Presentation two: Conclusion

Reference:

Keighley G, 2013, The final hours of Tomb Raider.

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.

Ian Dean, Initials., Issue 89., December 2012. ImagineFX  Create dynamic game art.. 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW, UK: Future Publishing accessed: http://www.imaginefx.com/02287754332397685045/imaginefx-89.html

Howard, T.  First edition 2011, Bethesda, The art of Skyrim. Maryland, United States, publishing: Bethesda.

Keighley, G. 2013, The final hours of Tomb Raider (Limited edition accessible by Steam)

NGamer Staff, How did Mario become so famous?  17th Oct 2010, [Online ] avaialbe at : http://www.computerandvideogames.com/269909/features/how-did-mario-become-so-famous/ [accessed 19^th November 2014]

Keith Stuart , Super Mario Bros: 25 Mario facts for the 25th anniversary, [Online ] available at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2010/sep/13/games-gameculture [accessed 19^th November 2014]

 

Nico Crisafulli Bringing Art History to Concept Art – the Delicate Universes of Feng Zhu 2012 [online] available at: http://www.tentimesone.com/bringing-art-history-to-concept-art-the-delicate-universes-of-feng-zhu/ [accessed 18^th November 2014]

Feng Zhu, 2014, Feng Zhu Design [Online] available at http://fengzhudesign.com/ [accessed 18^th November 2014]

 

Tom Bramwell Crystal Dynamics: "Lara's never really had a personality" 5^th of June 2012, available at: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-05-crystal-dynamics-laras-never-really-had-a-personality [accessed 24th November 2014]

Mitch Dyer, Far Cry 3 The Vaas That Never Was, 10 Jan 2013,[ online ] available at :http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/10/far-cry-3-the-vaas-that-never-was  [accessed 25^th November 2014] 

Essay Part one: Intro

The concept art behind the creation of successful game character personalities in video games

Introduction:

The development of creating a video game character personality is a difficult task. A large amount of time is spent in the pre-production stage; a crucial stage in pre-production is concept art. This essay focuses on background information of the character; the origin, clothing styles, particular situations the character is placed in, era, society and how the character reflects in life threatening situations.

The player reacts to characters differently there is either love or dislike expressed to the character. The characters could be good or evil and people respond to them accordingly. The player at times prefers the evil protagonist, who is known to be a killer; more than the protagonist heroine character.

Information and explanations from concept artists and other professionals in the industry, will be helping to support the information in this essay. 

These individuals will be providing interesting perspectives from experiences and studies in the video game industry to help construct these video game personalities.   The essay will be based on the distinguished features of the game characters, what is conspicuous about these characters, what makes these gaming characters stand out from other characters, and why a large amount of the time is spent in the concept development stage to hone these gaming characters. 

extra information on other game personalities

 A more contemporary game involves Ratchet & Clank: it had its 10^th year anniversary in 2012. John Fiorito was an environment art director on the PlayStation 2. The original concept for ratchet and clank series came out from Spyro: Year Of The Dragon and looking and spending a year developing another game called ”I-5 or girl with a stick” and its demise, that left them with a few months, to present a new concept on a game in an alien galaxy which featured lots of gadgets, developing the whole world, animation , sounds characters, Dave Guertin created these early sketches of the heroes. The idea for ratchet was to create a spunky alien with gauntlet. A reptilian body gave him a relation to something earthly, the body eventually changed from reptilian to a cat, to show a diversity of ideas. 

John Fiorito, Ratchet & Clank: 10 Years of Concept Art, 2012 [online] available at: http://www.insomniacgames.com/ratchet-clank-10-years-of-concept-art/ [accessed 19^th November 2014]

Tomb Raider Part 1

When it comes to video game design, a strong female character is one of most loaded phrases. Lara Croft being the most famous woman in gaming, since its beginning in 1996, the character has attracted criticism for her physically appearance, she was in fact disproportionate to her body, in the remake they gave Lara more realistic proportion. They removed the over-sized breasts and removed the tiny waist; this changed the character from a sex object to a survivor admired by all fans. In the Tomb Raider reboot, Lara fades into her grueling, grey surroundings, her primarily focus is to save her friend Samantha another survivor in who was shipwrecked,Lara’s growth throughout the Tomb Raider is from a guilt-ridden girlhood into a lean, mean psychopath. 

Ria Jenkins, From Lara Croft to Bayonetta: what is a strong female character? 2014 [online] available at: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/05/lara-croft-bayonetta-female-games [accessed 20th November 2014]

The Skillful Huntsman part 7

The concept for the King started with Le stating, ‘I love drawing headpieces. You can definitely go wild with the design since he’s a king, so the more elaborate the better. The four headpieces have their own sense of character. The first is noble; the second is mysterious, while the third and fourth are feminine and spiritual.’ [p.126] . The drawing here shows how little details influence a character’s appearance. ‘Ever since I read the Dune book about the evil baron, I thought it was very cool that he had a personal vehicle to move him about in his palace. I wanted the king in this story to have the same type of mobility. Maybe his legs are too weak for walking much in his large castle, or maybe he’s just lazy.’[P.128] Stated Le. This gives you an idea of a different perspective of how the king is like, he’s too lazy to do anything or to move around, and maybe he’s a bit of a slob. Yoon had a completely different idea for the King; he wanted him to be this really intimidating character an authoritative figure that stands out from the rest. ‘I wanted him to be a very uptight, solemn, and authoritative figure’ states Yoon.  [P.130]

Designing the captain from the story was another difficult task , but Robertson states ‘Aggressive, mean-spirited characters are easier to draw and design because we can easily over exaggerate their personalities; they become stronger icons of evil full of danger, mystery, and excitement.’ This is not always the case. A character like Vlad from Far Cry 3 had a lot of difference characteristics. Yamada states ‘I saw the captain as an imposing figure, but incredibly weak at the same time. We know that his moral fortitude does not match his physical one.’  [p.140]In contrast Yamada gives his own perspective for the evil character; he wanted to give the illusion of the character being strong, because of all the burden of his amrour, but weak because underneath that armour he’s really just a slender figure. Yoon ‘I kept in mind that the captain would be a wicked, greedy character.’ [P 141]  Yoon expresses this in his sketches in page 141, one could see the wide smile in some of his characters and the character looks incredibly witty. He also gave the Captain a religious look to his robes. This was to contrast the captain as he is an indication of evil. Yoon states ‘This image of good contrasts well with his evil motives.’ This is a tactic used by plenty of game companies; one could clearly be seen in Final Fantasy or Devil May Cry. Robertson adds a very interesting point following his students work. ‘Generally speaking, people view round shapes as friendly and angular shapes as mean or aggressive.’[P.142] Sharp heads are generally are seen as more dangerous and less friendly characters. In comparison round are more seen as genuine friendly characters, take Super Mario for example, and compare this with a character Waluigi. Normally a person won’t touch something that is pointy, or has a sharp edge, because this kind of reminds the person of a knife, while a round thing brings back memories like a ball. A clear experimentation of different media, armour designs, it all goes throughout an artist’s mind when creating these characters. 

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Reference:

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.

The skillful huntsmen part 6

Developing the guard dog, specifically a guard dog that scared giants Felix states ‘I had a messed-up, brutal creature in mind. First of all, it needed to be mean enough to have discouraged three giants. And its appearance would give us an idea of even greater potential dangers lying ahead for the huntsman.’ States Yoon in contrast Le wanted to make the character a family pet ‘it would be funny to see that three giants were afraid and deterred by a cute little pup.’ [P. 108]

 For The Princess the students gave a similar exploration, alike the huntsman.  Yamada states ‘I was attempting to accomplish this difficult balance between graceful/feminine and awkward/immobile.’ [P.112] Le finds new exploration through his silhouettes in order to create the dresses. Robertson states ‘We are so conditioned to reading subtle body language that we cannot help but assign feeling to the pose of the figure and a like or dislike for the design.’ Yamada sates ‘he was inspired by sketches by Iain McCaig and Dermot Power in the Art of Star Wars:Episode II: Attack of the Clones and tried to give the princess a similar feel. I played with contrasting large areas of flowing fabric with bound areas. I wanted her to be noble and proud, but also to give slight hints of contradiction. As we know, she eventually renounces her royal lifestyle to go live alone in the forest.’ [P.112] Contrasting personalities is the most difficult thing to make out of a character and then creating a visual analysis of the character. Robertson states ‘Most young designers don’t realize that graphic design is a huge part of entertainment design. Last on the list of development is the surfacing.’ [p.118] this is an important statement, because this is where graphic design enters conceptual drawing, it’s a mix of art and design which releases these characters a perfect mixture of both drawing and design. Yoon went a complete opposite style from the hunter, ‘since the hunter that I drew had an old, ancient style to him, I wanted the princess to be very clean, sleek, and elegant.’ He adds in ‘I tried to incorporate bold yet simple graphic designs into her costumes.’ [P.122] He takes the next step into giving the princess expression, by giving her facial features, her pose, it all comes together, people can see that she is not a fragile princess, but adventurous she wants out of the castle, and she needs to find a mean to get there.

Reference:

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.

The skillful huntsman Part 5

Le finds inspiration from Legos, and making origami from when his childhood, he states ‘those fond childhood memories have a lot to do with why I’m so obsessed with visual construction.’[p.94] in his sketches, one could see the blocky, feeling, and the roundish textures in these visual constructions.  Yoon creates interesting bird’s-eye view, a view seen from above, to show his composition of the different rooms, in this case the princesses bedroom, the reason for this as Yoon states ‘This lets us observe the scene without being in it, and makes the moment between the huntsman and the sleeping princess more intimate.’ Yoon was inspired by Art Nouveau. ‘Art Nouveau quality which is why I stuck the curving shapes’ states Yoon [P.96] after this step, he changes the mood of the bedroom, by giving a dramatic lighting effect, this helps create a mood. Yoon drew these colossal interiors, and it conveys this immense scale of space inside the castle. Yoon adds in another area the castle stairway this is the area where the huntsman picks up the sword. ‘I wanted to give a solemn, Gothic feel while keeping the fairy-tale-like dreamy quality. The heaviness of the staircase evokes the power of the king, the marble communicates his wealth’. This is a powerful trait in concept art. How the world immerses renders itself into the audience. Just in case the area was locked, Yamada wanted to create a secret side entrance. ‘I was trying to explore this idea about a secretive side entrance into the castle something almost like a sewer tunnel or an aqueduct. It needed to be very simple, abstract, and moderately organic, yet not. It becomes a nice transitional space between a more formal environment (forest) and a more chaotic one (castle). I drew on an organic approach to classical architecture with a bit of the French comic artist Moebius thrown into the mix.’ [p.100] Yamada looks at other perspective into the field; he also finds influences from other artists. Meobius is the nickname for Jean Giraud a French comic artist.  

In the development of the castle, Yoon states ‘The birds in the background give some movement to the image, and are light and ephemeral while the castle is solid and staid. The birds are free to stay or go and do as they please; the princess who resides here is not.’ [P. 105] this gave me a new perspective to the story, I didn’t realize a small detail like adding birds or something miniscule to the background could help ideally, create movement. Scott states ‘Felix took a more historical approach to the design of the castle. When designing a period piece, it can be very difficult because everyone already knows what the thing should look like. If you stray too far from familiarity, the piece will not feel correct to your audience.’ The historical elements are difficult to portray because there has to be a balance between, familiarity and a new construction. [P.105] 

Reference:

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.

The Skillful huntsman part 4

Mike creates statues for the forest instead of designing the forest in a complete natural area [P. 58], Scott states ‘a forest could be made out of rocks or something altogether’ this statement gives the artist various ways to brainstorm.  Felix creates something outside of reality Felix states ‘I tried to come up with a forest that we are not used to seeing.’ Robertson adds in ‘applying his strong graphic design abilities to this series of sketches, Felix introduces us to the forest full of fantastic funky life we have never seen before. Nature is one of the most amazing sources of design inspiration’ he continued. The next step is using sources, influenced from other artists and designers, ‘The forest scenes were inspired by the work of former Disney illustrator Eyvid Earle. Le shares his techniques on creating a forest ‘There is more emphasis on flat two-dimensional shapes instead of forms. A dense forest scene like this would be overwhelming if I tried to model the forms of ever leaf and rock. Instead I view foliage as a flat shape of contrasting value, colour, and texture overlapping into the atmospheric perspective. Nature follows very specific rules in its designs’.  Follow a similar rhythm towards the whole forest and eventually it will finish a composition both appealing and interesting to the audience. [p. 66-67] 

‘I began exploring the hunt man’s air gun with several quick, rough thumbnails and decided on an approach that that included modern as well as old fashioned components. I felt this mix of old and new would lend itself well to not being a stereotypical.’ States Le. Le also states an interesting fact about concept design ‘The brain is task specific, so the more I think about perspective, the less brain juice I have for design.’ An important quote to the anything concept related is to not spend too much time brainstorming on one subject alone. Le creates an interesting approach for the airgun instead of having an air supply come from a tank; he states that ‘I thought it would be interesting to see it come from an organic source. Imagine that there are little creatures that live in the forest who have a defense mechanism whereby they create compressed air and fluff themselves up to appear larger to predators.’ [P.72-73]

The students started to design the giants in the same way they designed the huntsman, Yamada states ‘I began designing the giants by sketching silhouettes. But unlike the huntsman, I was not limited by the realities of human figure.’ [P.78] Yamada contradicts his own statement ‘They needed to be human enough to be relatable, but different enough to stay mysterious.’ Le states ‘I’m toying around with the idea of the giants sharing the same body. It would be interesting to see how this affects their movement with two or three different mind-sets. He adds in ‘it would be humorous to see them constantly bickering about simple daily choices.’ [P. 82] Putting realistic approaches to the character designs works well when it comes to creating characters as previously stated. Le states ‘one of the approaches for character design is to do the headshots first, then design the body around the aesthetic of the head.’ Robertson supports Le by stating ‘Khang spends some design time here on potential heads we might see on the giants in our story.’’ He adds in ‘Colour combinations change the look of the creature: pink flesh, leathery skin, stripes, spots. The varieites are endless.’ Colour is key to conveying personalities, colour changes the way we think about anything, it changes the mood, and perspectives towards anything. The pieces eventually go into a digital perspective and the giant design is finished.

Reference:

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.

The Skillful huntsman Part 3

In the second stage of the book the students started drawing the travels, how the world revolves on the action the protagonist takes. Yoon starts with sketches of the travels;  landscapes or structures, starting by exploring different time periods, time of day and moods. Yamada looks at the environment as a whole, deciding to create a monumental world, huge proportions to dwarf the characters. Yamada states ‘the world could become an additional character and give an additional sense of history’ [P.44] Le states that ‘the story is a simple one, open to a lot of interpretations’ Le continues the statement by ‘the huntsman traveled about looked for work’ which open a lot of different environmental designs. [P.45]

Transports Le creates different types of transports, ridiculous, creatures that are used to travel. Le states ‘a giant spider could be used to cross shallow water using it’s legs it could wade across the river against the current while, away from rocks and crashing waves with its long spidery legs, perhaps the ferryman would offer to sell the passengers some motion sickness pills before the ride’, and this puts something to think about for the design of the story, to make it more realistic.  Floating hovercraft is one of the things that audience came to accept in sci-fi films, one of the possibilities to this is because of huge blockbuster films like star wars.  Mechanical design, be consistent and give design a set of rules. Le states ‘designs need to perform a function, the problem with designing the machines of the future is they must look different’[p.54] recognizable but different. 

Reference:

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.

The Skillful huntsman Part 2

The skillful huntsman isn’t exactly a game, but a tale, a group of university students Felix  Yoon, Mike Yamada, Khang Le and their lecturer Steve Robensin, took forward this challenge to create a visual development for the writing. The skillful huntsman a visual development of a Grimm Tale produced at the Art Center College of Design.  The skillful huntsman was first written down in a book of fairy tales by the brothers Grimm, back when electricity was not available. The visual book was to explore the earliest stages of visual development, and this process behind in the art departments of feature films or video games. They were free to explore placing those characters into any time period they wished. They designed the environments, the characters, props, and vehicles. After reviewing this story, the students perused specific design topics. The list became the chapters of the book. A variety of brainstorming designs throughout each chapter. Applying plenty of visual development practice of drawing many small thumbnail sketches, to quickly brainstorm ideas, and start fleshing out new ideas.

Scott Robertson who tutors the three students, mentions, that Yoon, uses a broad range of shape and design; the sketches present a lost line technique and a strong use of positive and negative shapes, which give an interesting character to the viewer. Yamada states he starts character design with different exploration sketches, he starts with patterns and shapes, Yamada adds part of history and culture to give it certain realism to the character.  He then goes and uses a silhouette approach, to give an interesting shape to the character, to give the character different body shapes. Yamada later starts to establish a bulky feeling to the huntsman, he starts giving detail to the character, adds a theme that varies from a fanciful to science fictional theme. Khang Le, starts with doodling on pages, giving certain importance to parts, like the face, body, he uses a series of interesting shapes and silhouettes to describe the character. Le states ‘it is economical for clients and the director to see a range of designs before committing time to any specific one,’[P.20]  this is an important stage in the initial stages. The sketches demonstrate successful variation, Robertson states ‘a designer can come up with a few and new aesthetic that nevertheless feels familiar and accessible’. Le states that after the thumbnail phase is done, it all comes in rough sketching, everything that a character carries can help tell a story about them. Story means design and design will lead to a new sparking ideas to the story. Yamada starts to use different colour palettes after deciding on the shape of the character. To create something, one would need familiarity. Le states ‘Make an alien character too alien and the audience won’t relate to it’. Le continues by stating ‘This is the reasons why most alien design in movies have human features.’  [page18]. Yoon soon gives the costume design different time periods, ancient costuming, he dropped the idea on the drapery because, ‘he’s a traveling hunter, and I thought it would be inconvenient for a traveling hunter to wear drapery’. 

Also, give this a book a read, this is very insightful for any artist. It takes one from the beginning phases of the actual concept art/design world, creating the character from the initial stages, giving a personality to the character, and how the world revolves around the characters. I would recommend this book to anyone who loves art and is really determined to go into the concept art world. These artists share their input, and keep everything from point a to point z interesting throughout the book and showed hard work and determination throughout.  

Reference:

McCaig, I. 2005, THE SKILLFULLHUNTMAN, Visual Development Of Grimm Tale At Art Center College Of Design. Hong Kong, Design Studio Press.