Character inspiration

When thinking about my character design, which is something that I've been looking forward to now for a long, long time, I immediately started getting a basic idea of what I want him to look like and be like. I still don't really know what his backstory will be, or whether he'll be good or bad, but here are the first few things that I felt strongly about and would definitely want to include in some way:

• He should have an elongated head. This would help him to mirror his home planet, which I had designed and created to be egg-shaped. It also links my character to the typical view of aliens as having elongated heads, as well as to the Mayans who bound the heads of their young to create this effect.
• He should be mutated - have more than 2 arms, maybe more than 2 legs - be a bit rough around the edges as a result of his home planet's fall from grace into a state of chaos.
• As a result of his mutations, he should be hunch-backed and have some trouble walking. I think that the perfect result would be to make the audience really feel sorry for him while he is walking later on in the Walkcycle project. It should look as though he is really in pain, and this will be best shown through his posture.
• He should have 2 heads - or 1 head that has 2 faces - or 2 half heads that are joined together at the middle. I did something similar to this in year 12 for art - where my 'villain' was a 3 faced demon who was partly demon, partly clown (my biggest fear!) and partly a rotting zombie mutant. I fell in love with this idea of once face being many faces, and would definitely like to bring this idea back into my character design this year. Also - this could perhaps mean that my character has a split personality disorder, which would be fun to play around with later on.

In the world design project, I had decided to make my planet egg shaped - not only making it more unique as a world/planet, but also to link it to the Mayan race in another way. I think that it is really interesting how the Mayans bound the heads of their children from birth to mould the skull into an elongated shape (as is shown in the first image below), as this has been widely linked to their supposed 'relationship' with aliens, who had supposedly entrusted them with important information and details such as when the world might possibly end. Or, well, this is one of the theories concerning the Mayan's elongated heads and their incredible intelligence. Personally, I think that this is all rubbish, but in our game world, this is an interesting theory to work with - considering that there ARE aliens in our game.

(http://www.blogversity.org/blogs/cstanton/maya_skull_modification.jpg)

Anyway, as I had already experimented with this sense of elongation with my world design, I thought that it would be good to also experiment with it in my character design project - thereby further linking my character to its home planet.

I used this image as inspiration. It is the actual skull of a Mayan person from all those centuries ago, and it does seem quite alien to me.

(http://museumsyndicate.om/images/3/20214.jpg)

I have also always been very very inspired by H.R. Giger's work - especially his work on aliens (also for the Alien movies).

This is another interesting take on the widely accepted idea we humans have about aliens having elongated heads.

Of course, the alien's head here is meant to represent a part of the male anatomy - something I do not wish do do myself...

but it is still very beautiful and inspiring work.

This piece - and a lot of Giger's other work would really be very food inspiration for the design and development of a 'bad' or 'evil' alien - so I will definately try to experiment with it further. I still don't know whether I want my character to be good or evil.

(http://www.sarahmensinga.com)

One of the best places to find inspiring character designs is of course on the internet, especially on artist based sites such as deviantart.com.

I found this piece on Sarah Mensinga's website while searching for images on slouching/hunching characters/creatures/people etc.

I was finding it very difficult to find an image of a hunched back character/creature/person do draw inspiration from - but I had originally envisioned my character as being very mutated and as a result of his deformities - having a hunched back.

After sorting through hundreds of unrelated and uninspiring and unhelpful images on Google, I came across this one.

I love the way that the character's head is bent so far forward, his terrible posture, the sense of weight and pain and discomfort he seems to have. I definately want to use this in my character design as a way to make the viewer feel bad for him. This particular character's other features aren't important to me, as they are much too caveman-like and not what I want my character to look like.

(http://www2.fileplanet.com.images/190000/196120ss_sm2.jpg)

Of course, most of my inspiration comes from the games that I play - especially games like Fallout 3, Bioshock, Dante's Inferno, God of War, Gears of War etc etc - which boast some absolutely amazing character design!! These mutants are from Fallout 3.

I really love the skeletal look of their bodies. They look so frail and yet still so absolutely daunting. Somehow, to me, they seem less human with this quality.

I thought that I might make my alien somewhat human in proportions, and perhaps somewhat frail - but perhaps not quite as frail as these guys!

(http://scuddster.deviantart.com/art/mutant_114407766)

I found this image on Deviantart a couple of years ago. This was one of the images that had inspired my character design work in year 12, and I think that I'd definitely like to include this in my work again now. Nothing says 'mutated' more than two heads or two beings that have been somehow joined into one flesh!

I also think that it makes a character more interesting - perhaps also in terms of speech, sight, other senses and of course personality. I have been thinking about making my character have multiple-personality or split personality disorders, but I am unsure of how I'll really incorporate these ideas into my work.

This will be a great way to show those ideas in a physical way though.

I guess that the next thing to do now would be to start drawing and putting these ideas together in a variety of ways.

Also - maybe I should come up with some ideas about his backstory and his history as these will ultimately somewhat influence the way he looks.

Maybe in a later post!

World Design

We started by looking at a lot of Mayan things - temples, glyphs etc - as we had decided that it was important for us to include some of these aspects in all our planets to make

them all have something in common - and importantly, to link them all to a Mayan doomsday prophesy.

Here are the images we took inspiration from - you can probably see some of the glyphs in my world design images:

*****

My planet is on the verge of their Mayan apocalypse, perhaps a year or less before the 'date' of the end of their world.

Everything is chaotic - the planet itself has dried up and become a desert, and the little resources such as water that is left is becoming more and more contaminated. Everyone's relentlessly using up resources and polluting the world because they think that the world will soon end anyway. This has caused the world to become slightly radiated (seen in the green haze which surrounds the planet).

There are 3 Mayan temples on my planet and these are positioned like Orion's Belt - similar to Earth's Egyptian pyramids. This links the Mayan prophesy to 'aliens'.

Each of these temples are surrounded by structures built by the alien race in the shape of Mayan glyphs, perhaps as a sign to the aliens who are meant to come and take the Trans-humans - or rather - aliens away to a better place. They are signs of desperation.

The race on this planet have built up the largest of these temples - the center one - in a desperate attempt to reach 'heaven' or perhaps the aliens. This is similar to the biblical story of the 'Tower of Babel' where the Israelites built a temple to reach God and heaven. I think that this just shows how desperate the race is to survive.

I made my planet egg-shaped so that it kind of links to the elongated skulls of the Mayans - and perhaps my aliens will also have elongated heads... I just thought it would be a bit different to all those perfectly round planets out there!

My detail image of my planet shows the area on one side of a Mayan temple, which can be seen in the back right corner. This temple has a few of the Mayan glyphs on it, which are also seen surrounding the temples from space (shown in the above image).

I made the ground look a bit like a desert to emphasize the fact that my aliens have used up their resources and have more or less killed their planet. The sky is that horrible radiation green, which can also be seen surrounding the planet from space. I thought that perhaps they had a different coloured sky at some point, but that the radiation has changed it and made it green - a constant reminder of their harmful impact on their planet.

The landscape is covered with buildings - as it becomes closer and closer to the date of their prophesied apocalypse, more and more aliens are relocating themselves near the Mayan temples in an effort to be there when the other aliens come to seek out anyone special who will supposedly be taken to another planet where they can continue to live. This creates a very busy and chaotic place and adds to the tension of the planet and its predicament. Most of these buildings are bomb shelters of different shapes and sizes, and some are businesses who aim to exploit the scared and get their money by selling 'apocalypse gear' such as Trans-drugs (drugs that are meant to push one into another stage of development and evolution so that they are perhaps good enough to be taken to paradise by the aliens), bomb shelter supplies, post-apocalypse survivor gear etc. This is all shown on the neon-light sign.

I also thought that there'd be a large amount of mental institutions - for those who don't believe in the prophesy. If the large majority of aliens believe in the Mayan prophesy, then the few who don't would probably be seen as insane and are thus locked up.

My basic aim was to create a world that has been massively destroyed by its inhabitants, is chaotic and crazy, and shows the desperation and stress of those who live there.

How The Concept Works...

The other night, Conor and I spent some time over MSN discussing (and trying to work out) all of the nitty-gritty details of our game to make sure that the concept was as strong as it could be, and that everything made sense.

It was really, really hard to not overcomplicate things - we tried to avoid doing so because it is already a very complex concept.

This is what we came up with:

• The objectives/ responsibilities of the Alien Committee:

There is a committee of alien species in the wider universe who have the responsibility of finding life on planets. When they do, they move these planets into isolated sectors in the centre of the galaxy, where they are safe from external interference, and from which they can be monitored. Their objective is to give these life forms enough time to develop and evolve to a stage of relatively high awareness, understanding and intellect. After this time has passed, it is their job to decide whether the race has reached a sufficient stage of perfection, and whether it would be a benefit to the rest of the universe if they were to join it and continue life. Ultimately, planet Earth and the human species which occupied it weren’t worthy of this honour.

The basic goal of the committee of aliens is to ensure that life, in all its various forms, is given a chance. After the prescribed time, life and planet will be eliminated if it has not reached the right level of perfection, as it then poses a threat to the wider universe – e.g. planets where species have wars, destroy their environment etc. would have a negative effect on the universe and all other planets if they are allowed to keep living and growing.

• Planets - life cycles:

Each world follows a quite specific lifecycle, similar to Earths. The planets are born, they are populated by life forms, they are moved into the isolated ‘solar systems’, the life forms are given a certain amount of time to reach perfection, if they don’t – they are destroyed, if they do – they are allowed to pass into the wider universe.

•  2012 for every planet - or each with a unique time?/ Mayan symbology:

The time given to each planet depends on what the committee sees fit, considering the differences in species and environments. The precise date of each planet’s ‘judgment day’ is hinted throughout the planet through the use of ancient Mayan glyphs, which are left there in the early stages of the planet’s life. This is why each planet in the universe shares similar ‘Mayan’ buildings, glyphs and prophesies.

• How a planet is detonated:

If a planet is to be destroyed, the aliens activate a detonation system which was placed in the center of each planet at the time it was moved into its isolated sector.

•  The concept of the Micro-verse and travel within this:
  

Each planet is guarded by a barrier which keeps out interference from the wider universe, with the exception of the alien committee. These barriers are only able to be crossed by species from other ‘testing’ planets, who have reached such a high level of development that they have achieved space travel. However, no life can venture outside of this micro-verse until they have passed the test, and no other life forms are able to come into it from the outside.

• Motives - Good vs. Evil:

In the wider universe, there is no good or evil. The alien committee responsible for the isolation, monitoring and perhaps the detonation of planets and their life forms are not concerned with the existence of the individual, but instead for the greater good of their entire universe as a whole. Good and evil exists to some degree on the individual planets in their ‘testing’ phase, but this is ultimately overcome if a species is able to reach ultimate perfection.

I think that sums up the majority of everything...

We will probably use this in our presentation, along with diagrams (I think Conor is making one) which will make it all easier to understand and put into perspective.

- - - - -

With the world sketches, we decided that we should each take a planet to create. 

Conor is creating planet 1, Chitra - planet 2, me - planet 3 and Natacha - planet 4.

Final Concept/ Basic Story ...

On Wednesday, we finally had a chance to again discuss our ideas with each other.

It was clear that the 2012 Mayan concept was the stronger idea out of the two we had, but we needed to work out the specifics.

Our concept already seems complex enough, but when we have to clarify everything and explain why things work the ways that they do, things just become more and more complicated.

Basically, this is what we came up with...

Concept/basic story:

On the 21^st of December, 2012, planet earth was obliterated and the Mayan doomsday prophesy had come full circle. In the months leading up to that dreadful date, billions of human beings had built bomb shelters or had devised other means of survival and escape from the looming apocalypse. A vast array of spaceships had been built by those who believed that life would have to be continued on another planet. Only one of these ships was successful, and the captain was to be the only human survivor.

Basically, following the destruction of Earth, the character spends some time exploring space in an attempt to find a new place to call home. He (could be a she) ends up finding 4 planets that seem to be habitable, and after spending some time on each of them (maybe doing some missions?), he realizes that they all seemed to be linked to Earth...

Each of the four planets found by the character seems to be in a different stage of development and civilization - and these match up quite nicely with Earth's past, making them somewhat recognizable to the character...

1. One planet seems to be existing in an ‘ancient’ time, where technology hasn’t yet left its mark.

2. Another planet seems to be in a stage of development and civilization similar to that of Earth’s 1900’s.

3. Another planet seems to be on the brink of their 2012 apocalypse, and everything is in chaos.

4. The last planet sits on the edge of the solar system and seems to be drifting into the wider universe, having transcended into a state of perfection. Technology, development and civilization have evolved into something that is absolute.

Basically, the character realizes that each planet seems to follow a sort of life cycle similar to that of Earth - except for planet number 4, which seems to have transcended into a state of complete perfection in all stages of development, civilization and technology.

The character also eventually realizes that these life cycles are monitored by a committee of Aliens who have the responsibility of giving the lifeforms on each planet a certain amount of time to prove themselves before they are detonated.

The character then has the mission of trying to prevent this happening to the four planets so that he can at least permanently settle down somewhere without having to face the apocalypse again. Perhaps planet number 3 gets detonated, and perhaps he can't live on planet number 4 because he is an imperfect being - but who knows!

I guess further story can be developed later, but we had decided on this being the basic storyline of the game.

WDP - 2012 Concept and Jelly Concept

Once we had decided that basing a game around the Mayan theory of 2012 would be interesting, we started brainstorming possible approaches we could take to this and the type of worlds that could result:

• Base the game in the Mayan Era (Classic period c. 250AD to 900AD - the time period of the highest state of development by the Mayan race). The game would be based in their unspoiled, unpolluted world, full of their amazing buildings and the landscapes of South America. Perhaps the game could take place when the prophesy is made?
• Base the game in modern times - maybe the start of the year 2012 when the date of the prophesy is looming. Perhaps the game could be based around the world preparing for the end of the world.
• Base the game around the world being destroyed/ the apocalypse on the 21st of December, 2012.
• Base the game in the aftermath of 2012 when the world has been destroyed. Post-apocalyptic.
  
• Base the game around the popular theory of 2012 being the end of the world for us as we know it, and also the first time that aliens make contact with earth. Many people believe that on 2012 aliens will come to earth to take away humans who have reached a new level of evolution. This would be interesting - before the 21st of Dec, people would be stressing out, going crazy and could perhaps be taking drugs and other horrible things to try to reach that level of evolution.
• base the game around the year 2012 (perhaps from the beginning of the year, or a month/week beforehand) where people are stressing out and going crazy. Then, as December 21 hits, nothing happens and the world keeps on turning. Or maybe that is only the way it seems - changes to the world could be subtle and your character could start noticing these and realising that perhaps disaster has struck in a more subtle way.
• base the game on the aliens who are sent to earth to retrieve those who have reached trans humanism. Perhaps your character has to select the humans worthy of surviving the disaster who are to be taken up to your home planet where they have to form new lives.
• base the game on the Angel of Death - the typical Christian bringer of death and destruction who has to come to Earth on 2012 and bring on its destruction.
• base the game around a family pet (e.g. dog) who is the Angel of Death and has to unleash destruction - maybe he realises that he doesn't want to kill his adoptive family?
• base the game on time-travel. Perhaps you start off in Jan 2012 and you see people going crazy and trying to morph themselves so you decide to explore the theory further by going back to Mayan times and seeing the prophesy being made, then time hopping to other cases in history where Mayan prophesies have supposedly come true (maybe your objective is to stop them?) and then time hop back to 2012, arriving just before Dec 21. Then the world will be destroyed and the Aliens will come and take you away. This concept would allow us to create 3 or 4 different worlds, but maybe it's too complicated?
• base the game on aliens who have taken you and other superhumans to their home planet, and you trying to adapt to the new world and new lifestyle.
  

Taking this last idea further, I mentioned that the alien world could be made of jelly. The aliens could be Jelly Babies or variations of these, humans would have to wear jelly suits in order to breathe and stay alive, jelly fruits could be eaten for health, guns could be jelly beans (or maybe the bullets could be?) etc. Jelly snakes could be enemies whose poison disintegrates jelly - lethal for humans wearing jelly suits. Humans could perhaps have special powers (as they did evolve on earth, granting them access to the 'utopia' alien world. Guns could shoot ice - turning jelly into iceblocks, or acid - melting the jelly etc.

When discussing enemies, we started to struggle. What is the enemy or opposite of Jelly? Peanut butter? Celery (as was suggested)?

Natacha and I started talking about this idea in more detail on the train home. We both like it - it would be fun to make, it would be a simple concept (if you left out the 2012 theory), it would maybe be easier to animate (e.g. textures - we could create only a couple jelly textures and use these almost everywhere, but in varying colours)... however, we'll have to discuss it with Chitra and decide together what we should do.

Natacha and I decided that we'll start making sketches of both ideas and see how they are met in class next week.

Deciding on a concept...

We thought it might be a good idea to start this project by listing our favourite games (and in my case, anticipated upcoming games), and talking about what we liked about them and why. We also decided that we should try to put ourselves in the minds of the creators of these games in an effort to see how they maybe came up with the concept.

My list of favourite games would be too long, but here is a quick list of ones that come easily to mind:

• Bioshock (overall an incredible game)
• Fallout 3 (any game where you want to play for 50+ hours just to complete all the missions has to be awesome!)
• Oblivion (love the medieval feel to the game, massive open world, awesome game-play when it doesn't glitch!)
• Portal (such a simple concept, but so amazing! Messes with your mind. Very funny dialogue.)
• F.E.A.R. 1 & 2 (Scary game - probably scarier than most movies out there. Awesome atmospheres!)
• Fable 2 (love the choice of melee, magic and shooting. Nice graphics. A little short for my taste - I've finished this one about 4 times.)
• Viva Pinata (a simple concept of taking care of a garden and pets - but these pets happen to be pinatas. Very cute and addictive.)

List of upcoming games I can't wait to get my hands on:

• Dante's Inferno (the art is AMAZING! Being a fan of the poem, I can't wait to play through the circles of hell)
• Brutal Legend (again, the art and design - especially world design - is unbelievable. As a fan of heavy metal, this is obviously going to be a winner)
• Assassins Creed 2 (the first game wasn't very good for several reasons, but it seems as though the team has tried to fix these problems. A game set in the Renaissance where Da Vinci is your friend is quite appealing though!)

Looking through this list of games, the recurring theme seems to be darkness/evil etc. so we think that we might stick to something similar.

When we looked at these games (and the favourites of the other team members), we came up with these ideas:

• We could base our game on some part of history (Assassins Creed 1 - crusades & 2 - Renaissance).
• We could base it in a post-apocalyptic world where everything has been destroyed and creatures have been mutated (Fallout 3, Bioshock etc.) This would also be fun when character designing!
• We could base a game on people's fears/beliefs or prophesies/literacy etc. Something that many people are familiar with (Dante's Inferno).
• We could create a world around something we are passionate about, e.g. a hobby. (Brutal Legend). This could perhaps be art - a world made of art where trees are paintbrushes and the world is a canvas. We thought that maybe the character is running through the game drawing doors to go into and objects to use etc. After further thought, we think this particular idea might have been done before.
• A game based around a very simple concept (Viva Pinata, Portal), e.g. we thought that basing a game around a creature generally considered unimportant and insignificant might be interesting. For example, a game where you are a flea on a dog's back or a bedbug inside a pillow or mattress would not only be potentially comical, but also would create very unique looking worlds.
  

With all of this in mind we decided to consider some of these ideas on a deeper level, also considering world's we are interested in:

• The idea of using part of human literacy/theories/folklore etc inspired the idea of creating a game around the concept of "Pandora's Box." Perhaps the game could be about each of the seven deadly sins being released onto the world and the protagonist having to recover them. This idea seems very similar to "Dante's Inferno" though, and is probably not as original as we would like.
• Someone mentioned that creating an underwater world would be interesting, perhaps having the characters as mermaids.
  
• Another idea was using the Mayan prophesy of 2012 as the basis of an idea. We all really liked this idea and decided that we should take it further.