WEEK 2 UPDATE

My honours project is officially underway, and I guess my social life on hold for the next little while! I'm still developing two strong character designs and high detailed sculpts in zBrush, and I plan to get started on the characters as soon as I can; I'd really like to get more research done for my dissertation first. I was talking to Gregor and he said that throughout researching I should just plug in any relevant quotes or material so that I can compile it at a later date and don't have to go looking for it again. This slowly turned into me actually typing parts of my dissertation, from case studies to analysis and back and forth. However getting a head start on this is as good as anything really. I know it'll just overwhelm me if i leave it way too late.

I should be looking into finding out how I want to display my models, and as such i've done a bit of looking. The character artists from the Sony game Uncharted 2 presented their sculpts beautifully, decamating the mesh (which basically means reducing the poly count drastically whilst still preserving detail) and taking it into maya or max so they can render it with mental ray. The results are breathtaking.

In any case, i'll keep on writing and designing. Another update to come soon!

Week 1 Update and Honours Project Details

Title: A Study In Villainy

Question: What considerations in terms of context and design are required to create a successful antagonist for the contemporary audience?

Abstract:

Ever since the human race conceived the art of storytelling, we forever immortalised the concept of an antagonist; a villain, a hurdle, a plot device, whose malice would bring a hero’s subsistence to fruition; a never-ending tale illustrating the importance of virtue over vice. However, in today’s contemporary story telling mediums an antagonist has great scope; they no longer need to be as two dimensional as a serpent tempting a naive woman to eat a forbidden piece of fruit. The best villains in literature, movies and games are arguably the most complex and compelling; there is more sustenance to their existence rather than posing a stereotypical peril. A villain has the promise to be more than merely just a lesson in morality to impede us against doing ill; in what ways can we deviate from virtue over vice, and how can a villain’s success as a character affect the quality of a story?

Character’s success can be determined by a multitude of factors. Researching story, relationships, design and audience are all very important, but to what extent can we use these and deviate from them, and what are the underlying determining methodologies behind creating a strong character? This project proposal and subsequent dissertation aim to identify key factors that should be considered in the conceptualisation of a villain, and how an effective, strong antagonist can be produced for a contemporary audience.

Details:

As part of my honours project, I will be creating character designs and high quality zBrush models of these designs. The conceptual stage will be derived from research appropriate to my dissertation, whilst the origin and profile of the characters will be justified through choices appropriate to my research in order to strengthen them characteristically.

Tesla revisited