Sterotypes and Game Design

This will be a short post about the characters I have and why I have chosen them. Also some notes about game characters and my opinion on them and how they interact with the player.

My main character was briefed to me as slightly overweight and wearing a cheesy Hawaiian shirt. The challenge with this was making the character be aspirable to play if this concept became a game. Players in games are the main protagonist 99% of the time, this means they do all the work, they save everyone and are frankly just awesome, it is this idea of being so amazing that helps them enjoy the game and for some escape boring real life. For my character to be appealing I wanted him to be shown in a powerful and strong willed light, a light hearted character but yet fierce at the same time. Due to some of the traits given to me this was done to what I think works. One way I decided to make him stronger was give him weak and feeble people to work with, all the other survivors have major flaws. The mother is emotional unstable as well as under immense pressure to look after her child with her husband missing. The child is only a young girl and cannot fully support herself. The muscular man has a handicap as well as being aggressive and emotional unsympathetic towards others and generally bad at team work. The last character is heavily obese and short, this un-gifted individual is not able to fend in an hostile environment and thus needs support.

I used weak characters to make the main character stand out more, in the game environment it also allows the game designers to fill the world with problems from these other survivors to create content.

I do believe it is important to be the biggest character in the game and feel the most important, even bigger is to be the most rewarded. On the other note it can get frustrating for everyone else to do nothing for themselves at all, a balance must be made. Two examples I will give which in my opinion are bad designs are first COD the world war two ones. You often found yourself fighting the Germans with no support or help from other soldiers, I found in the most recent this has changed a lot and quite often your squad take fire and dish out a fair amount of kills. The other example on the other end is GuildWars2, while you are the main protagonist and save the world, you are brought up with a side character who is credited with it all and you as a player feel overshadowed and under appreciated. I like to think I have taken both these into account when creating my five survivors.

Character Revamps

Looking back on work I can diffinately see where I have improved and where more work is needed so in a sense this project has been very useful for me. My most popular style looking back was when I created character 4 the Lonewolf character. I like the way the solid colours created a nice sense of form and lighting. I decided to go back over some characters I felt were lacking art wise.

For the main character I felt he was “off”, his arms were bent in the wrong direction and his legs were too short, I also felt his shirt was too irregular and random, not really giving the attention of the bottles on his shirt. I also wasn’t happy with how the character portrayed himself in my mind on first look, I wanted him to be a strong powerful character despite being slightly over weight and wearing clothes that could be considered inappropriate for survival in a jungle. To start I reshaped the body, the arms and the legs to make him taller and more muscular, these two traits add power to the main character so the viewer is more inclined to want to play as him. The main character I felt needed this for a sense of believability that he had the will and strength to overcome the obstacles thrown at him in the actual game.

I felt the original girl character despite already having the face repainted lacked the proper colour and form. I started with the face which I felt was the worst part, I thought more of child curves, button nose, and large eyes. I also added light to the hair to add form to it. One quite good change was changing her skin colour, I felt by making her more pale it indicates unhealthy or weak, it reasserts the player with the feeling she is vulnerable, and even more so in this environment. I painted more solid colours to also remove the “muddy” style which I had painted before, and in fact I need to learn to get over the type of muddy painting I quite often accomplish. I feel the solid colours make her also more vivid and bright and again is contrast against her skin.

With the fat character I felt his style of a quite realistic painting was too far from the other character designs. He was also a little bit muddy and dirty and I felt this style would suit a bit better. While I lost the nit gritty style I had previously achieved I felt the character developed a more feeble look which I wanted from the start. His bright pink skin also brings out that gimmicky tourist feel I was trying to achieve with the hat and shirt.

Character Group Illustration

This is the design for the final image of all the survivors, due to time constraints it is not as like as I would have liked, and thus the characters were just placed in as placeholders and not really interacting with the scene. However I did this in a LOST kind of style to just show all the characters together.

The background was created by a technique shown by Feng Zhu in which he refers to it as an happy accident or from chaos to control. The technique involves using random brush strokes to form a background and cutting, rotating and generally jumbling it up. I did this for a backdrop then added detail on top, I also had a good custom leaves brush. I tried a little colour editing to fit the characters into the scene a bit more.

Here is a close up which in my opinion is a better shot due to the fact you do not get too distracted from the whole backdrop and they don’t seem as out of place.

Character Five: The Fat Man

Without being too harmful and offensive to Americans, with this character I am playing on a stereotypical trait that most Americans are obese, while this might not be exactly truthful having a extremely obese character brings diversity into the group. The main character while being slightly overweight has the feeling of muscle and power behind him, his height also shows the viewer he isn’t weak. I want this character to be the opposite, I am looking to get the feeling across of a fat, small, weak person who is yet another burden. One thing that is apparent is that all the character seem to be a burden and not very useful in the current situation. The reason for my character choices are that in the game as the main character you do not really want someone more important than you, causing problems mean you also have problems to solve and to bring the group together and help them, the characters in my opinion suit a game perfectly.

Reference material as some pictures suggest I was going for a crude topless uglyness…

Again starting with some silhouettes, I found the TV series “The Biggest Loser” great for reference material here and beyond the initial design stages.

I took my favourite pose and added some solid colour over the top to reference clothing and detail. I was thinking another type of shirt and would have most likely gone Hawaiian if the main character didn’t have one, Hawaiian shirts are kind of a gimmick and allow the user to take the character seriously in my opinion. I stuck with a standard white shirt and wanted to go from there, I was going for a grotesque fat American type who is messy and not attractive, he needs to portray a lack of respect for others around him.

I then used my previous technique of a development line and coming towards the final character. As previously stated I am trying different art styles and with this character I am going for a more life like character render. I have chose an open shirt to portray his fat belly but also his disregard for others by showing everyone a not pleasant sight and not really caring.

This is the final character turn around I came up with, I have not designed an after crash for this one as not much really changes on him. Hopefully the style of painting shows a more gritty and realistic style. I used dirty colours to make him seem more grotesque and added “dirty” attributes such as bad chest hair that is on show and flushed and blotchy skin. As well as the standard double chin. I added a hat as like the Hawaiian shirt a typical holiday hat is a gimmick and makes him seem more touristy. The character I had in my mind at the start was the fat policeman out of James Bond, that was my mental influence anyhow.

Character four: The Lonewolf

Without giving my characters too many fancy names I have named this character the lone-wolf character as to me his initial designs were based from the bad guy in post apocalyptic films or series. In LOST it was Sawyer, both The Walking Dead and Falling Skies have a character or more that likes to break the mould and cause trouble despite being united with what seems to be the last of his won kind.

For me this character needs to portray the personality that he is number one and will not put himself in danger for anyone else. This of course could change if a story was written out, thus evolving his character. To portray this I have the picture of a strong male who has never really relied on anyone before and doesn’t plan to, he also finds it annoying to cater for characters 2 and 3 especially due to their “uselessness”.

I started out with some silhouettes like I have done in the past, however I still feel like I need to create more designs and variations, this is partly due to inexperience and lack of practice and skill at the moment. Also with this project I have found modern day challenging in its own way as you can’t add all the fantasy and sci-fi bit and pieces and instead you have to stick to more standard life. Also with the art style we are going for it has to be relatively realistic. I have decided to go with some form of disability from injury in the crash this could be a broken arm or leg/fractured. This means the character who has done everything himself and is self reliant doesn’t necessarily have the strength now to do it all himself, now he must rely on the other survivors I felt this story would give the character more depth and also a reason for staying with the group.

I next took the silhouette I found most suitable and added some small details on top using greys and whites, these were to understand some clothing designs etc. Again what I said above can count… Practice, Practice, Practice.

I moved again into more detail to get the shape and idea of the character more refined before I moved to the final design. I had a few things to think about clothes wise, I wanted primarily dark colours to show he was not the best of characters. I also did not want another shirt as I was thinking of using a shirt on the next character, the design I looked on was that of a sports or gym person having a vest top. This also shows his muscle to indicate he is strong and fit.

This was the final design/ character sheet I came up with. I have to admit it was late so excuse the quality! Firstly I created this character in black and white and tried to add colour using a layer of “colour” to paint over the design, this left an odd colour almost a fake tan effect. His facial features also look out of place considering where the plane is flying from, his face was very much an accidental Chinese design from the start due to a small jaw and round face and curved features, I tried to remedy this with more sharp accents but it still looks wrong. The pose also seems off, I believe his shoulders are too far apart and his limbs are too think indicating he is a very small and stocky man which is not what I want.

So.. I redesigned him and scrapped the last design, with this design I tried again to go with a kind of Dermot Power design using solid colours but this time I added more colours to my pallet and tried not to use any line art. I actually really liked this style. One influence was I was watching a video from Feng Zhu, he talked specifically about form and lighting in a piece and that is what I was focusing more on this design. Using form to show the character and not worrying about details such as the eyes and skin blemishes at all. I used an anatomy book to get more accurate muscle designs on this character.

Character Three: The Child

The third character I have chosen to design is the child of character two. My initial thoughts for this character is that she is going to be a young girl, full of life and energy but also vulnerable and not really understanding of the predicament of what they are all in. I want her to be a character the viewer can see as a bright light in a dark situation but also a great responsibility and source of vulnerability.

Below are some reference images I have used…

I put together a small moodboard here and a few quick sketches to decide what size the child will be as there are of course many age groups, I went with around 4-7 years old so she is young yet able to do certain things for herself. A big part of the character will be her inept ability to understand the severity of the event, due to this she gets annoyed and grumpy a lot when given bad food and not given the comforts she is used to.

[Insert size guide]

As a type of design I tried with the mother I have used again with the child, this is the process of working from shapes to build the final character, I really like this technique as it works and shows progression towards a character and working at a good speed. In the future however I will probably need to do a few more of these to get the different designs as I find these quite limiting in character design and variance.

This sheet took the designs from my progression design sheet and started looking at the more detailed character and looking at personality. I tried to portray this through poses, the poses were using a diagonal brush and quickly done almost as thumbnails, I was trying the idea of quick concepts but that are readable. This needs work admittedly but i think its a step in the right direction for more detailed designs.

This was the final design sheet I created. One thing you might find is that my characters sometimes don’t look very similar art style wise. I am currently looking at various artists and attempting to design using their style. This character I was trying to use solid colours and line drawings, I got my inspiration from Dermot Power and his work which was mentioned at BAF. He uses very solid colours not bothering with shadow or form, but getting the details in, he uses this in his Beowulf art.

Unfortunately my character does not look my like his designs but I did like the line drawing side although a little messy. The face however needs some work as it is too messy. I need to use more solid colours also and the child’s body needs some work.

I changed the face slightly to give more detail and look more messy on the before model. One thing I have found quite hard is how childrens faces differ from adult faces. The foreheads are smaller, the eyes are often bigger and they have small button noses. The faces are also very rounded. Arms and legs I struggled with and it is still not perfect as I have never drawn children characters before, children have very thin arms and legs if skinny and hardly any muscle definition.

Character two: The Mum

One of the first characters you would meet in the finished game would be a mother who has lost her husband. She is also a kind of duel character as she is linked with another character who is her daughter. The characters personality is fragile and she is not the most capable of surviving in this post-crash environment, this leads her to be a sort of burden for the others as she becomes more of a mouth to feed. She is however a mother whose strength does show when here daughter is involved. Her weaknesses irritate certain other survivors but they must all work together.

I have chosen to play on a stereotype of a weak fragile woman instead of a strong one because you can feel more sympathetic for a woman in distress, and while she is considered weak she has a strong inner self that can be relied on in the worst circumstances, this could be used in the game to show a progression of the character. I would have the npc characters have personalities and stories as well as development to help the player feel this is a real world.

I start with looking at pictures and expressions of women, specifically the faces of women. They often have a more curved chin to ear than men and all round smoother and rounder features. To express beauty larger eyes and lips and especially eyelashes can be exaggerated.

Below are some reference images for the Mum character…

This was a design sheet trying to work with poses and conveying the characters personality. These exercises help me with my poses and drawing multiple drawings without spending too much time. When I started this project I feel I wanted to do a lot more with the development side of the characters by having lots of design sheets for each one with expressions, poses and a larger variety of designs. I feel the with the mum I haven’t really done this to my full and I believe this is because I just jumped with the first design I saw, hopefully I can change and improve this on the other characters.

This was my final design and first turnaround, the character has quite dull colours and I did not want the other characters to stand out past the main character. I tried to portray a sad character and frail one. The style I painted this character in was one of trying to get the gradients right and I painted with a square brush which is new for me. Originally I was going with a more posh character and felt it would explain the helplessness more as she has had everything else done for her in the past. I moved from this as I just wanted a standard hard working mum so when she evolves into a stronger person the players feel more attached.

This is the before and after design, I decided to put an after crash to show what she might look like after all the crying and panic she has endured. I have also changed her legs and calf’s as they were too big. With this character I felt restricted with the fashion for modern day, which is silly as women have so much fashion nowadays so in future more reference material is needed before setting on the final designs, I think I haven’t due to time constraints.