour scheme - as having a completely brown set of clothes can often result in something rather dull.
With the colour and idea in mind, I decided to get into the sketching (and finishing) the below designs. With these sketches came the ideas of the clothing and look of the character. While I could've gone on a more thought out and planned idea for designing the clothes, I felt that since I had the base character idea down, that I would go and just draw her. And drew her I did.
During our initial workshop for character, we were asked to talk about character traits. I brought up the trait 'Betrayed/Betrayal'. Our tutor, shaun, questioned if this was a character trait. I took that a challenge, and wanted to convey this theme of betrayal through my character design. While my initial attempt at the piece did have a hint at this, I want to take the chance to further convey this aspect of betrayal - and I have a pretty specific idea on how to do it.
However, before we get onto all of that - let's go over what I had originally submitted.
Quoting my original post:
For my Character piece, I wanted to create a feline rogue of sorts - something that indicates betrayal. To begin, I started thinking of character traits and keywords:
- Betrayal
- Feline
- Rogue
- Claws
Now, while that does cover the basics of things, I feel like I should go into more depth. Specifically, why I ended up going with those traits and keywords. You see, at the time of having to create this piece, I was actually playing Gigantic (Here's some gameplay for some context). The thing that drew me to that game the most was actually the art style and character design. Due to it being free, I thought I'd give it a go.
Here's the collection of concept art from the game that I made in my first submission. The name 'Samora' was the name I had when creating the final piece for the submission. Unforunately, there's no significance to this name other than it sounds nice and feels like it'd fit the character. At least, I can't remember any specific reason for picking that name.
I really liked this game. Well, there were certainly issues with it, but for the core concept and the fact that it was a beta (at the time) I really enjoyed it. I thought it had potential to be a really fun game. When I get in that sort of 'state' with games, I usually end up thinking of ideas, changes and additions for the game that I'd love to see. I'm sure a lot of people do that. Well, I was in that state when we had to do this project.
I wanted to go for a feline stealth character, as I felt that the game could use more stealth orientated characters. Oh, and my favourite animals are cats - due to them being known for being stealth predators, they felt like a perfect fit.
So that's what this character is. I don't know why I didn't state this during my initial submission, but this character is effectively a character design for the game itself. I even had abilities and mechanics in mind for the character at the time. I won't go into detail for the abilities, as it's a little out of focus, but I thought it'd be good for you to know that this is what I was thinking when I first made the character.
Now, the initial 'sketches' that I had originally. Oh, but this time I've flipped them around (for visibility) and added labels to what's what.
Now instead of just posting these and moving onto the next thing like I did last time, I'd like to explain my actions a little. I mentioned before that I asked friends (who were in the workshop at the time) what their preferences on the selection of tail, ear and claw designs I had made. The circled ones were the designs I ended up going with for my character, as you may notice in my original submission.
Unfortunately, I didn't take note of peoples preferences at the time, and since that was quite a while ago, I don't remember what they said. What I can give, however, is my opinions on the selected choices now.
Tail Design:
For the tail, the chosen design has the most variety to it - with a thin base and a thicker tip, the design 'pops' out more than the other two. Along with that, the tail itself could (this is a stretch) actually hint towards the character personality. The character I had in mind was a rogue, someone stealthy, sly, and not really trustworthy. Having a purely thin tail could potentially indicate the character is 'on the straight and narrow'. With the slowly enlarging tail though, the character could also be seen as predictable - as the tail gets thicker at a consistent rate. The tail with the thick tip, however, is thin for the most of it and suddenly turns thick - almost unexpectedly. This matches the idea I had for the character perfectly - a sly rogue who does the unexpected at the last moment.
I know, you could call this 'pulling it out of nowhere' (that's the politer way of saying it), but that's what I'd say if I had to analyse the tail design. Which I did. If I had to put a reasoning to the tail choice, that'd be the long and complicated reason. The short reason? It's the most varied - it pops out the most, and it is more interesting than the other two.
I'll try to keep the other explanations shorter.
Ear Design:
The ear 'design' itself I was more set on, but rather it was the way it was (normally) positioned on the character that I wanted feedback on. Should the ears be forward facing, straight, or back facing? In the end, I believe that the back facing ears were chosen simply due to the 'emotion' the shape conveys. Having back facing ears usually indicate trying to hide, or avoiding things; this is what cats actually do when they are submissive, anxious or worried. Although these are negative emotions, they usually are the type of emotion that indicates 'I don't want to be seen right now' with cats. As this character is meant to be stealthy, having back facing ears seems most appropriate. However, this doesn't have to be how they always are - in the context of attacking or being in active combat, the characters ears could quite easily be facing forward. The potential to show emotion through the ears is unique to animals like felines, so taking advantage of that in the character design and animation is quite an easy choice to make.
Okay, still too long. Last one is short, promise.
Claw Design:
This choice was simple - did I want her 'weapons' to be her actual claws, or rather a weapon attached to her wrists/hands. Choosing the weapon being being attached to the wrists rather than being her actual claws allows multiple things: Visual clarity, and potential for variation in design. In Gigantic, characters have alternative 'skins' that players can equip. Having wrist-based weapons allow for more varied designs on these claws, making them the suitable choice.
Other designs:
The rest of the drawings in the pieces were experiments - poses and proportions, mainly. I didn't go and get feedback on these designs as there wasn't much to go back on, but I did talk to friends about what possible poses I could use for my piece.
The resulting images:
Now, in my original post I went straight into just showing my final piece. This time, I'll be going over what I ended up doing. As you may notice, I took all of the design decisions into account with my final design. What I didn't go over, however, was the colour and clothing decisions.
When it came to designing the character, I had the preconceived idea of it being a rogue-like character. With typical fantasy rogue designs, you find the colour of brown being the most prominent (due to it being the typical colour of leather in fantasy settings). To get across this idea of a rogue, I decided to go with these colours.
The fur colour, however, was also specific in it's colour choice - due to being a stealth character, having a bright or obvious fur colour would clash with the theme of stealth. Going with a very dark, faded blue felt like it would best blend into shadows, making the fur colour appropriate for the stealth theme. The dark red of her trousers was to compliment the brown and add variety to the colour scheme - as having a completely brown set of clothes can often result in something rather dull.
With the colour and idea in mind, I decided to get into the sketching (and finishing) the below designs. With these sketches came the ideas of the clothing and look of the character. While I could've gone on a more thought out and planned idea for designing the clothes, I felt that since I had the base character idea down, that I would go and just draw her. And drew her I did.
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