Linnaea Borealis Colour Scheme

After finally choosing the name Lynaea, I decided to use the meaning of her name as a means to create a colour scheme for her. 

Her name happens to derive from a flower called the Linnaea Borealis otherwise known as the Twin Flower. It's a beautiful and delicate looking flower painted in soft tones of pink which I thought I could definitely shape her personality around by researching into colour psychology. Pink and green are also complimentary colours so I'm quite confident that I'd be able to create a good balance of colours for her costume. The addition of yellow and browns might make getting the right set of colours a bit challenging but I now have something I can work with.

When researching into the colour pink, in a nutshell, theses are the main points that I found about the colour that I intend to try incorporate into my character's personality so all her design aspects including colour are all in relation to one another.

Costume and Silhouettes

Costume design is extremely important as it essential part of character design hinting at story and personality. It is an extension of an individual and their persona and can quickly communicate details such as age, sex and origin along with many other defining attributes of the character. 


There was a great  book about costume in relation to body form and poses called Character Costume Figure Drawing: Step-by-step Drawing Methods for Theatre Costume.

This book was a interesting read that has a detailed section on proportion and weighting of the body which I found really useful as my anatomy is not really up to scratch.  There are wonderful drawings and diagrams that help put everything into perspective along with techniques and approaches to drawing a figure including stationery and action poses.

There was another very useful book I came across called The Skillful Huntsman by Scott Robertson that one of my peers introduced me to. This book goes through the character design process with a focus on different approaches, namely silhouettes.

Silhouettes are very important when designing a character. It's useful for concept art to get a rough idea of shapes and poses as well as communicating story and personality. Even from silhouettes, you can get an idea of the clothing of the character which, excluding the weapons and equipment make up the majority of the silhouette again showing the importance of costume. Here is one of the pages with the artists approach to the designs.

The Mother Archetype

Archetypes are considered to be an important part of character design as it informs their role and personality. I struggled to find an Archetype suited to the kind of character I wanted to create then found out about Jungian Archetypes one of which is The Mother.

I already established that I wanted her to be a parent and although The Mother Archetype doesn't require the character to be a literal mother it was obviously still very fitting.

These are some of the things I liked the most that I wanted to try include in Lynaea's character.

Character inspirations

Before I started with my character designs I decided to collect all kinds of inspiration and ideas. These are a couple of mood boards that I made that focus mainly on her aesthetic. 

The first mood board shows an array of clothing that I liked o inspire the costume for my character. There is a mix of modern street fashion as well as medieval, steampunk and cosplay inspirations. I was mainly looking at loose clothing that hides the figure yet maintains a feminine look as well as periodic clothing suitable for a peasant class. I also wanted to collect ideas for different skirt/dress designs that look attractive but don't restrict movement. 

 The second mood board shows a variety of hairstyle that are all tied up and braided. I thought that perhaps a tied back style would look more tidy and mature. It would also be easy to move, jump and fight without unnecessary bangs getting in the way and obstructing her eyesight. Tied hair would also give me the opportunity to perhaps look at hair accessories which would make for a nice addition to her costume.

Chosen Storyline

This is the storyline that I have vaguely put together as a result of the research and past ideas that I took a liking to.

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world in which the universe has only just recovered to a medieval and rural state. The world has entered a New Age where magic has been lost from the world due to misuse. 

The story revolves around a woman named Lynaea who endures a simple yet tragic struggle as her only child Elson has fallen ill with a mysterious and deadly disease. As a mother, she does everything in her power to provide for her child but as the illness continues to develop, she journeys out to seek help from the great world tree.  

I decided to stick to the idea of my character being a parent as I really wanted my overall story to be very relationship based, making it easy for the audience to connect with it.

I also decided to make my character a female as it would be more interesting and challenging to try create an ideal female role model for a video game as there is much talk about sexism and objectification especially regarding the costumes of female characters.

Character Relationships and Companions

I wanted to create a strong bond, possibly a partnership between the protagonist and a secondary character. I feel that this is of extreme importance as creating some kind of relatable relationship enables me to establish an intimate connection between my character and the audience.

I considered many different kinds of relationships such as family, friends and pet companions. I also wanted some kind of tragedy to occur that forces the protagonist to deal with a conflict that they must overcome and from this, a change in them will occur during their journey. I like the idea of someone going through a transformation and learning some important lessons which again, reflects our everyday lives. This element of the story would help show the audience that my character is very grounded and human further making them relatable as a person.

These are a few companionships that I have been quite intrigued about.

NOTE: This picture doesn't actually show the real Artorias, just someone dressed up as him but, it's the closest image I could find that has the two of them together without having to drop in fanart.

First of all is Artorias and Sif from Dark Souls. Although the majority of the Dark Souls story, especially the relationship between characters has very much been left up to the players interpretation, I really like the kind of bond these two have.

Great Grey Wolf Sif, otherwise known as Sif, is the companion of Sir Artorias, the Abysswalker. It's said that after Artorias passed away after being corrupted by the Abyss, that Sif took it on himself to become the guardian of Artorias' grave in Darkroot Garden. He wields Artorias' Greatsword in battle and is one of the bosses necessary to defeat in order to transcend the Abyss and confront the Four Kings for the Lord Vessel.

There isn't much mention of how they met and their travels together as partners but there is a hint as to the depth of their relationship in the DLC (downloadable content) in the game. They both travelled to the Abyss together but found out that their beings were being corrupted by the darkness and Artorias handed over his Cleansing shield int order to create a barrier around Sif and protect him from the corruption. But in doing so, Artorias became corrupt and was killed (by the player) to be free of his pain and suffering. This action of love for his companion is what really struck me about these characters and I'm inspired to create a tragic yet heartfelt sacrifice or event similar to this because it really moves the audience.

Next up is Lloyd Irving and Kratos Aurion from Tales of Symphonia. These two have a very touching yet complicated relationship. There are actually father and son but it's the way in which that happened and how they didn't know each other were alive that makes their relationship throughout the game very interesting.

Kratos was one of the four original companions of the hero Mithos and a survivor of the war. Mithos' sister Martel was tragically killed and Mithos was driven insane with grief misinterpreting Martel's vision of a perfect world in which all beings were equal and there was no discrimination. Mithos then set up a plan to create a new world of 'ageless beings', the angels or Cruxis. When learning about this plan, Kratos left Cruxis to find meet a woman named Anna who he fell in love with. She was an subject of the Angelus project where they create Exspheres by suing the human body as a catalyst. These subjects do however have an unfortunate consequence is they are not compatible to the procedure. They turn into monsters.

Kratos and Anna were on the run for a long time from Cruxis and soon to join them was their son Lloyd. Anna eventually lost control and Kratos was left with no choice but to strike her down as she became a threat and turned on her own son. As they were being pursued, Kratos was surrounded by the Desians and by the time he killed them all and searched for his son he was no more. At least that was what he was left to believe as he found nothing but corpses. Lloyd was actually taken in by a dwarf named Dirk who became Lloyd's father. This obviously serves as complex turn of events when Lloyd learns the truth of his real father and the death of his mother.

Again, another complicated but moving story and relationship. I feel that because this is family based, I could argue that this was much more affective in moving the audience as it is more personal and intimate. That isn't to say that friendships and companionships aren't but a parental bond is something that doesn't really have an equal. From this, I think that I want to make my character a parent as it is something that everyone, no matter what age or sex, can relate to. 

World Mythology

For the world I have created I felt like it needed a bit more substance and decided to look into mythologies to perhaps inspire some ideas and give a bit more grounding to this new world I have created. 

I decided to look into the idea of the World Tree. This originated from Norse mythology and the tree Yggdrasil. There are different ways in which the story was told but I quite liked this version that I found at Yggdrasil Land Foundation.

I then started to collect images of trees as I wanted to take on the idea of having a world tree. Here is a mood board I put together of both digital and traditional art of trees along with the Deku Tree. I just needed an excuse to put a Zelda reference in there.

I was however aware that this idea has been recycled many times over and I wanted to try a different angle. After doing much research in to the World Tree I came across a version which I wanted to adapt which was from Egyptian Mythology. The Egyptian tree of life is the acacia tree which to them, was considered the tree of life as it is the "tree in which life and death are enclosed".

I was really intrigued by this belief and I wanted to adapt it, making it a threshold between the to worlds. Because of this, I suppose it is quite obvious that there will be some elements of death in my story which is fitting of my need for tragedy. Whether or not I use the acacia tree as the model for my wold tree or not is still to be decided. Because it is a fantasy world, I would quite like to explore the idea of a talking tree like the Deku or Maku tree and/or explore the idea of Treants.

World-Building

This is the first time I have really looked into world building aspects in detail so it was already panning out to be an exciting project to be working on. I did a lot of research into world-building tips and so on and I did struggle to find good material that could be used in conjunction with my project. Most of the material I found and used was actually based around writing novels but the points made I felt were still very relevant.

Here are some of the links of the websites I looked into to get me started.

http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2013/09/17/25-things-you-should-know-about-worldbuilding/

http://io9.com/7-deadly-sins-of-worldbuilding-998817537

http://www.sfwa.org/2009/08/fantasy-worldbuilding-questions/

My initial thoughts for this new world I was going to create was for it to be set in a new age; a post apocalyptic fantasy world in which magic has been drained and the human race has to adapt to their new lives.

Seems interesting but perhaps a little too cliche?

Either way, I used this as my starting point so I could then try flesh out some more details.

Just like our technology has developed so much to a point where we have pretty much become reliant on them, I wanted to re-create this but by using magic as the 'technology'. The human race has developed their magical abilities to an extent where it has become well embedded in their daily lives. The development of magical technology had grown so much that it has started to take over human labour making jobs less accessible. Little did they know that using magic to such extremes had an effect on the environment and thus, magic became illegal.

Revolving around the idea that magic was harmful, activist-like groups were born that spread the news of destruction to the world. And naturally there were groups of people in opposition to those people who thought that magic was a gift to be used.

I had a few initial ideas for the role of the protagonist that revolve around the idea of status and being unaware of the world outside of their home.

The protagonist lives in a city or the capital perhaps where people still use magic and refuse to give it up because it allows them to live in a life of luxury. This city's rulers kept it's residence from finding out the true nature of magic in order to maintain a position of power and continue to use magic for their own gain. One day the protagonist decides to leave the city and start a new life soon discovering that the outside world had been left to die. The protagonist then decides to do something about the corruption of the world and begins to challenge 'The Order'.

From this, I was thinking that there could be a bit of a 'Robin Hood' thing going on in a sense of the protagonist living as an outcast and an outsider that then steals from the rich (his/her own people) in order to help the more unfortunate communities that have been locked out the city and left to deal with the corruption they're causing.

Not too sure about that idea yet but it fits the bill so it's a possibility.

Alternatively, this idea could be the other way around. Where the protagonist is from a rural village on the outskirts of the world and after seeing the suffering of their own people decides to travels to the capital in order to find help. The protagonist then realises that the capital is continuing as normal, abusing magic and living comfortably while everyone else suffers and vows to overthrow 'The Order'.

These are the majority of ideas that I have considered since and I will write another post on the chosen storyline.

Practical Idea

For my practical I am going to be creating a character document as I am now exploring a textual approach to character design. The texts will be accompanied with a finished concept of my character along with developmental stages of my characters concepts.

The character I am creating will be for a game as this has always remained an area of interest through the years. In preparation for the game, I will work on some world-building aspects and create a brief storyline for it in order to give my character some grounding.

I plan to lay out my practical similar to that of a character profile found in an instruction booklet or that of a character profile in which you can access as an extra feature of the game. I have also found some detailed profiles in game art books that have a different balance of text to image so I basically have the freedom to experiment with different layouts formats, all of which I feel are fitting for display and ultimately my portfolio.

Here are some of the examples of character profiles that set the standard of what I am aiming to produce.

UFO Appearance

For this I was to demonstrate skills of comping CGI over live-action.

I decided to keep my original UFO design because I struggled to come up with a new design that works with all the other assets that were made. It wasn’t badly modelled either and I still liked the idea of the glowing rings I added to it so it would have been a shame not to use it.

The textures on my UFO are quite clearly stretched and could have come out a lot better if I had properly applied the texture but for the sake of demonstrating my composition skills I didn’t feel it necessary. The final outcome still looks good and the textures are forgivable to say the least.

After quickly fixing up my UFO, I set up the camera and back-plate of an image I took from my trimmed footage of the building in which the UFO would fly over. After setting this up I got on angling the UFO and then animating it. I grouped the entire UFO, rings and lights so they would all move together and then animated the glowing rings separately. After finishing the animating and I rendered out both the master layer and occlusion layer so that when brought into after effects there would be shadows for my UFO after following the necessary steps. The shadow did end up being a bit grainy but it made so much of a difference to the spaceship and believability as it sits much better in the shot.

I then masked out the areas on the building that look like they would give off reflection as there is quite a mix of materials on the building used. I then inverted the window layer and added an overlay and alpha matte effect to create the reflection. I then did a little colour correction on the building layers and added a purple tint to them but after rendering the scene out it actually looks very de-saturated. It sort of works though because I have quite a dark and dull sky texture in the background and the de-saturated look also give attention to the UFO but possibly makes it stand out too much?

Despite the arguments made with the colour correction I think the finished product looks very nice. I added a fast blur to the reflection because it was a little too sharp and I think it sits in the overall shot quite well.

The Zooming Out Effect

The purpose of this shot was to establish the environment and show off the UFO interior. I created the zooming out effect by scaling both the background and actor. This however, was very tedious as it was difficult to achieve a good balance of scaling between the two. I came across problems with the speed of the effect because I hid the clipping out of the actor and scaled it in a way that hides the lower half of his body. After a slow and gradual start there was a sudden rush in the zoom out that looked so unnatural and I spent quite some time attempting to fix it. It was just a case of experimenting with the scaling until I found a more fluent motion. I do believe I managed to achieve this and am quite happy with the final outcome. 

Creating the inside of the UFO

In my last two submissions I never developed the interior for my UFO therefore had no background to work with when doing the After Effects side of my project. So, decided to create a quick area in Maya. I did consider creating a digital painting as the majority of my shots are still so the matte painting would have worked well but, I'm a little out of touch with drawing and I felt like it would have turned out being very stressful and tedious.

The design, although simple, is inspired by the running temple theme seen in my UFO design and my alien. I wanted to keep this theme going as it helps put all my other assets into context and they all relate to one another in some shape or form.

The stepped platform in the center is suppose to represent a teleporting device/pad which gives Tim a central position which is ideal for the shots I want to have.

The textures I have used I just grabbed off the internet. They are all Hi-res and are stone/grungy type of textures again to fit in with the temple theme. I particularly like the grunge textures because they have a stained design to them which resembles marble. The grunge textures also fit in well with the alien angle that the brief asks for.

The lighting for my scene is again green and purple which is the same with all my assets. Again, I wanted to keep this on going theme so my alien and UFO are in relation to one another.  The green and purple lighting is nice and contrasting and again helps to project that idea of aliens.

In my initial renders I didn't actually have shadows and it was kindly pointed out to me by one of my tutors so I went back into Maya and experimented with the shadow settings and the positioning of the lights to cast shadows in the desired areas. I think the shadow of the column that is cast in the middle of the stepped platform is perhaps a little too harsh and needs toning down and softening. Overall, I am happy with the finished product.