Dichotomy 3

Presentation

I presented all the work I have done up to this point for this project.

Feed Back (Not all personal, but all feedback should be taken on board, as we are all trying to get jobs in the games industry)

• The characters are not obviously rich or poor.

• The characters look the same

• I need to ground the characters to make them             believable, their contrasting back stories and how this would affect their appearance.

• Their physical forms should be different e.g. he could be fat because he is rich.

• This is a character design project; it’s not about the quality of the 3D model.

• You will get a much better mark if you model both characters.

• The 3D model should be a portfolio piece.

• Don’t use Z-Brush

• When designing animals cover them up because nude animals are perverted.

• Don’t design Foxes

• Don’t design characters set in the future, because you can’t predict what it will be like and you will get it wrong.

• My character was basically Adam Ant, who is a pop star from the 80’s, so it’s not futuristic.

• Needed more silhouettes, before picking one to develop.

• Don’t have a back story, this project it all about the visuals. Simply design from basic shapes, when you have found some cool dichotomous parings of shapes, paint over these. Try and pick out a character, simply try and make them as dichotomous as possible. Then do a Value pass, a colour pass, and then model both characters. At no point should you consider anything more than their appearance.

• Any deviation from realistic skeletal and muscle forms will make your character impossible and there for unbelievable.

• Character design is not fashion design.

• If you nail your design in one silhouette that is fine.

• The best examples of character design that you could look at are the Simpsons, Pixar and No One Lives For Ever 2.

 I could not hold the Simpsons or Pixar in higher regard, but I do think that if I had presented these designs they would have been torn apart, due to their anatomic inaccuracies. They are extremely stylised. Allot of the negative feedback we received was in relation to impossible  anatomy, even when students pointed out they  were designing a character for the Dota 2 Universe for example. 

Pudge from Dota 2

Also if we were to design characters in a stylised fashion, this contradicts something you are always told throughout all art and design tuition. Master realism before you start stylising your work, this has always been the case. Stylising is extremely difficult, and will only be done badly without a firm grasp on realism. 

The same can be applied to No One Lives For Ever 2, also here there is a generic sexualised female character. This game also plays on the fashions of early spy movies, so here we have an example of good character design that embodies  3 design traits we have been criticised for implementing in our own designs, Sexualising Female characters, fashion design and impossible stylised anatomy.

Lot of the point brought up are valid criticisms, I definitively should have done allot more silhouettes.

Some of the point will make me question the design and how it should be pushed, for example the guy does look like Adam Ant, weather this is a look I need to stay away from can now be determined via more design.

But some of the point brought up are highly questionable. I think the point that animal characters shouldn't be nude as this is unsavory, to be ridiculous. All animators have been designing family friendly characters like this for years, and animals in real life are not covered up. Their is absolutely nothing sexual about an animals uncovered body, if anything the idea that it is, is what is perverted here. 

Conclusion

I completely went about the project in the wrong fashion although we were not given a strict path to follow; we were simply given the word Dichotomy and told that anything goes, when actually we needed to follow an extremely strict system. It’s the ends not the means is what we are normally told, when actually for this project it’s the means that was important and not the ends.

What I need to do is follow the guide line we have been given, although my work up to this point has been viewed by my tutors and pears it appears that actually it is inappropriate for this project.

Don’t have a back story, this project it all about the visuals. Simply design from basic shapes, when you have found some cool dichotomous parings of shapes, paint over these. Try and pick out a character, simply try and make them as dichotomous as possible. Then do a Value pass, a colour pass, and then model both characters. At no point should you consider anything more than their appearance.

This is the path I am now going to try and follow. This extremely demanding 3 week project which we started on the 5^thday now has 2 weeks left and I’m having to start again.