Theory and Character Designs

Theory

The theory I wanted to focus on is “Intersectual Feminism”, where I would mainly focus on gender and race in my game.

In Fraser's class we were taught about “white-washing” media, which made me want to challenge what we see race in media and how we see it.
Camille Kraeplin compares two tv shows (Girlfriends and Sex and the City) in her article: Girlfriends and Sex & the City: An Intersectional Analysis of Race, Gender and Commodity Feminisim, and how they differentiate. “Storylines focused time and attention on the characters’ marginalized roles as women, but the ever-present subtext was that these were women of color. They were not simply women; they were black women, and this was key to their friendship circle. In contrast, Sex and the City episodes addressed issues related to gender almost exclusively; race and ethnicity were not relevant factors.” She discusses how Sex and the City has white women as the main characters that do not experience racism or classicism in any way whereas in Girlfriends the African women do. 
I want to have the diverse characters be "normal" like white is the "norm", the character do not face any form of racism or classicism.

Nina

I decided I didn't want the main character to be white. At the start of the project I drew a generic white face and slapped a brown color on it. The style was very simplistic so it was hard to show the race in that particular style. I explored more with silhouette studies, exploring African american faces. I changed the style to be more detailed and slightly more realistic to be able to show the character's ethnicity. As I was exploring African american aesthetics, I realized that there have been games that have included African characters. 

It made me wonder if there are races/ethnicties that we don't get to see in games/or media. I found that native american characters were often left out, they were almost always stereotyped to be “native” and not modern. Even when I google image searched “native american”, they were often photographed in the wild wearing their traditional clothing. I found very little women that were clothed in modern clothing.

I decided to explore native american aesthetics, and decided to use a race that we often don't see in media and games.

I wanted Nina to also challenge stereotypical women in games. They are often sexualized and bring little to the plot. In the article I read called: Racism and sexism in the gaming world: Reinforcing or changing stereotypes in computer games?,  (Peck, Ketchum and Embrick, 2011) they discussed whether or not racism and sexism in games advertisement has changed from 1992 to 2009. 

"On the one hand, black women are not reduced to sexual object for the entertainment of men. On the other hand, black women are ignored as sexual beings which reinforce the notion of ideal beauty as white."  (Peck, Ketchum and Embrick, 2011)

They found that women have been sexualized even more over the years, and that black women are not. They brought up an interesting point where they discussed that having unattractive, older black women in games can make them unappealing, and that only white women are appealing as they are more sexualized in games. 

As I was designing Nina, I found that most native american women are photographed quite sexually, and I wanted to challenge that by having Nina be more muscular and tough-looking. (rather than looking like a top-model)

I liked the idea of her pink hair, I mainly played around with the colors for her outfit. I wanted the clothes to look sporty, I mainly played around with saturated colors. (mainly reds, pinks, blues, and yellow) I liked the yellow look on her, as it made her stand out but also because yellow is not a color just for women or men. It is more of a neutral color, like black and white.

Death Reaper

As I was creating the Villain for the game, (Death Reaper) I was unsure of what kind of representation I wanted to do for him. I found that many villains in games/or films are often non-american, and not white. I wanted to make the Villain of the game look generically white to challenge that. I gave the Death Reaper a suit to make him look like what we usually think of when we think of a “white man”.

Reaper Sketches

I liked the idea of Death in the game "Deadpool" where the design of Death was inspired by the Spanish Festival of the Dead face paintings. I thought it could be interesting to try the same but with a male death character. Instead of making him look sinister (usually with the human skull as a face), I wanted him to look more attractive.

Reaper Color Schemes:

I used Horror Palettes and Halloween Palettes for his colors. I looked up "K-Pop" Suits and found some very interesting designs for suits. I found one with flower patterns on it, I thought having flowers on the suit could look ironic as flowers can be symbolic for life. I ended up using similar colors for him that I used for the Ghosts.

Reaper Final Design:

I kept the blue hair as it would contrast with Nina's pink hair, and make him look a bit more ghost-like.

  

Boyfriend

In a lot of games and media the male characters are often represented to be muscular, tough and massive. For the boyfriend character I wanted to challenge the way we see men in media. I wanted him to look more fashionable and slim. I wanted the boyfriend to look a little more feminine, rather than masculine. I though of the Korean culture, and how the men usually dress quite differently from western culture. The men often wear more stylish clothing, that looks a little more “feminine”. I decided to make the boyfriend look “South Korean”, as the K-Pop clothing style was so unique and different from western culture.

Color Schemes:

I wanted to experiment with different purples mainly. I didn't want to use typical "boy" colors like blue, black or red. I ended up liking the first one the best, (white) as white is quite neutral.

Final Design:

I found that his right leg looked off in the drawing above, and tried to fix it by giving it more curve like his right leg.

Dug

As I was designing the side-kick for Nina, I watched a music video called: “La la” (Sam Smith), where the boy walks around with a “Chow Chow” dog. I found that that particular breed of dog best contrasts with Nina's design. As Nina is slim, and the dog is more chubby and big. I was unsure whether or not to make the dog a female or male, but though that in the game I would use speech bubbles when the characters talk, thus making the gender of the dog irrelevant.

Dug Color Schemes:

I tried out a few different colors for Dug, I found that the white made him look too "wise" and old. I liked the warmer brown on him as he looked less threatening. 

 Dug Final Design:

Ghosts

The ghosts in the game are the enemies, the player has to fight. I wanted to experiment with different colors for the ghosts, as when we think of ghosts we think of then being white. I looked up “Halloween Color Palettes” and used the colors off there. I found that using purples, blues and yellows made the ghosts look more “modern” and unique.

Ghost Color Schemes

I found that using purples and blues made it look the most "Ghost-like" while also making it look less threatening than the Boss ghost one. I found that the black one, made him look too similar to the Boss ghost.

Ghosts Final Design:

I found that using the light blue and light purple were the most interesting and less threatening looking than the Ghost Boss ones.

Ghost Boss Color Schemes:

I used Horror Palette colors and Halloween Color Palettes, I experimented with having purples, blacks and yellows as lineart or color of the body.

Ghost Boss Final Designs:

I found that the yellow and purple worked best for the Ghost Boss as it made him look more fierce and sinister than the average Ghost enemy. It would help tell them apart better.

Final Characters Line Up

Articles Reference List

Peck, B. M, Ketchum, Paul, R., Embrick, David, G. (2011). Racism and sexism in the gaming world: Reinforcing or changing stereotypes in computer games? .Journal of Media and Communication Studies, 3(6), 212-220. doi: http://www.academicjournals.org/jmcs

Camille, K. (2012).  Girlfriends and Sex & the City: An Intersectional Analysis of Race, Gender and Commodity Feminisim. Media Report to Women, 40(1), 12. doi: http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/82396638/girlfriends-sex-city-intersectional-analysis-race-gender-commodity-feminism