Introduction to BA1b

Today we was introduced to the new project, BA1b, which focuses on Asset Creation, Games Industry Roles and Practices, and Introduction to Games Studies. We are starting off with Asset Creation, with the weeks being split similar to BA1a. Our first week focuses on modelling, and after briefly being told about the project, we was informed about various terms within 3D modelling (we will find out more about specifics for the modelling and projects in our sessions with our project leader). Some of the terms we were taught were:

-Vertices, points in 3D Space, having a numeric value on the X, Y and Z axis'. 

-Edges, lines that join two Vertices.

-Faces, closed sets of Edges.

-Polygons, surfaces of a solid object.

-UV Mapping, the process of folding a three dimensional object to a flat surface. 

-Texture, an image file that represents how your model will look.

-Material, multiple textures which dictate how the model will react under light. 

When receiving this lecture, there was a lot of things to take in and I really struggled to actually remember them or properly take them in, forcing me to re-read the powerpoint when I could, but when I did some of the terms were slowly starting to be memorised. I am a little concerned that we don't really have a task set for us until our sessions with our project leader, considering that mine is on Thursday, so half a week is essentially gone. However, from the sounds of things we are starting off by just trying to figure out the programs we will be using which is not too bad. 

Contextual Studies: Fairy Tales, Cosplay and Archetypes

During our final lecture on Representation, we was presented with various new books and ideas about fairy tales, cosplay and archetypes. Starting with archetypes, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung believed that the human psyche was composed of four components:

• Conscious Personality: This is the part of our psyche we develop as we grow.
• Personal Unconscious: The aspect of the psyche we are not aware of which often appears in dreams or as creative ideas.
• Collective Unconscious: Dispositions that are inherent and common to everyone and made up of universal themes and ideas – i.e. archetypes.

• Self: The totality of the personality. 

Within the collective unconscious, he states that there are a few specific archetypes that relate to thoughts or images that have universal meanings across cultures, deriving from historical roles in life.  He claimed numerous archetypes, but paid specific attention to a select few:

• The Persona (or Mask), which is the outward face we present to the world, concealing our true selves. 
• The Anima/Animus, the mirror image to our biological gender, such as the unconscious female side in males and the unconscious male side in females, with each sex manifesting attitudes and behaviour of the other as a result of living together for centuries.
• The Shadow, the more chaotic, wild, darker and potentially troubling side. It is the source of both destructive and creative energies. 

http://changingminds.org/explanations/identity/jung_archetypes.htm

http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html

Carol Pearson was heavily inspired by both Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell's works, creating six archetypes in her book The Hero Within (1986) before expanding it to twelve in Awakening the Heroes Within (1991), eventually leading to the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator. This is used to determine which core personality archetype might be active in a person's psyche at any given time. It consists of 72 questions with the Likert Scale numbered responses (with 1 being Strongly Disagree and 5 being Strongly Agree). From this a score is totaled for each of the archetypes in order to indicate the strength of the traits within each archetype at any given moment. The twelve archetypes are as follows:

• The Innocent
• The Orphan
• The Warrior
• The Caregiver
• The Seeker
• The Lover
• The Destroyer
• The Creator
• The Ruler
• The Magician
• The Sage
• The Jester

Using these archetypes, you can identify the traits of each archetype within character's in order to push narratives forward and to identify characters further, as well as building character's and narratives around these classifications, almost in a similar manner to how some games build characters around roles and fighting classes such as a ranger, warrior etc, and in a sense could even directly tie in with one another. 

Cosplay is a portmanteau of costume and play, and is a phenomenon at conventions and online communities. Much like how designers use fairy tales to create their own unique twists and takes on the characters and stories, cosplays do so in a much more physical manner, by bringing fictional characters into the real world and living the role as that character. Similar to the likes of fan art and fan fiction, it allows the fan or viewer to take their own role and view on the character, or bring them into their own worlds and continue that character's story. An interesting thing to note is how the cosplay community is dominated largely by women, as opposed to comics and video games being suggested to be dominated by men, the sources of which the characters being cosplayed originate from. This bridges the gap between the supposed gender division and allows women to showcase their interest and love for video games and comics more defiantly. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/why-comic-book-guys-are-quivering-at-cosplay-gender-insecurity/383617/

Charles Perrault laid the literary foundations down for fairy tales and began a whole new genre as a result, writing the likes of Cinderella, Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood. However, due to various adaptations of the stories aimed for children, the stories have changed to varying degrees depending on the creator of the adaptation as a result; reshaping, deconstructing and even mashing up various fairy tales in order to create new and unique takes on the stories. This has resulted in various adaptations of the characters and re-imaginings in various different lights, similar to cosplay, although to more extreme results to the point that the characters are vastly different. In a sense, it is almost similar to fan art; taking the characters and plots and setting them in your own world with your own imagining and takes on the characters, twisting the roles and points in the story to create a unique twist to the traditional tale. These vary from very child friendly stories such as those created by Disney, to much darker tales such as those seen in the video games The Wolf Among Us. Fairy tales also can lay the foundations for story plots or even minor events within a larger plot due to the iconic nature of some fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, and how they are written. Part of Charles Perrault's work laid down the structure of a fairy tale, which in turn links to The Hero's Journey. Vladimir Propp also created a plot structure, as well as character archetypes after analysing basic plot components in Russian folk tales and fairy tales:

• Absentation
• Interdiction
• Violation
• Reconnaissance
• Delivery
• Trickery
• Complicity
• Villainy
• Meditation
• Beginning Counter-Action
• Departure
• First Function of the Donor
• Protagonist's Reaction
• Acquisition of Magical Agent
• Transference
• Struggle
• Branding
• Victory
• Liquidation
• The Return
• Pursuit
• Rescue
• Unrecognised
• Unfounded Claims
• Difficult Task
• Solution
• Recognition
• Exposure
• Transfiguration
• Punishment
• Wedding

This layout is very similar to a long winded or extended version of The Hero's Journey, which is an effective narrative that can be twisted and altered to create a wide variety of interesting and unique stories.

There is also a character theory developed by Propp which indicates 7 broad characters types within 100 tales he analysed:

• The villain (struggles against the hero)
• The donor (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
• The (magical) helper (helps the hero in the quest)
• The princess (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
• The false hero (perceived as good character in beginning but emerges as evil)
• The dispatcher (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)
• The hero (victim/seeker/paladin/winner, reacts to the donor, weds the princess)

It is clear that these can easily be applied to various medias including games, and often is. This list resembles a listing that could easily be seen within a RPG style game. For example, the video game Tales of Symphonia easily follows this *SPOILERS*

• The hero is Lloyd Irving (the main character).
• The princess is Colette Brunel (the chosen that must become an angel in order to save the world, as well as the love interest of Lloyd Irving).
• The helper is Genis Sage and the rest of the team once acquired.
• The false hero is Kratos Aurion (initially a team mate but later revealed to be an enemy).
• The other three roles can be taken on by multiple characters.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProppsFunctionsOfFolktales

Final Evaluation: BA1a Concept Art

Throughout this unit I have tried to keep up to date with everything tasked to us, and I feel that I have to some degree, although towards the end of the unit I have struggled a bit with keeping up with everything. The Insect project went pretty smoothly and everything I did for that was accomplished within my desired time frame, but once I reached the timepiece project things slowly started to become a bit more difficult. This was mainly due to having a week where I did very little because I struggled to think of any ideas or what I could do with the project, eventually settling on the idea for snakes that will be filled with a liquid, acting as a countdown for the summoning of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. By the time of deciding this though I had a lot of work I needed to do in order to catch up.

I finished the timepiece project about a week after we was informed on the final project revolving around characters and the fairy tale 'The Tinderbox'. This project, although initially disliking it, quickly grew on me and I found it to easily be my most favourite of the three projects, revolving in me being a lot more motivated to work on it. I wanted to create something a bit different, which ended up with me turning the princess into a demon and using a lot of inhuman characteristics. Because of this though, I ended up creating work cautiously and slowly, which did not help my time keeping, but did allow me to learn about and understand some anatomical properties that I previously was not aware of, specifically digitigrade legs. I also kept drawing my character's body first and then drawing the dress over the top, which feels practical and handy, but ended up taking up a lot of time. I have managed to finish everything within the time frame we had for this unit, although not with a comfortable amount of time left between finishing and submission.

During all of these projects I did try to work on things that I do not normally work with, mainly backgrounds for the final pieces and the lighting effects for the character project's final piece. The backgrounds I created work well in my opinion and I am happy with them, although I do feel that there is a better way I can create backgrounds so that is something I want to practice in the future. The lighting effect that I played around with for this final project was very interesting and it can come out with very visually appealing results, so I am very glad I decided to look into this. Something that I do want to improve upon is my drawing abilities in Photoshop as some of my drawings can have untidy or shaky lines, as well as needing to get more brushes in order to experiment with different styles, which is something I admittedly do little of. I will definitely try to manage my time better for future projects

I tried to keep the work I created as relevant to the project briefs as possible by following the guidelines and tasks set to us, whilst also trying to add a bit of diversity to my work in order to make it more interesting and fun to work with, resulting in things like the demonic princess design for the character project.

Whilst I initially felt I was doing well and keeping on top of everything, eventually I began to realise that I was not managing my time that well, and the timepiece project really set me back to due being both uninspired for it and having little interest for it when compared to the other two projects, but overall I have managed to complete everything in time and feel that most of the outcomes from these projects have pushed my skills in Photoshop, has allowed me to learn new skills and has also improved my knowledge on how concept art is both created and utilised in the gaming industry.

BA1a (3): Final Piece

After having created some thumbnails, I began working on my final piece for this mini project, which I already had a pretty strong idea for. Unlike the last two final pieces, I wanted to keep the focus on the character. Since my design for the princess is supposed to be hidden away, I had the idea of having her locked in a dungeon or prison-like area under the castle, so what would be down there would be minimal anyway. 

The character was the first thing I worked on and took the longest to draw out of any aspect of this piece. I started off by drawing a rough form which I could then refine afterwards. I wanted her in a pose that gave the impression she was screaming or angry whilst looking at the source of light, as if someone was there tormenting her. I used the same process as I had done drawing her previously, where I drew out her body, refined this, then drew her dress over the top on a separate layer, and finally added colour to it. 

For the background I simply drew some straight lines going across the screen and then various ones going down from these to give the impressions of bricks, and then added some small lumps to the floor to act like stones. I then blurred all these to varying degrees to add a sense of depth and to also remove some attention from them.

I wanted to work on creating some sort of spotlight-like effect since lighting was something I have never worked on beyond shading a character or object. I did not have any ideas as to how I could actually create a spotlight effect beyond just distorting a rectangle and filling it with a gradient, so I looked into a couple of tutorials on Youtube to help me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy_1fQdDwVA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2jufA-gBrU

After watching these and practicing with them (trials below), I preferred the first videos technique where you create a rectangle, use the fibers filter to create a lot of jagged lines within the rectangle, then add motion blur, a layer mask to add a transparent gradient, applying the layer mask and then transforming the shape and adding colour. I preferred this simply because it looks more dynamic and is more interesting to look at. I created a variety of different fiber filter lights since the visual appearance is somewhat random, and began playing around with them such as duplicating them to increase the light intensity, blurring them to make the light softer and changing the layer type to Screen so that it changed how my character sits under the layers of light. In the end I settled for something similar to the bottom right lighting effect on the trials below, which is two layers of the same fiber filter light, but the layer on top has been blurred by a radius of 20 pixels. I also added an oval shape below my character to represent where the light is hitting the floor, which I blurred with the same pixel radius as the lighting itself.

After this I simply began shading my character in the same way as I have done with previous pieces of work, although the layer opacity is set to 70% to make the shadows stronger. I also duplicated the lines of my character and filled it entirely black, and then used the transform option to change the perspective of it so that it could be used as a shadow for my character. 

Below is the final piece, and I think this is actually my strongest piece I have created so far, keeping the focus almost solely on my character and allowed me to try out a couple of new techniques in the process, which I think worked very well and were definitely worth learning. I think that the character's pose also greatly shows off what this character is like, in that she is a bit wild and isolated, which is something I wanted to try and capture.

BA1a (3): Thumbnails

Before creating my final piece I need to create a rough idea of what I am going to do, so I created a few quick thumbnails to give me a rough idea on what I want to do. The two most left silhouettes feature a completely darkened background with a small amount of light peering through a window or hole, with the light hitting the character. The middle silhouette on the top row is similar to these, but with light coming down on the side and illuminating only half of my character. The last two thumbnails feature her at a window, where in one she hiding around the side and the other she is climbing out.


Personally my favorite one, and the one I will be using as a base, is the ones where some light is coming down with her standing in the center of it, specifically the light coming down at an angle.

Week 7 Summary

This week was a lot more practical based for me as I decided to work almost completely on my design work, getting to the point that my model sheet is now complete and my character sheet is almost finished as well, although I have continued to work on this blog occasionally. I did encounter a few problems when it came to the model sheet as because I was using my first drawing of my character as a reference for the proportions (which is drawn at a slight angle), it resulted in some parts of my characters body changing in terms of size or shape, which is not too much of a problem, but that then resulted in the shoulders being ridiculously short and the head being far too large, so I had to make some adjustments as I was going, but overall I feel that the model sheet has turned out very well. The character sheet, whilst not finished yet, is going better then the model sheet in my opinion and is virtually completed beyond just drawing some ways of my character attacking.

On Thursday I had another critical with my project leader and managed to get some feedback on my character sheet, since this is what I was working on at the time, and he suggested creating some hand studies since this is a unique trait to my character, such as showing off how she grabs things and how she uses her hands, but apart from this my character sheet is pretty much finished. Since then most of the hand studies have been completed, although I do wish to create a couple more with her actually holding something.

BA1a (3): Model Sheet

I used this drawing of my character as a base for the placement of the lines seen below, which can give me an indication on where different body parts, bends etc, should go. The black lines indicate different parts of her, whilst the green lines represent parts of her dress. Once I have one angle of her body drawn, I can then rearrange the lines to match these parts for better accuracy.

I decided to draw her body and her dress separately because I feel that it is easier for me to work with and so I can get the dimensions more accurate. Below is her side pose which took a surprisingly long time to do, but mostly because I was drawing the dress separately.

After finishing the side view I moved onto the front view and immediately stumbled onto the problem that I made mistakes with my character's proportions on the shoulders, which were way too low to be physically possible, which resulted in me having to make multiple tweaks and changes.

After fixing the issues I had with my character's proportions I eventually finished the front view of my character. To simplify everything, I only drew one half of her, and then duplicated and mirrored it to the other side, making any changes to the other side then instead of redrawing the entire side again. The same technique applied for the dress.

For the back of my character, I duplicated the front view and simply made the slight changes to make it look as though she is being viewed from behind, such as adding shoulder blades and elbows. This angle was a lot simpler to create as it mostly boiled down to just slight tweaks.

Below is my final model sheet which has since been coloured. Although there is no shading to my character on this model sheet, I feel that it will take up more time shading it which I need to create the other bodies of work. However, if I have more time towards the end then I will definitely come back to this and shade the poses. I did not include the lines in this final image because there is about 30-40 lines and would just look messy in the end.

Tinderbox Character Research and Inspiration

To design my character I needed look into the fashion styles and norms of the Georgian era. The web links below are what I have used as references to understand what I can use for my character to fit into the time period, as well as what I can not use to make her look lower class or ignored by the higher class.

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/494198/10-shocking-facts-about-Georgian-women
http://www.embracingromance.com/advice-to-a-young-lady-in-the-georgian-era-by-maggi-andersen/
http://18thcand19thc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/model-of-perfect-woman-georgian-style.html

For the dresses final design, as well as the designs used on the silhouettes, I simply just looked into various Georgian era dresses and mix and matched them together until I found one I liked. Below are some of the images I used as references. I tried to stick to some of the more simpler dresses considering the concept for my character was to keep her as an outcast.

The idea of having her as a demon was inspired by just simply wanting something a bit different, but her actual design was inspired by many common depictions of demons within various medias. These included things like the red skin, horns, clawed fingers and toes, black eyes, fangs and digitigrade legs. The claws, fangs, horns and the digitigrade legs were also inspired by what I had learned in the compositional lecture a few weeks ago about how angles and points create a sense of unease and danger, hinting at an evil presence or being.

BA1a (3): Character Sheet

To start my character sheet I used the lasso tool to duplicate part of my character's head, which I then tweaked for different facial expressions. Whilst not important, I wanted them on there to portray more emotion in her. 

Next I worked on creating a walk cycle. I duplicated the side view of her that I had created for my model sheet so that I could create a basic frame to work with. Because of how long it would take to re draw her for each part of the walk cycle, or to even tweak each drawing, I will keep this as stick figures. The stick figures themselves are still very easy to read anyway. In order to keep the limb proportions accurate, I used the ellipse tool to create 3 circles at different joints (blue for hip, yellow for the knee, green for the ankle) so that I could make sure they all moved within these areas. Each leg joint is on separate layers and whenever I rotated the knee joint, I made sure the foot's layer was also highlighted so it moved with the knee. Once I had the entire walk cycle finished, I drew lines to connect the joints together and then duplicated it all, darkened it and shuffled them around for the placement of the other leg. Darkening the duplicated set adds a bit of depth to them and makes it easier to tell the two legs apart. 

It was suggested that I work on some hand studies for this character to show how she grabs things and how her hand works in general, so I created a few different sketches of her hands to show these off. 

Since I had a lot of space free on my character sheet I decided to do a few quick, small studies of my character doing a few different things to showcase her personality a bit more, as well as creating some attacking ideas using her claws.

After these studies, my character sheet has a lot more content and shows off my character a lot better, so I can now happily say that this character sheet is finished and illustrates how my character would move, act and fight. 

Contextual Studies: Stories

This lecture focused on storytelling and the significance of it in the gaming industry, as well as briefly touching upon characters. We started off by being introduced to Christopher Booker's book called The Seven Basic Plots, which the key thesis of the book is:
"However many characters may appear in a story, its real concern is with just one: its hero or heroine. It is he or she with whose fate we identify, as we see them gradually developing towards that state of self realisation which marks the end of the story. Ultimately it is in relation to this central figure that all other characters in a story take on their significance. What each of the other characters represents is really only some aspect of the inner state of the hero or heroine themselves.”

Despite the book originally being dismissed by various reviewers, many novelists, playwrights and academics praised it highly, such as Fay Weldon, who said: "This is the most extraordinary, exhilarating book. It always seemed to me that 'the story' was God's way of giving meaning to crude creation. Booker now interprets the mind of God, and analyses not just the novel – which will never to me be quite the same again – but puts the narrative of contemporary human affairs into a new perspective. If it took its author a lifetime to write, one can only feel gratitude that he did it."

We was then informed about the seven plots themselves that the book focuses around, although taking on further research, there are actually nine basic plots (the other two being Rebellion Against 'The One' and Mystery). However, these last two plots are only mentioned later on in the book, and Booker himself states that these other two are "quite rare for most of history". We were then tasked to work in pairs and create a list of games that followed one of the seven basic plots. My list below gives a brief summary of each type, and then a plot summary of each game's story in order to show how it ties to that basic plot. I decided to pick games I had actually played in order for me to give a proper summary of each game's story in relevance to the basic plot. 


Overcoming Evil - hero sets out to stop an antagonistic force from destroying the land.
-Shantae and the Pirate's Curse
Shantae and the Pirate's Curse is the third game in the Shantae series, and in this game Shantae has lost her magic powers after the events of the previous game. Her old nemesis, Risky Boots, confronts her about a curse that is overtaking the land in preparation for the return of The Pirate Master after losing her minions and Pirate Gear, to which Shantae agrees to help Risky Boots save Sequin Land and retrieve the dark magic inhabiting Risky Boots' minions. It is discovered that this dark magic is actually Shantae's old genie magic, and eventually regains her genie magic in order to stop The Pirate Master.

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-3DS-download-software/Shantae-and-the-Pirate-s-Curse-951109.html

Rags to Riches - protagonist starts of low class/poor/downtrodden but eventually matures and acquires wealth, power and a mate.
-Pokemon X and Y
Whilst all main series Pokemon games follow the same route, Pokemon X and Y is the latest addition to the series that isn't a remake of previous games. Pokemon X and Y follows you starting as an ordinary child just as they set off on their adventure into the world, and as you travel you defeat gyms, defeat the evil organisation Team Flare, and capture various Pokemon. Eventually you reach the Pokemon League and defeat the Elite 4 and the champion, becoming the new champion of that region with allegedly the strongest team of Pokemon around. At the end of the game, a large celebration is held congratulating your victory and rise to fame.

http://pokedream.com/games/pokemon-xy/17-pokemon-league.php

The Quest - protagonist goes on a journey to acquire an object or find a location, often with companions.
-Tales of Symphonia
Lloyd Irving and his friend Genis Sage accompany Colette Brunel, the chosen, alongside her guardians Raine Sage and Kratos Aurion on the journey of world regeneration, where the chosen must travel to various continents in order to break 5 seals and awaken the summon spirits, slowly becoming an angel. Once the chosen has fully transformed into an angel, the world is regenerated. However, they discover that there is a second world that lives parallel to their own, and once one is restored, the other world begins to deteriorate, as well as discovering that the party has been used by the angels. The party head for the other world in order to find a way to save both worlds.

http://operationrainfall.com/2014/01/31/tales-symphonia-chronicles-english-character-trailers/

Voyage and Return - protagonist goes to a strange land, overcomes any evil or threats there, and returns more mature.
-They Bleed Pixels
They Bleed Pixels follows an unnamed young girl as she arrives at the Lafcadio Academy for Troubled Young Ladies, where she is affected by nightmares where she becomes a clawed creature and has to traverse hostile dreamscapes filled with monsters and traps. She awakens from each nightmare with a grimoire (textbook of magic) on her bedside table, as well as looking more and more like her monstrous form after each nightmare. She repeatedly tries to rid herself of the book, but only for it to return the next morning, with the nightmare representing how she tried to remove it from her life. Eventually she awakens fully transformed into her nightmare self by a dark ritual performed by the Headmaster of the Academy. After finally destroying the book, she awakens fully human and departs from the Academy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Bleed_Pixels

Comedy - Starts off with a divided community but ends with a happy and cheerful ending, often by marriage.
-Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Whilst Super Smash Bros. franchise is typically just a fighting game with very little story that uses a lot of popular Nintendo characters, but Super Smash Bros. Brawl does have a mode dedicated to a vague story called Adventure Mode: The Subspace Emissary. In this world, when a character is defeated, they turn into a trophy and can be revived by touching the base. In this mode, it starts off as a fight between Mario and Kirby, but soon progresses into a fight against the Shadow Bug army after the Battleship Halberd flies over the arena Mario and Kirby are fighting in and pours the Shadow Bugs into the stadium, all before a Subspace Bomb is set off, transporting the stadium into Subspace. As the Ancient Minister, who is seemingly in charge of the army, makes the shadow bugs advance, the various playable heroes in the game team up throughout various parts of the map in order to stop the army, whilst the playable villains are using the dark cannons to convert them heroes into trophies to harvest their power. The heroes slowly begin to gather up and slowly advance to the villains, who are seemingly ruled by Master Hand, only to discover that a being known as Tabuu is in charge of it all. The heroes and the villains team up for a final battle against Tabuu in order to save the Smash Bros. universe and succeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fluFe1vQWXM

Tragedy - protagonist is a villain, or is slowly becoming one, where you watch them fall from prosperity to destruction and eventually defeated.
-Skullgirls
Whilst a slight twist on this, the various stories in Skullgirls revolve around one of the playable characters defeating numerous characters before fighting the current Skullgirl, Marie, and either obtaining the Skull Heart for themselves, or facing a terrible fate themselves. The Skullgirl is a powerful female being that is a result of an "impure" woman making a wish using the Skull Heart, which is an object that will later merge with it's user and slowly takes over the host's body. Skullgirls are tasked with destroying the world as mindless servants of The Trinity. The plots for each character are as followed:
-Filia: Wakes up with a parasite called Samson living on her head as a full set of demonic hair. After defeating the Skullgirl, instead of wishing for her forgotten memories, she wishes for Carol (Painwheel) to return to her former self. Deemed impure due to Filia's guilt of Carol's fate thus attempting to improve herself, the Skull Heart begins to slowly transform Filia into the next Skullgirl.
-Cerebella: The leg-breaker for the Medici Mafia/circus sensation, Cerebella desires the attention of the mobster Vitale Medici. In order to do this, Cerebella and her powerful living weapon hat called Vice-Versa set out to retrieve the Life Gem from Ms. Fortune. After defeating the Skullgirl, Ms. Fortune attempts to steal the Skull Heart, only to be crushed by Vice-Versa. Cerebella is then seen in a bunny costume sitting on Vitale's lap after congratulating her, only for her to feel regret over killing Ms. Fortune.
-Peacock: After having her body gruesomely mutilated by slave traders, she is rebuilt with reality-defying biomechanical weaponry, with her damaged psyche and love for cartoons shaping her toys into a gang of cronies. After defeating the Skullgirl, Peacock destroys the Skull Heart and vows revenge on the people who made both hers and Marie's miserable. She is next seen confronting the head of Medici family and fighting his secret weapon.
-Parasoul: Becoming fiercely protective over her country and family after the previous Skullgirl was her mother. After defeating the Skullgirl, she tries to save her sister (Umbrella) after Umbrella gets too close to the Skull Heart by wishing for Umbrella to never become the Skullgirl, causing Parasoul to become the next Skullgirl instead. In preparation of what is to come, Parasoul begins training her sister in order for Umbrella to be able to stop her in the future.
-Ms. Fortune: The last surviving member of the Fishbone Gang after a failed attempt to steal the Life Gem from the Medici lead to the death of them all, Ms. Fortune swallowed the Life Gem and making her unable to die. After defeating the Skullgirl, she destroys the Skull Heart after thinking that her new friends are enough for her. She is next then informed that her friends have been abducted by the Medici and goes after them.
-Painwheel: Kidnapped by Valentine and delivered to the Anti-Skullgirls lab Lab Zero, Carol was transformed from a normal schoolgirl into a monster by being infused with Skullgirl blood and implanted with two synthetic parasites, having become unstable and violent, as well as controlled by Lab Zero's psychic director Brain Drain. After defeating the Skullgirl and destroying the Skull Heart to claim her freedom, she returns home only to be shunned by her parents. Brain Drain tells her to return but Painwheel then vows that he is next as her eyes glow like the Skullgirls'.
-Valentine: The only survivor of a special Anti-Skullgirls Labs operative group after they were killed by the Skullgirl, Valentine now works for the Skullgirl whilst planning revenge. Eventually defeating the Skullgirl and knowing that wishing for the revival of her team called The Last Hope, she becomes the Skullgirl and vanishes.
-Double: A devout follower to the Skull Heart and the Trinity, Double begins hunting for the next candidate to be the Skullgirl by gathering up the other playable characters. She eventually declares to Marie that the Trinity are tired of Marie not following their agenda and defeats her in combat. She receives new orders stating that she has already found a suitable candidate and thus absorbs the gathered characters into herself. The story then cuts to where the Trinity lives as they play the game themselves and begin breaking the 4th wall by implying that each character's story mode is a timeline that might have been, and conclude that there is a timeline where all of these stories converge.
-Squigly: Killed by the Medici, Squigly ended up becoming one of the undead mindless minions of the Skullgirl (who at the time was her mother), but the parasite Leviathan, which lives inside her head, spares her this fate. Having been revived once more with Marie's rise as the Skullgirl, Squigly sets out to defeat the Skullgirl. After defeating the Skullgirl, she teams up with Filia to defeat Double.  Squigly then learns that Double is the one to give her mother the Skull Heart, so she destroys Double and the Skull Heart. Squigly then dies once more and are to reawaken when the Skullgirl returns. Filia is then seen putting flowers on Squigly's grave.
-Big Band: Originally a police officer, Big Band was beaten and left for dead, forced to spend the rest of his days in an iron lung with his broken body. He later agreed to undergo experimental procedures by the Anti-Skullgirls Labs, he was melded with machinery that allows him to breathe, granting him an array of powerful pneumatic weaponry. After a series of events, Big Band teams up with Peacock to tackle the Skullgirl, defeating her. They escape, and apprehends that Peacock, Painwheel and himself are possibly the future of Anti-Skullgirls Labs and are likely the ones that will have to take on the next Skullgirl.
-Fukua: Fukua's story is set as a nightmare for Filia whilst she sleeps (Fukua being an evil clone of Filia). Fukua fights every playable character until she reaches Filia herself. After defeating Filia, Fukua skins Filia's head and wears the skinned head over her own, claiming to be the true embodiment of Filia. Filia wakes up, goes to the bathroom and looks in the mirror, only to see Fukua in the reflection.
-Eliza: Eliza is a popular singer in New Meridian who carries the parasite Sekhmet as her skeleton, and uses the blood she gains from 'charity work' to keep herself young and beautiful. The Medici discover this and begin blackmailing her. She is then tasked by the Medici to retrieve the Skull Heart. After defeating the Skullgirl, Eliza is attacked by Double and retreats to Gehenna, absorbing all the blood there, and defeats Double with ease. She then begins plotting how to prepare for the Medicis when they realise she betrayed them, only to be attacked by Filia and Squigly, defeating the duo. Squigly falls back into death since the Skull Heart is gone, and Squigly is locked in a catacomb to use as an alarm for the Skullgirl's return, whilst Filia is bound in a blood sarcophagus. Eliza then merges with all the blood she has ever collected and begins her attack on the Medicis as a giant figure resembling a lion.
-Beowulf: Famous for felling the Gigan warrior Grendel and for his career in the wrestling ring, a mediocre acting career ruined his legacy, he yearns to reestablish his image, taking the arrival of the Skullgirl as an opportunity. Grendel's arm, which Beowulf kept as a trophy, attacks him, and it is discovered to be caused by the arrival of the Skullgirl, only fuelling his desire to defeat the Skullgirl since he wants to keep the trophy. After a series of events, he reunites with Annie, who he cameod for on her TV show, and learns that the fight with Grendel and his mother was nothing more then a set up. Eventually both he and Annie defeat the Skullgirl and Double, and Annie offers Beowulf a new spot on TV, which he accepts, this time taking a more important role on the show.
-Robo-Fortune: Created by Brain Drain after looking over Valentine's notes on Ms. Fortune, he decided to make a superior robot version of Ms. Fortune set on hunting the Skull Heart. After Robo-Fortune defeats the Skullgirl, she takes the Skull Heart to Brain Drain, who then thinks of creating a new generation of machines using the Skull Heart, creating an army of giant Robo-Fortunes that turn on humanity. A small group of survivors (all of which were potential DLC characters from the Indiegogo campaign which were not chosen) take on the invading army.

http://skullgirls.wikia.com/wiki/File:Skullgirls_gamefan_magazine_cover_by_oh8-d5oelyg.jpg

Rebirth - similar to Tragedy, but a serious of events makes the protagonist change their ways and makes them a better person.
-Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland
This story follows the Legend of Zelda character Tingle, where he goes from an ordinary middle-aged man to his green-clothed fairy persona. One day, Tingle finds an old man called Uncle Rupee, who promises Tingle a new life in a paradise known as Rupeeland, providing Tingle feeds enough Rupees to a pool. Once enough rupees are fed to the pool, the tower underneath grows upwards into the sky, eventually allowing Tingle to enter Rupeeland. Tingle accepts this offer, and over time Uncle Rupee is shown to go from an emaciated old man into a very wealthy deity. Tingle realises he has been deceived, causing Tingle to battle Uncle Rupee.

http://zelda.wikia.com/wiki/Freshly-Picked_Tingle's_Rosy_Rupeeland

It's important to note that the stories featured in Skullgirls can also tie into other plot types, like how Squigly's somewhat ties into Comedy, with Squigly's hatred for the Medici for killing her and Filia's blood relation to the Medici and how the two join together despite the differences and Squigly's hatred for them. All of them also tie into Overcoming Evil and some of them match The Quest, such as Big Band's and Squigly's.

After looking further into all of these plots, it is very clear that a lot of games, if not all of them, follow at least one of these basic plots, regardless of whether the game was created before or after the book (the book releasing in 2004, way after video games were being created).

We was then introduced to The Hero's Journey, a concept brought about in Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. The Hero's Journey is a common template used for writing stories, appearing in multiple platforms such as drama, myths, story-telling and many more. Joseph Campbell's book has influenced many different mediums, including being a strong influence for the Star Wars film franchise. There are 12 steps to this template, those being the following:
1) The Ordinary World
2) The Call to Adventure
3) Refusal of the Call
4) Meeting with the Mentor
5) Crossing the Threshold
6) Test, Allies and Enemies
7) Approach
8) The Ordeal
9) The Reward
10) The Road Back
11) The Resurrection
12) Return with the Elixir

This format, whilst not used in every story, is definitely a huge impact in various industries. Campbell's book itself has inspired various movies including the Star Wars and Harry Potter franchises, and Disney's Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast and Lion King, all of which have a big cult following. It is a formula that is both incredibly common yet beloved by many, which is why The Hero's Journey is still successful to this day.


http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/seven-basic-plots.html
http://www.thewritersjourney.com/hero's_journey.htm
http://www.movieoutline.com/articles/the-hero-journey-mythic-structure-of-joseph-campbell-monomyth.html
http://thewritepractice.com/bonus-plots/

BA1a (3): Iterations and Designs

Since finishing my silhouettes and starting my iteration, I have decided that I will use the silhouette of the princess in the torn dress as my starting point, as I want my character to be a demon of some kind, which is why she is locked away in the castle, so that people don't see who she really is. As a result of this, her dress would be torn and/or dirty and she will be mistreated because of it.

 As I have a basic idea on what I want my character's dress to look like, I decided to work on other parts of her, beginning with the head. Whilst I kept the head shape the same, I created a variety of different eyes, ears and noses to see which ones would fit a more demonic appearance, ranging from pointy and normal ears, to a pig-like nose and huge eyes. In the end I settled with a face with more human-like eyes with the iris missing, which I can make look more demonic once coloured. I wanted her ears to be pointed so that she has some clear indicators that she is not human, and often demons are portrayed with pointed ears. 

Having decided what face to use, I began creating some hair designs. Looking into Georgian fashion and hairstyles, it was clear that women often had a lot of hair and crazy hairdos, so I began working with a beehive-like hair style as well as just a large amount of hair, but I had the thought that if she is supposed to be hidden and mistreated for how she is, then she would either have very untidy hair or short hair, as it was expected of high-class women to have huge perms, so she would be forced to have short hair (or at least not have it looking very fancy). Because of this thought process I created a few varying hairstyles. Out of the ones below, my favourites have to be the bottom middle one with the bandages, or the second from top right one because of the vast differences between that hairstyle and those back in the Georgian era. 

I settled on the hairstyle without bandages because I felt it would be a bit easier to work with and the shorter hairstyle just suited the face a lot better in my opinion. I duplicated the hairstyle that I liked and then began making small tweaks to it to see if there is anything I prefer, such as small fringe changes or different hair lengths. The bottom left one, although not much different, is my favourite one due to it staying pretty much like the original, but I fixed part of the fringe that didn't really curve around her face quite right.

Since the hairstyle is now settled, I began designing some horns, which are commonly placed on demons. I simply started looking into different horns commonly given to demons and settled on wanting some fairly short horns to give the impression of young age (similar to deer's antlers, where the length is determined by age). From the designs below, the top left captures this idea the best so will be the horns I go with for her.

I then began working on how her legs should work; whether they should be normal human legs or digitigrade legs, which are seen on animals like dogs, cats and pigs, and is similar to a human leg, but the creature stands more on it's toes and it's foot is more upright. I want to work with a digitigrade leg because it will be a bit more of a challenge and will be more fun to work with, as well as making her look a bit more feral or demonic. 

Below are some simple feet designs with the different legs, working almost exclusively with claws because it separates her even more from a human appearance and creates that more demonic look with more angular points, creating an evil vibe. I eventually settled on the furthest right foot design simply because it looked the most animalistic whilst also simply looking the best in my opinion.

Because the legs and feet are vastly different from the human anatomy, I decided to also work on the hands, creating similar designs and focuses on claws and long nails, settling on the two fingers design for the same reasons as the choice of foot.

Since I already had the idea of her staying humanoid beyond the areas I explored above, I decided to actually begin piecing her together, with the body designs below being the results. A couple of changes are noticeably visible, such as more angular ears and the beauty spot added to the face, both of which were added just as a trial and I preferred that they were there. Because she is locked inside the castle, two thoughts came into my mind:

-She is not fed much so is slim.

-Is fed reasonably but does not receive much exercise.

These thoughts resulted in me creating two different body shapes for my demon so that I can later decide which I prefer.

I created some dress designs based on the silhouette that I was using as my main influence. Keeping the dresses simple seemed like the best idea to me because I doubt that the King and Queen would give fancy clothing to someone they were hiding, but would also not give her the simplest clothing because she is the princess. The tears and damage to the dress can either be a result of mistreatment or from her own behaviour, but most likely her tearing at it.

I eventually settled on the thinner design because I felt that the King and Queen would not treat a demon as well as they would treat a human, but also because I preferred the dress design I had drawn for the slimmer version. I did tweak the dress a little bit before shading it to create this final design, such as removing the purple line from between the breasts and adding some more detail to the dress, as well as adding more prominent lips to her since I felt her face was a little plain. 

I really like this design now and feel that it actually looks like a final design, instead of before where it kept looking like something was missing from it. The design looks human-like, but far enough away to make it obvious she is not human, which is what I wanted to capture in her design.

I tried to keep her design and attire far enough away from the norm of upper-class society in the Georgian era because she is essentially a prisoner in the castle held captive by the King and Queen, so she would not receive all the fancy hairdos, jewellery etc. that others would, and would not receive weapons either, but her claws and horns could easily replace those. Footwear of that time would simply not fit her feet at all, and accessories would by minimal due to being given little by the King and Queen. In terms of the colour scheme, the reddish skin is because demons are commonly depicted with red or pale skin. Red to match the hellish or fire vibes, and pale to match a more supernatural or ghostly vibe. I chose red simply to make it more obvious she isn't human instead of just possibly looking ill. The black eyes, horns, claws and lips were to give her a more inhuman vibe and branch more towards the demonic or evil look. The dress colour scheme was because I felt darker colours look a bit more dirty or lower class as opposed to the bright colours worn by the upper class to make them stand out more. The greys and purples were simply because these worked the best in my opinion as opposed to the other colour schemes I had tried out.

Week 6 Summary

I am starting to get back into the flow of things now as I have done more work this week then previous weeks, similar to the situation last week. This week I have mainly worked on blog stuff again, although I have finished the iteration part of my character design for 'The Tinderbox' project and have managed to get a final concept for my character created as well, which is hopefully strong enough that I can begin working on the character and model sheets next week. Although I have not done as much practical work, I feel that the work I have done on my blog makes up for it and am now getting back on track.

On Wednesday we had a second ZBrush sessions which just focused on more tools and us experimenting with them more, and although I feel that I am starting to get the hang of some parts of the program, I still am not keen on it.

Thursday was another critical session and at this point in time I was still working on iteration. My project leader pointed out that the legs I was trying to create (digitigrade) biologically do not make sense, so he explained to me how these work and then discussed with me how a demon aspect of my chosen character (the princess) could work. The feedback I received has allowed me to correct the mistakes I was making with my design and has greatly improved both the visuals of my character and my understanding of how these kinds of legs work.