Genre + Cause and Effect

After talking to Lynn I've been thinking more about what I could do for my project. I'm very interested in working with cliche genres when drawing and trying to create something new and original from them by crossing over genres, or taking something traditional and adding an unconventional twist to it.

I'm a big fan of incorporating 'cause and effect' into my work, for example, say we have a standard design for a futuristic sci-fi soldier, but the twist is that all banned drugs in the world are (for some reason or another) legalized.

How does the soldiers design change and adapt if he is a junkie and addict, or in comparison, if he decides he goes against the flow and is completely clean compared to everyone else?

I'd like for my projects practical work to incorporate crossings of genre's and this cause and effect theme to hopefully come up with interesting and new concepts for characters.

So here is a quick concept I drew up for a female car mechanic. She is set in the future, but not too far forward, and is aged between 25-35. 

She isn't a bright and bubbly character and has a bit of a problem with drinking on the job. 

A member of her family is abducted for whatever reason and she has to knuckle down, kick the habit and go rescue them.

She wears a thick, heavy jacket in the workshop that protects her from sparks, accidents with machinery or harmful substances hitting her skin. Maybe it could protect her from things more direct like weapons.

She also has a small computer built into her sleeve, it helps her in the workshop to do things such as navigate her way around car engines, or place orders for equipment or new parts for cars.
Maybe it could somehow help her rescue her abducted family member. 

This is a concept that I've been toying with to see how it would work together, what would a post apocalyptic Assassins Creed look like? Here I thought up the idea of someone scavenging the ruins of an assassins temple or burial sometime after the apocalypse and finds assassin garments that haven't survived well through the years, and so they have been crudely stitched together with a jacket of a similar size and shape. With this they also found a modern hidden blade gauntlet- but the blade itself was rusted and stuck, so they replaced it with the serrated edge of a broken knife. There were also damaged pieces of armor there that they patched together with an elbow pad.

This was my second concept for the same theme. I wanted to give focus on the Eagle in Assassins Creed, and perhaps in the post apocalyptic world, information and letters were sent over long distances by birds.
The character follows this theme with the bird of prey glove and scavenged eye equipment to enhance sight  over long distances. Still playing with this concept. 

Narrative driving points

After class and a meeting with Lynn today I've started asking myself more questions in terms of the production process behind design.
It seems that examples of narrative influencing design in some cases show through less strongly than others and appears to happen more commonly in games than in movies.
In cases where it is the other way around, I've realized it's a common re occurance that where games that have weak story and narrative, will contain scantly clad females and butch men. This often becomes more of a selling point than the games' story and in terms of design, aesthetics vs functionality in characters are always clashing.



So looking at games and movies where narrative is the driving point behind the visual style and design I was looking for strong examples where this doesn't happen, or if it does, reaches a happy medium.











So In Equilibrium, all emotion and art forms have been outlawed. How did this effect the design of their world?
-Simple, functional attire for everyone.
-All clothing is color coded black or white.
-Architecture in the main cities are clean cut, no fancy brickwork or pretty windows.
-No bright colours, everything dons a pale, washed out color.
- Interior design is simple and functional and all furniture is one colour.















Mirrors edge follows a similar theme, where a city is ruled under a Totalitarian political system and the government controls all aspects of public and private life.
-Environments are clean cut
-No appearance of common city litter or graffiti, everything is 'Clean'
-As well as being a gameplay aspect, color coordinated rooms, paths and environments are also evidence of stating functionality.


















Fallout is an obvious one, where the feuds of World War II didn't end, and 100 years later the world is stuck in a 50's envision of the future before the nuclear apocalypse takes over.
-Every design aspect of the game shows sign of weathering and age
-All attire is roughly put together using scavenged materials
-Some weapons recycled from everyday equipment, lawn mowers, batteries, vacuum cleaners etc.
-Clear signs of futuristic advancement before the apocalypse

First Thoughts

First Thoughts 

So first post for my honours project- Lets get the ball rolling.

So I want my project to explore character design and concept, watching a character evolve from that first awful doodle on the back of a notebook to something that will appear in a game or an animation. 

I think my focus will be what happens in between those points when you look at a concept and think
'Why is he interesting? Whats his story?'

In short, the process in which narrative effects the concept for a character, vice versa, and the extent of this effect.
I'm hoping that this idea will develop over time, and that a good research question will come of it.




Property of Wesley Burt - Massive Black

As a rough outline, within the next few weeks or so I will be:

-Researching concept artists
-Exploring characterization
-Looking at the design of game worlds, where a character fits
-Cultures, fashion styles
-Aesthetic vs Function  

-Developing art skills, looking at tutorials, how the pro's do it. 

-Drawing up concepts for characters

Thats all for now folks :) x