Survey for Shape and colour

Today I surveyed 10 people regarding my work on shape language and colour theory.

First I took 10 heroes from different areas of media and paired them with their villanous counterparts. I then reduced them to their silhouettes. The aim of this exercise was to see if when characters are stripped down to their bare minimum visual detail, could they still be identified as good or bad.

The people asked ranged from the youngest of 5 years old to the oldest of 72, most male and females. Pretty much everyone got the sils correct, some even recognised the characters but regardless they were able to distinguish the good guys from the bad and even tell me why. One young man said that the more pointier characters looked bad and another said the bigger characters were evil looking.

right - hero

left - hero

right - hero

left - hero

right - hero

left - hero

left - hero

left - hero

left - hero

left - hero

Looking at the images, the public was generally correct. Where there are spikes and jagged edge this usually refers to them being a bad character. The more curved the characters form, the more pleasing they are to the eye and less intimidating. 

from left to right:
Villain, Hero - Hero, Villain
Hero, Villain - Hero, Villain
Hero, Villain - Villain, Hero

I also tested out another task to do with colour theory. Generally speaking the characters that are pale tones and primary colours such as blues, reds and yellows are often the good guys. The red implies boldness and passion and blue refer to wisdom and calmness. Evil characters tend to have dark tones mixed with vibrant often sickly colours 

Collaborative poster project

For the collaborative project i teamed up with Henry Gorick a fellow MA Games student whose focus is in 3d modelling and rigging.

Together we decided we'd like to focus on creating a pipeline for a continuous workflow that could potentially keep us both busy on a project through to completion. This is ideal for small indie based teams where individuals are required to be multi disciplined and always involved in every aspect of development.

We both had our own separate areas of research as well, Henry wanted to look into low poly modelling work flows whereas i wanted to look into shape theory and John K's ideas on Appeal. With all this we decided on creating a character and after a lengthy discussion we created the idea for Major Malfunction.

I would concept the character Henry would model it and from that point we would devise a work flow that would keep us both involved if we were to take the project further.

Before his ‘enhancements’, Major [redacted] [redacted] had a string of disciplinary hearings for his erratic and violent behavior both on and off the field of battle eventually earning him the title of Major Malfunction.

Cooked up in the minds of researchers Henry Gorick and Steven Turney at the institute of NUA, the project was an attempt to answer the question “can we create a video game character that reflects the current cultural climate whilst working in a 2 man continuous pipeline” After discussing the design they decided that an American man, draped in the countries flag and ranting about long obsolete ideals whilst waving a nuke on a stick would be reflective of current American tensions.

As the character designer, Steven looked in to shape theory and the psychology of shapes to inform his design as well as researching into John K’s theories on appealing designs. [1][2][3]

Henry’s researched led him to look into a low poly modeling process as well as disney’s method of staging and posing and finally basic pipeline design for 3d modeling. [4][5][6]

What they found was that creating a design based on blocky rectangular shapes implies the idea that the character is strict, strong and rigid in his personality. This is perfect for a military man whose life is based around discipline. They also found that low poly modeling can make it difficult in later stages of the pipeline such as posing. Together they created a useable pipeline that could be implemented into an ongoing collaborative process suitable for indie studio game development.

Concept > Modeling > sculpting > Rigging > Poly painting > Posing and Rendering

·       References

·       Brooke Eggleston Forge, (2016). Shape Language 1: Intro and Round Shapes. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbtoO6zFJ3o [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       Christie, M. (2016). The psychology of logo shapes – a designer's guide. [online] Creative Bloq. Available at: http://www.creativebloq.com/logo-design/psychology-logo-shapes-8133918 [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       IdeaRocket. (2016). 12 Principles of Animation: Staging - IdeaRocket. [online] Available at: http://idearocketanimation.com/2523-principles-of-animation-staging/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       Kricfalusi, J. (2016). Disney Principles 4 - Appeal 1 -. [online] Johnkstuff.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/disney-principles-appeal-1.html [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       Taylor, J. (2016). Is it bad to model in a T-Pose for characters?. [online] METHOD: J. Available at: http://www.methodj.com/t-pose-for-characters/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·      Tironeac, G. (2016). The Pipeline Behind Modeling and Animating a Game Character in Zelgor. [online] Assist-software.net. Available at: https://assist-software.net/blog/pipeline-behind-modeling-and-animating-game-character-zelgor [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

Finding a question

Today’s session we spoke about what are method of research was going to be. After a discussion with some of the other students I came to the conclusion that my question revolves around ‘how characters can reflect cultural and societal change’

To put my research into practice I would first take a handful of characters from across media and match them to their origin in time and country of origin.

After this I would try and gage what was happening in these areas at these moments of time and through analysis of design choices such as shape, form, colour, voice and so on I would deduce what purpose the characters were created for.

After researching into certain character design theories such as shape language, colour theory and gesture, I would then create my own characters reflecting my own bias and present these to an audience to see if they could deduce the meaning behind them.

Cloud Session

This weeks seminar we were tasked with creating a ‘cloud’ featuring our approaches to work, our skills and generally everything about creative process.

So for 20 minutes I listed everything I could think of. My main take away from the task was that most of my inspirations and drive don’t come from video games; they range from animation, films, comics and a keen interest in the supernatural and folklore.  I believe this is what makes me a good designer; I draw my inspirations from all different aspects of life.

After the cloud task, we broke into pairs and discussed our work with them along with possible research areas. I was paired with Emily, a fine artist whose work focuses on simplicity and anthropomorphism in inanimate objects. It was interesting getting a fine artist perspective on my work and again I was shown that a fine artist approach to work is drastically different to a games artist.

The areas that we discussed for Emily’s research direction mainly orbited the balance of simplicity and over processing in the representation of her work. In Regards to my work we discussed looking at altruism in games and what it is that causes players to behave heroically or antagonistically as well as how nostalgia has a long lasting foundation in the games industry in the form of pixel art. The topic that intrigues me the most however linked to my work specifically as a character concept artist. We discussed how nuclear power and radiation was portrayed in media in different companies, specifically Japan and America. In Japan radiation created Godzilla, an aberration and force of pure death and destruction however in America radiation created a plethora of super heroes, the embodiment of American ideals and power.

Cultural and societal changes influencing character design is a subject that I want to look at further, as to what my research question is at the moment, I’m not entirely sure. As I research further in my subject I assume new questions will unfold and the right question will crop up.

Manifesto

Manifesto

For our first task of RIPU we were asked to create something that represented our creative philosophy through an artistic Manifesto. We presented our manifesto as a sort of pseudo exhibition where the students would view and critique are work through post it notes.

I tackled this task in a typical games art manner in that my manifesto was very to the point and tidy, much like how the games industry’s creative pipeline works. It was very apparent that this was not the case with the other manifestos as they were much more fluid and sometimes obscure whereas the games students work was more like info-graphics.

It was very interesting to see how everyone approached their work and it became apparent that as a games student focusing on fitting into the industry, my approach to working and my art was more rigid compared to the majority of students. This is for a purpose however as my role as a character designer means that I have to fit into existing pipelines to work within the game design industry, if I don’t fit into these pipelines then I’m simply an illustrator.

The critiques I received were mostly all positive, complimenting the design of the poster and my approach to designing games. The only comments that could be considered negative or at least something to consider were ‘too industry focused’ and ‘what’s wrong with creating a game you don’t like’. This clashed with my ideals, as first if I’m not industry focused I won’t get work and be able to release the games I want to make. The games industry is very team focused and a single person rarely ever handles creative control. The closest industry in my mind is the film industry. Secondly, in regards to creating games I don’t like, if I don’t find a game entertaining then I can’t work on the better aspects of that game to enhance the experience for the audience. It comes down to whether I feel the game is working and if it’s not I don’t want to slog out a soulless creation I have no faith in.

Ultimately I took the critique on board in that I’m trying to be less focused on what the industry requires of me and focus more on just creation. I will however still only create games I like, there will be days where I will work on projects I dislike for work but given the choice anyone would choose projects they do enjoy.