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.