Character Designs

Today, I decided to do some character concepts and designs for this project (I still don’t know what to call it!), however I’m not really good at drawing. So I came up with a work-around. I asked a couple of my friends to become models, as I have access to some old LARP (Live Action RolePlaying) costumes that my dad has at home. As my dad’s a bit of a history buff when it comes to the medieval period that the majority of fantasy games are based on, the majority of the costumes are based on accurate historical research (https://sldesignfmp.game.blog/2019/03/15/medieval-armour-research/)

I was hoping to be able to do a wide range of character ideas, but I only had a small selection of costumes. There are some standard character archetypes in gaming, so I chose to do some of the more basic ones (also, I was limited in what costume resources I had). I decided to do a Warrior, a Rogue, and a Priest, which were the costumes I had available. I wish I could have done a Sorcerer as well, but I had to work with what I had. I would have also had some props such as swords and staves for the costumes, but there is quite an issue with bringing LARP and re-enactment equipment into college, as many of them are weapons (colleges and the police take rather a dim view on the subject).

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Personally, my favourite image out of the warrior images is the 3/4 view, as he looks like a disgruntled prince! For these, I used a set of steel chainmail that my dad made about 10 years ago, and weighs about 30 pounds (It’s very uncomfortable!). The rest of the costume is a leather jacket, with some splint-leather greaves and a black cloak with a stooping hawk on the back (Dad took his inspiration from the Sparhawk family crest in “The Diamond Throne” by David Eddings). You’ll have to suspend disbelief for a bit, when you see the jeans and denim shoes, but I don’t have any shoes or trousers that would work.

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The rogue costume looks more like a character from Pirates of the Carribean, but they too were quite rogue-ish, so I guess it counts. It didn’t really suit my model, as the rogue should probably look a bit more lankey than that, but the actual costume didn’t look out of place.

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The priest design, whilst the simplest, is also the one I’m not too keen on. To start with, the colour scheme is pretty bright; I’d prefer it to be either white, or a dark blue/black. Also, I think that a more cassock-like robe would be better, as opposed to the sort of tibetan/jedi robe approach that I have going here. It could do with some improvements.

I took a second set of pictures with a different model, to see if I could use the same type of designs for multiple characters. I also added some prosthetic ears to the costume, as my second model could potentially look like an elf.

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Although I used the same costumes for all of my character archetypes, the different models wore them quite differently. The Elf Warrior designs look markedly different to the earlier warrior concepts, probably due to the difference in body type. Because the leatehr jerkin that I was using had a hood on it, I decided to use it for the Elf Warrior. It looks quite appropriate, although in quite a few of these images, the lighting could be significantly better.

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I added a belt to the rogue outfit the second time round, and it actually fits with the rest of the costume. The neckscarf looks more comfortable here as well, as the fencing shirt that this costume uses works better with a leaner body type. Aside from those points, the costume looked good, both on the first and second times; although it is a bit anachronistic to the golden age of piracy, it could do for a kind of “noble” rogue, such as a runaway prince or princess. I would have loved to use the boots I had for this costume, but they didn’t fit either of the models.

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Now on this one, the lighting really let me down. Whilst the robe worked better with the belt instead of the red cloth, it still didn’t look quite right. For an elf, it should probably be more green or blue, but the brown doesn’t look too out of place. Some of the shots are in absolutely terrible light exposure, as the camera I was using decided to try and be clever on me, without much success. The 3/4 view of the elf priest without the hood looks particularly bad, as it removes most of the saturation from the costume.

Now, as I said earlier, I didn’t have anything I could use for a Sorcerer. However, during the summer last year, I went to Cornwall, and visited the museum of Witchcraft. I have some pictures that I could draw from for a magic-using character:

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Historically, magic took time to cast, as well as certain tools and symbols. In gaming, magic is a far more instant affair, but I could still use these as inspiration for some flavourful magic. One of my pet peeves is when writers and developers don’t fully utilise options and ideas to make the setting more immersive. Hopefully, I should be able to avoid that mistake.

So there we have it, a full set of ideas and character designs (minus weapons). I’m proably going to look at equivalent ideas from other JRPG’s, to see what theyve done, and what I could potentially use. This should lead on to some properly develped conceptual ideas, and even some assets! So until then, I’ll see you later!

Bibliography:

Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. (2019). Home – Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. [online] Available at: https://museumofwitchcraftandmagic.co.uk/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2019].