Shapes and their language can influence how the player feels when they are looking at a character. Shape can be utilised by designers to highlight a character’s background, morality and help the player make assumptions as to which side they are on.
The same works with colour, certain colours evoke different feelings and emotions within different people. combinations of colour are a way of mixing and choosing specific colour combinations that compliment and work well with each other.
Circles:
- Circles are a great way for a designer to create friendly characters, they are most commonly used on the characters face to give them a soft, approachable feel to them.
- Circles are an organic and natural shape, the fact that they have no sharp edges and are made of curves gives a sense of warmth and creates a welcoming feeling when the player sees the character.
- Circles and the other shapes are often combined to combine meanings and blur the lines of a character, for example if there is a plot twist in a game, the character may have a round face to make them feel safe but combined with some sharp details on their body or attire could prompt the player to not trust them entirely.
Squares:
- Squares are used to create grounded, strong, reliable characters.
- A designer will often square of the characters jaw, shoulders or hands to show the player they are the heavy hitters of the game. for example, the Heavy in TF2 or Gibraltar in Apex Legends. their designs consist of square shapes to show how reliable and solid they are as characters.
- If they are a friendly character the squares may be rounded off or they will contain other shapes in their design to help symbolise to the player that they are approachable.
- When creating a squared shape in a character try to make sure that the shape is flat to make it look as sturdy as the character how are creating.
Triangles:
- Triangles are mainly used in the design of dangerous, villainous characters, the shapes sharp corners make us think of a sharp, unpredictable and dynamic villain.
- They are the direct opposite to a circle with their sharp edges so when combined can create some conflicting meanings.
- If the triangles are more exaggerated in terms of size and shape, they can heighten and transform how menacing or deadly the enemy the player is facing is.
- The shape still needs to be functional as a design and fit within the game world, this can be done through the quantity and direction of the shape in the design.
Here are 2 examples of characters in games and how shape theory is used to influence how a player sees them.
Master Chief is mainly designed with square shapes, with some more irregular, pointier shapes in his design as well this helps the player understand that he is a reliable, strong and grounded character. this helps the player connect with the Master chief and other characters throughout Halo who share a similar design. the more angled /pointer shapes show that he is also a dangerous foe for the enemy and doesn’t always play by the rules.
Ezio Auditore da Firenze from the Assassins Creed franchise make use of rounded tringles and circles with his design, this portrays him as a dangerous, sharp and dynamic character which helps solidify the players involvement with him as an assassin. the rounded shapes and circles however clash with the triangle shapes and show that whilst he is a dangerous character, he is also still human.
Silhouette Test.
When designing a character, it is easy for the shape to and overall effect of the character to get lost. that is why simple shapes and tangents can help create definable parts of the character.
A way to check that the character design is clear and concise to turn the image black to create a silhouette of the character, this will help you understand what shapes visible and clear and which areas need to be modified to give the desired effect.
Colour Palettes:
Color wheel, a color palette generator | Adobe Color
Designers will often use different hues of colour when creating a concept, a hue is the dominant wavelength of colour. these hues will be in certain colour palettes, they are made up of different Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colours.
The colours in colour palettes are all complimentary and work well with each other so are useful when designing concept art.
My Design:
when creating characters for my Top-Down shooter game I decided to look at using colour palettes and shape theory in my designs. I needed a player character, and enemy that the player can shoot and a challenging enemy that will shoot back at the player.
I went with a medieval style for my shooter as I thought it might be something a bit different and would allow me to have a look at designing something different to what I have already done.
I started with a basic circle that formed the base shape of the concept and then I erased and added pixels to give my characters shape and make them look more realistic as a person.
Refelection:
I Decided against doing the usual warfare shooter zombie game as I thought it might be something different and meant that I could do something with the R26 Recorder which I had out to record sounds to use in my games for the week. So rather than having to find something to create a bullet shot or reload sound (I recorded a reload that I later used as a button press in my cookie clicker prototype) I could record a zombie grunt and experiment trying to create different sounds.
I feel quite confident creating Pixel art which and have used colour theory within my work. For the wizard I went for a dark blue interlaced with gold and a bright pink and purple for his projectile and gem in his staff. Whilst for the enemies I went for a darker colour pallet with greys and black with a splash of red to help them stand out. Whilst I have used colour my use of Shape theory is lacking in the concepts and is quite hard to spot but I think it is something I can definitely use in other concept art I produce.
I had enough time to create some objects that I could add to the world of my game as well as a tile pallet that could form the background.
References:
Robbins, E. (2020) Halo Infinite Master Chief [Photograph] . Available Online; How Master Chief’s iconic Halo armor has changed over the years (techgamingreport.com) [Accessed Online 6/11/2022]
Richardson, M. (2021) The Art of Halo Infinite. China: Dark Horse Comics LLC
Lewarski, L. (n.d.) Ezio Auditore da Firenze Assassins Creed Franchise Image [Photograph] . Available Online; Pin auf Badass? Luvit. (pinterest.co.uk) [Accessed Online 7/11/2022]
Nathan, I. (2016) Assassins Creed Into the Animus. China: Titan Books
Adobe Stock (n.d.) Colour Wheel Image [Photograph]. Available Online; Color wheel. Stock Vector | Adobe Stock [Accessed Online 7/11/22]