Intro
In this week we explored how shapes and colours can be used in paintings to evoke different feelings within the viewer or to represent other ideas. Both of these concepts are widely used in character design to tell a story and illicit emotional responses or associations without using any words.
Different shapes were associated with different things, as an example circles in characters could be associated with attributes such as soft, squishy, harmless, approachable. Whereas a square could be seen as solid, sturdy, strong, reliable. And a triangle as sharp, unpredictable, dangerous or dynamic.
Process
Following my own personal research into this topic I began drawing some designs for characters for my top-down shooter game. I chose to work in a pixel art style (at the time not realising next week was focused on pixel art). The idea I had for my game was to make it themed around vampires and the undead, the setting would be some dark manor or gothic castle and the player would be defending themselves from bats, ghouls and vampires.
To show that these characters were in fact enemies and something the player should avoid I used some triangles and sharp points in their design to associate them with danger.
As for the colours I chose, I tried to stick to a very restricted palette, a complementary selection of purples and orange-yellow. I primarily used the purples to represent mystery, power and to give off a sense of dread. I gave the sprites a yellow ( complimentary colour ) outline to further support that mystical super-natural idea.
(1) Griz and Norm [Digital] Available Online; https://grizandnorm.squarespace.com [Accessed 4/11/2022]