Monday, March 18, 2013

Worlds of AETHER final - process

Worlds of AETHER final - process

Materials:
- water color paper
- water colors
- copic markers
- salt

First inked:



Original Worlds of AETHER. Photo by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 

First painted/colored:



Second Orginal Worlds of AETHER. Photo by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 

Second round of color after dried: 



Colored Original Worlds of AETHER. Photo by Stephanie M. 17 March 3013. 

Worlds of AETHER color draft

Worlds of AETHER Color Draft

Below is the rough color sketch to generate the idea of how the final may look and how to incorporate design elements into this. 

The focal point/emphasis is the girls together in the center of the cover. Normally in design the center would not necessarily be the best focal point area, but using the model of the video game covers researched - the center of the picture seemed to be widely used. 

The colors in Sandara and CL's clothes are a combination of complementary colors that make them stand out to the eye. 

The values of the girl's outfits are very bold, where the design idea of the background would contrast by being light. 



Worlds of AETHER color draft. Photo by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 

Princess Design Sketches

'Princess' Design Sketches 

The chosen topic was the 'princess' design cover idea. The characters Sandara and CL, below, are roughly sketched to understand their mannerisms, body proportions, and get an idea of how they would pose on the cover. 

Sandara and CL character sketches. Personal sketches by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 



Design Problem Timeline

Design Problem Timeline

This is the originally created timeline for monitoring work progress:


Notebook Timeline. Personal sketch by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 

To make this easier to understand/read - the timeline has been fixed below:






Design Problem - 3 sketches

Design Problem - Rough three sketches

The three sketches below:


Three sketches for game covers. Personal sketch by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 


Design principle: Emphasis and Focal Point (contrast and placement?)

Design elements: Color (complementary/emotional?)
                                   Value (emphasis/contrast?)


1. One idea was to have a spy game where an androgynous (most likely female, but making it not a main focus) character who travels the world attempting to become a master of disguise and has to learn about places and people in order to do so.  


2. The second idea was to have a very normal girl (a more realistic looking girl to promote body image) strive to protect her friend using her book smarts to save the day. Tentatively, it would be about fairies and would involve research on folklore and things such as flowers and herbs. The main character is very curious, head-strong and loves books.


3. The third idea was to have a fantasy adventure type game where the main character is a girl questing across the lands with her best friend saving innocents, fighting ‘monsters’, and looking for the mysterious floating castle.


Out of these three concepts it boiled down to two:
- make an androgenous character and focus on a neutral character both genders could like
- make a more positive feminine character, but risk losing the male audience.

For the purpose of the design problem, the princess design was chosen in order to focus more on a positive and obvious female main character. 

Design Problem Research

Design Problem Research

The original design problem was to create a game for women who play or want to play video games in a teenage and up age group without losing too many male players, but to keep the female main character a positive model for women. It seems that this is not as easy a premise as it sounds to be. 

Here is a personal game collection and it has singled out games played in two categories. 

Games that give a chance of playing a female character:
My games. Photo taken by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 

Games that have a female main character:

Final Fantasy 10 game. Photo taken by Stephanie M. 17 March 2013. 

The results were 7 to 1. 

Online research for the concept:

An article by Becky Chambers written in November 2012 titled: "Why Games With Female Protagonists Don't Sell, and What it Says About the Industry." The link to the article can be found here: http://www.themarysue.com/why-games-with-female-protagonists-dont-sell-and-what-it-says-about-the-industry/. According to her, EEDAR (or Electronic and Entertainment Design and Research) conducted a study in 2012 where out of 669 games, 300 gave an option to play a female character and of these games, only 24 games had a female only protagonist. This is shocking, perhaps, but the video game industry feels making female-only games is risky. Chambers writes, "Zatkin found that female-led games received roughly 40 percent of the marketing budget as male-led games." She goes on to reveal the reasoning for this is simply that the game industry is afraid games with female leads will not make a profit. 


Design Problem Inspiration

Design Problem Inspiration

The game below is an older role playing game for GameCube called Tales of Symphonia. This game cover design was chosen as an inspiration for the final cover design. The colors are bright and eye-catching and the faded monochromatic background really makes the characters pop out. The characters themselves are softer and may appeal towards a feminine demographic, which is a wanted aspect for the design problem. 

Namco. "Tales of Symphonia." Amazon.com: : Video Games. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Mar. 2013. http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Symphonia-Gamecube/dp/B0001OK7VW