concepting with context

As I began to start working on the character Nir, I tried to emphasize her feminine attributes without sexualizing her while at the same time portraying her immense strength. Through trial and error I concluded that the compact and stocky body type didn't portray the agile athleticism I intended for Nir which would provide the necessary masculine traits for the feminine frame.

Her armour also needed to be practical while at the same time appealing. I left exposed spaces to highlight her athleticism without sexualizing the character.

 Hatch needed to come across as regal and stoic. I decided to mask his eyes to add mystery to him and imply his stoic nature. I gave him a cloak which suggest regality and I played with how it would drape, with the intent to show the fururistic yet tribal era. His sculpted figure shows his body is as trained as his mind. I wanted to imply his insecurity regarding his identity by masking him and adding the synthetic device on his wrist.

 

Ipa was fun to design, I wanted her to look simple to highlight the technology she is implanted in.

I wanted Shar to look confident and sovereign. He needed to appear different from the other characters as he represents the foreign influence on the indigenous culture. His cloak is inspired by extravagant european cloaks of kings and queens. I altered the shape to reflect the futuristic nature. His glasses represent his unclear motives and decisions, and emphasize his untrustworthy characteristics. He is long and wiry to add to his sharp and cunning personality, [it also suggests he uses his intellect to attain power and control rather than brute strength] his large cloak hides his frail upper body which is a weakness and insecurity of Shar's character.

Venitu needed to appear decrepit and intimidating. I combined several monster silhouettes. Like the other female characters i wanted to mplement masculine traits to her design to highlight the hostility of her character as well as the transition between the decay of the masculine body to the "weaker" feminine as mentioned in the Ann Davies article. The phallic tail combined with the nearly emaciated feminine torso achieves the horror themes of this character. 

Plot refining

The Nation of Tunnar is divided between the Geni: traditional tribes and Agri: clans that integrate foreign technologies.

Maha is born blind but with super enhanced senses. She is trained to use her abilities to sense water sources in a nation plagued by drought. The allied Geni tribes agree to send her from village to village to aid in the retrieval of water which becomes a rare commodity. She is escorted by elite guards from various of the Geni villages for protection on her travels. Maha grows very close to her bodyguards as they form an intimate bond through their travels.

This new initiative is kept a secret from the Agri who are also suffering from the drought, as the Geni fear their use of Maha would cause a great power imbalance and endanger Maha's well being.

The Agri Dictator Shar is pressured from the public to find a solution for the drought which has lead to famine and economic downfall. The pressure of the public is only enhanced by the impending election, during which he becomes aware of the thriving Geni. He is convinced that should he force his way into Geni and pillage their water he would start a civil war and that if he were to ask for aid from the Geni he would come across weak.

Shar devises a plan to infiltrate the Geni and find how they have discovered their water sources. He arranges for an an explosion to occur in the nations most popular commercial district in Agri killing many of his own people. When asked for a statement on the incident Shar reports the attack was orchestrated by the Geni.

With the full support of the people he is able to fund a force to retaliate against the Geni.

Shar mounts the Agri assault on the Geni villages taking many hostages for interrogation, searching for the water source. He manages to find out about an oracle who is able to locate springs underneath the earth. He pursues the oracle across the Geni tribes until he manages to capture Maha who is hidden among her body guards. Unsure of which of them is the oracle, the Agri transport the party to the capital to be tortured into revealing who the oracle is.

As they cross the walls of Agri, Maha's bodyguards attempt to hijack the transport helicopter causing it to crash. Unfortunately two of Maha's bodyguards die in order to save her from the crash. One of her two surviving bodyguards escort her from the crash and order Maha to flee towards Geni as she returns to the crash site to distract the surviving Agri guards as well as those arriving onto the scene.

Instead of fleeing she feels guilt for others dying for her sake, so she braves the unknown metropolis of Agri to rescue her bodyguards from captivity. Her lack of sight proves challenging in her quest but her enhanced senses allow her to traverse and combat through Agri towards her comrades.

While searching information on her bodyguards location, Maha learns of the explosion that Shar organised. As Maha nears closer to her bodyguards, Shar sends stronger warriors to capture her to keep her from spreading the secret behind the incident and use her abilites to attain power over all of Tunnar

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Maha

Born blind, Maha's parents struggled to raise her in such a wild environment. However upon harnessing her remaining senses they discovered her advanced perception. As the drought started, Maha managed to find spring not far from her village. After discovering this ability, Maha continues honing her abilities and eventually chooses to travel with her parents between village to village supplying them all with water. On their travels they get attacked by bandits but are saved by a nearby villages warrior called Nir. Maha's parents are left in comas with severe injuries. The council of the Geni discover what Maha and her family had been trying to achieve among the villages and assign her four warriors from the higher villages [including Nir] to escort her on her journeys to help the remaining villages.

• delicate and fragile
• graceful
• intelligent

Shar

Agri leader, elderly politician from the foreign culture who supplied the Agri with their developed technology from the foreign lands.

• wiry
• intelligent
• selfish

Nir

Warrior raised from famine to become strong warrior. Extremely loyal, learning about sacrifice from her parents taking such good care of her despite their own well being.

• direct
• strong
• loyal

Hatch

• Leader of Shar's infiltration squad
• solemn/sombre
• quiet

Venitu

• Shar's most elite warrior
• recruited and conditioned to follow orders from Hatch
• Sadist
• victim of torture and experiments

Ipa

• kid genius raised in Agri born from Geni parents
• paralyzed from the waist down [in wheelchair]
• outcasted because of her parents origin and disability
• gadget master
• helps Maha on her quest via radio.
• Hates Agri

Maha concepting

Continued Work on main character i'm going to call Maha which according to babble.com is african for beautiful eyes which i thought appropriate as her eyes are large and buggy. i played around with how she looks in her outfit i designed using Raven as a reference. i also considered how i would simplify the design further into development.

"The hunger to fight" by elsevilla[deviantart] (2016)
Spider Gwen Fanart by Cody Rostron (2015)
Raven Created by Marv Wolfman and George Perez in 1980, DC Comics

I tried working from silhouettes i did earlier and then also tried playing around with body shapes i found interesting

character sketches

Considering a more ludic approach to designing characters i took silhouettes and imagined their in game purpose or how they would interact with the world and the main character. This made it easier for me to give purpose to design aspects rather than try come up with something that looked appealing and then give it a practical purpose.
The top character is a heavy opponent for the protagonist. he has a shell like shield on his back and a spear like weapon. i imagine he can fold into his shell and fire projectiles and jab with his spear. the transformed version is designed to appear animalistic to tie into the african wilds which the themes are inspired by.
the bottom character is an archer of sorts. i altered the traditional bow to make it unique, and also tie into the present themes, as odes her attire.

Theory Research

to help in my research for my character designs i looked for articles to help in my design process.

i managed to find an article about guillermo del toro and the way he tackles embodiment and masculinity and how symbolizes horror in the fear of the decay of the male masculine form and the threat it imposes on the hard bodied man. [thats what i got from a brief skim anyway].

Another article i found discussed masculinity using silent hill 2 as a case study in which the embodying the male form is glorified whereas the feminine bodies are shown do be expendable whether it be the soft bodied antagonists or other characters that have to be discarded in some form to progress the narrative [again will get into more depth after i read it properly]

another article i find interesting is [again just from a skim] is about modernity and culture in terms of the realization and fantasy of ideal feminsation. the article does a case study on "A Fool’s Love" by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō.

The last article i look to tackle is a reading i did for my lit review in bridging which analyzed lara croft and her sexuality and linked it to discussion for how we find appeal in technology to the point of fetishization.

i think the discussion of these articles will aid in the development of my characters, by considering their construction in terms of masculinity/femininity not just using gender. also using this construction to suggest darker themes of horror. in designing the female characters [in particular the protagonist] i look to apply the ideas of what the appeal men find in female characters in particularly digitized ones as well as the modernity of their context in relation to contemporary society to craft appealing characters not subject to too much cliche.

concept sketching from silhouettes

as i started putting down ideas for female villain designs i started having them look very traditional and the futuristic styles were completely absent. i started slowly implementing the scifi features but i need it to be more seamless and subtle. i think i will explore applying the futuristic fashion then work on combining both.

the male designs came out quite well but again the futuristic elements are quite absent so i need to work on applying them more seamless aswell. the base ideas i think have lots of promise.

silhouettes for characters

im thinking of designing some fantastical sci-fi themed characters predominantly villains for the game level. i widening the scope on the initial thumbnails then going to focus my concepts as the ideas get more centralized.
thematically african culture has been connected to supernatural, which i find could be an interesting pairing with the sci-fi era i plan to design. I mixed predominantly sharp shapes and tried to focus on contrasting forms to make them more appealing. the imbalance of the shapes also shows the uneasy kind of connotations for most of these villain characters. i am also considering having them be animal themed as well in some sense to tie into the tribal and wild nature of the setting.
i plan to focus on weapons being melee based as to futuristic or projectile as it fits a lot better thematically and is unique for sci-fi settings which are predominantly based on lasers and missiles i find.