December Reference List

Reading:

• Freeman, D. 2004. Creating emotion in games: the craft and art of emotioneering. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders.
• Kennedy, S. R. 2013. How to become a video game artist: the insider's guide to landing a job in the gaming world. New York: Watson-Guptill.
• Kretschmer, A. and Rohrbach, K. 2007. Pictorial encyclopedia of historical costume. New York: Dover Publications.
• Whitlatch, T. 2010. Animals real and imagined. California: Design Studio Press.
• ???, Ryan. 2011. Fantasy armor and lady bits. [online]. Mad Art Lab. Available from: http://madartlab.com/2011/12/14/fantasy-armor-and-lady-bits/. [Accessed 07 December 2013].

Watching:

• Lilo & Stitch. 2002. [animated film]. Directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Pictures.
• The Lion King. 1994. [animated film]. Directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Pictures.
• Monsters, Inc. 2001. [animated film]. Directed by Pete Docter. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Pictures.
• Robin Hood. 1973. [animated film]. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman. Burbank, California: Walt Disney Productions.

Games:

• The elder scrolls V: Skyrim. 2011. [disk]. Microsoft Xbox 360. Bethesda Game Studios.
• Mass effect. 2007. [disk]. Microsoft Xbox 360. BioWare.
• Ratchet & Clank. 2002. [disk]. Sony Playstation 2. Insomniac Games.
• Spyro: a hero's tail. 2004. [disk]. Microsoft Xbox. Eurocom.

Fashion: Historical & What Not To Do

Through my study of the Pictorial Encyclopaedia of Historical Costume, I've become more familiar with various country's fashion and their periodical styles. I've noticed that even in ancient times, despite distance many locations have taken inspiration from others as patterns can be formed. This can also be attributed to the differing manufacturing process and technological advancement. As I'll have a sense of culture across my species, fashion would be a great way to connect them, but this also means certain styles will be better than others to fit all body types.

Antiquity

English 1100's - 1800's

German 1100's - 1800's

French 1100's - 1800's

Often in fantasy, fashion is based off elements of the real world, but can become extremely extravagant and defy physics. I've always had a strong interest in fashion when it comes to character design, so when it's used in such a way, it really stands out to me and dispels my immersion in the game. This also occurs when armour is used in a ridiculous manner. If armour is used it should cover most of the body and not leave vulnerable areas. Characters can be wearing something so skimpy it's insulting, especially when there's no attempt at being subtle, and this isn't just females either. Or they can have armour that's so bulky they couldn't possibly move. I intend to keep functionality and practicality firmly in my mind when designing my characters, but not so that it impedes my creativity or appealing aesthetics. I think this makes my point:

Yeah... There's nothing wrong with making a character attractive or giving them sex appeal, but seriously, these tropes are getting irritating. I also found an article relating to this that was quite interesting and entertaining.

Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits

"As the placard indicates, this is from the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age. It is gorgeous. Modeled on German Gothic Plate, I have only a minor gripe with it: no neck protection. That’s important stuff, but let’s look more at what they did right. They made the armor functional, yet feminine with the detail work. The overall form could easily go on a man, but the trim, the collar, the cuffs were character and period appropriate. Brilliant."

"However, artists aren't always going for practicality or historical relevance. Style will often trump practicality in costume design. Just look at Sauron, one of the most epic suits of armor ever worn; If this guy lifted his arms too high he’d poke his eyes out with his own pauldrons. So this is awesome but impractical armor, so why don’t we deride this design? Because we believe that it’s appropriate for the world and the character. More on that later."

I like how the author talks about how to balance what is acceptable, as in letting artistic license and sense of disbelief allow you to believe designs are appropriate within a certain limit. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West does this well with Monkey and Trip, who both show a bit of skin. But this is reasonable: Monkey is shirtless, but this is to make him akin to an animal or savage. Trip's clothes are tight fitting, showing off her form without it being bare to the world.

Research Proposal & Supervisor Assignment

Today was the hand in for the Research Proposal. I finished my final polishing in the early hours of the morning, uploaded it to Blackboard, then went for much needed sleep before I had to make a physical submission by 4pm. Interestingly, what I've learned from this particular written submission is that I need to start making my sentences more compact even as I write them, as by my first finished draft I had 4662 words for a limit of 3000, plus or minus 300 - the final was 3112 without references and titles etc. Before I would have thought actually getting the word count would be hard, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Editing was worse. Trying to combine thoughts and use less words without loosing the impact of what I was saying was difficult at first, but comparing the two editions I can clearly see the final was better in terms of readability and concise quality, so in the end I'm pleased with it, but wish I could instinctively do that in the initial drafts next time.

Link to Research Proposal.

We were also assigned our Project Supervisors earlier this week and I'm with Ryan Locke, which I'm quite pleased with as he seemed to show genuine interest in my topic in my first presentation and talk with him. So, I organised an unofficial meeting with him before the holidays, and we met yesterday for about an hour on the 12th. I wanted to go over my plan of action and what I've done so far.

We started off looking at my Proposal as I wanted another opinion on a little content, as well as section layout and appearance. My research aim had started off as "To investigate the effective use of duo companion characters in games, and to research what effects their design.", but it hasn't changed since the start of the semester, and I felt the wording wasn't quite right or was too general. I described my project the best I could, saying it revolved around form and function, of how I can justify the use of duos to make them successful and fit for their purpose, and how a lack of this breaks the flow and immersion of the game. Ryan agreed with the wording, as design should be the priority, and "use" sounds too mechanical. He suggested it was back to front and should be more along the lines of "... effective design of duo companion characters and their use...". Otherwise, he said the rest looked fine, but to just perhaps introduce the idea of duos rather than general characters in the beginning a little earlier.

I briefly described my strategy - what games I picked for my case studies and why, the design theories and pipelines I've investigated, my practice-based research, how my critical framework is applied to these, and my idea for the mix and match final outcome. He said that it sounded interesting, and asked if the results would feed back into my designs, which they would given the right time frame. I said I wanted time left to do a nice final piece, possibly taking one of the most popular pair sets and modeling them, which I'm unsure about it as I've never modeled a character before, or at least a digital painting as I'm much more confident in it.

I feel the questionnaire concept tests the characters design, but also covers others aspects from my critical framework in theory. Ryan agreed it's all about the design and process, and I shouldn't worry about post-production stages too much. He said modeling is a good skill to show off, and as a learning objective is good in the sense that it's a further process in design from the transition from 2D to 3D, to getting that final pose and in-game look. He recommended ZBrush, as it's quick to build a mesh, and easy to iterate on renders, but 2D is also important. He asked about the importance of gameplay elements as it's a part of my framework, but I replied the project is mostly about design, but the theory of player interactivity is relevant while practical application is out with the scope of the project. For instance, a character's role might be reflected in their design etc.

Overall, Ryan said my research sounds solid, and was impressed with the amount of work I had done and the attention to detail in my planning and investigation, that I was thorough and going in the right direction. He said there's little to worry about, that my Proposal seems tight and it looks good aesthetically. I think this meeting went really well for a first proper talk about my project, and it seems I'm doing something right!

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Feedback Update
We got our grades back on the 6th of January, just as I was rushing about to catch a train, so it was quite a hectic moment when I opened my email. But I got an A! An A. For a written submission. I don't think that's ever happened before, it only went as high as a B17. I'm incredibly pleased with that, disbelieving I may be for a while, and think it's boosted my confidence about this project. As usual, in the Rubric we got feedback from Robin Sloan to go with it, which is as follows:

"The introduction is a good place to lay out some of the research context for the reader by giving examples of notable character duos that proved to be particularly memorable. This wouldn't be an analysis, but would give the reader a sense of what kinds of characters interest you.

The literature review touches on a range of concepts that will eventually form your critical framework. These are all of relevance and will enable you to critique character duos effectively, provided that additional literature is brought in to support some of the less well developed sections. For example, the sections under Player Interactivity draw only from games as examples, but could look to the game design literature (as well as character design for games literature) in order to build a more substantial understanding of the associated theories that relate mechanics to character design. In the dissertation, it would be great to see the review extended to bulk out all of your identified sections. Freeman and Solarski are great sources earlier on, but Ibister, Tillman, and others are also useful, as are the game design theorists Schell, Zimmerman et al.

The overall research proposal is excellent but look to extend the review to include sources in support of all of the identified sections, as this is essential to the framework. Also note that a framework really ought to be in place prior to conducting the case studies, with the case studies more of a means of testing your framework, detecting weaknesses etc. You can then reflect on the framework, make adjustments if needed, and put this into action in your practice based research."

I agree on many points Robin makes. My introduction was still quite a general approach to character design and duos, and an example or two would have been better as it would show, not tell, what I'm talking about. The topics I was discussing later on in the literature review were underdeveloped and did lack evidence to support my points as I had done previously, mostly due to Player Interactivity being less important and not as thoroughly researched, but will seek to improve on for a deeper understanding. Authors like Tillman and Schell are already on my to do list, but I will look up the others. In a sense, my critical framework has been formed before the full case studies, as so far they're more of an overview, and have been developed to its current state because of my findings, so I think it's at a good stage. Overall, the feedback is quite positive with improvements I understand and agree are needed, so I feel quite confident in tackling the dissertation.

The Project Concept

My final outcome for this project is not necessarily a final piece of art. While I could produce high quality digital paintings or models of a duo, which I would do if time permits, I've decided to put my research into practice. My process and pipeline is a major feature of the outcome, so I thought what better way to validate it than to test it with an audience?

I have designed characters from five species, four creature based and one human. There is one of each gender for all races, so there are ten characters in all. These will then be paired up, with the duo's relationship based on the reoccurring archetypes from my research. I intend for some pairs to be what's expected, but others will go against convention. The audience will be asked to look at the mixed up designs and descriptors, and be asked to match the as they see fit. This will essentially test my various assumptions from the researched theories against audience expectations, and justify my designs by industry standards.

This is the latest action plan, containing my methodology and critical framework.

The following are the aspects I consider most important in researching and designing for my project.

Character Concept Design Process

According to Kennedy, silhouette thumbnails are one of the most commonly used exercises in pre-production in the creative industry. People recognise objects and other humans by their silhouette long before they see details. Using silhouettes in addition to references can stimulate creativity and imagination, and produce a high number of concepts in a short amount of time. My own process follows more traditional media, sketching and scanning, which often takes longer as I tend to become precious about designs. I think adapting to this digital pipeline will not only help me overcome that and become more productive, it will raise my skills to that suited and expected of the industry.

Initial designs are discussed with the art team or director, and another batch is normally drawn, developing on the most popular previous designs and refining. The next step is to introduce detail, and using a greyscale value painting is a great way to convey the major abstract shapes of the details of the character. Sometimes, many iterations of a character is needed, as the first variation is almost never picked. With direction from the art team, a selection of the iterations may be chosen and have more detail and colour added to them.