Shifter : a contemporary game character design practice

Abstract

Visual art is a term that triggers in the viewer the ability to visualise emotion and a sense of immersion. This type of ability we experience it in video games with the help of technology that powers today’s games and influence the way we perceive visual art in a new way. This research investigates the artistic practice of a video game concept through series of character designs, digital illustrations and traditional hand drawings. This study will explore more than just the technological aspect of a concept for a video game but it will also emphasise on the artistic characteristics. The main focus of this work is to explore game character design principles via a series of game character design practice. In this adventure/action role playing game multiple characters will be created with environment design by adopting contemporary character design process . This can be achieved by combining both 3D and 2D rendering style in the conceptual motion. This combination gives a great impact to the viewer thus creating a remarkable contrast between the two styles. In addition, to develop each visual a focus group was held to as part of the methodology to further improve the outcome of the designs. Furthermore, the outcome for the project would be a concept art book depicting each character and environment with additional sketches, while having a main poster illustrated in the exhibition.