In the very early stages of the character creation I did not have a solid idea on what they would look like. I explored different ways I could use shape language and how that could feed into the current ideas I had for my character.
Design exploration
When designing the specifics for the outfit I sought out feedback from different people. Gathering a range of opinions helped me to consider different things and consider points that I had not thought of. This also helps me to understand how a general player base could receive my character if it was announced for a specific game. Asking a range of ages encouraged me to think about the kind of audience I am creating my character for.
Research- gallery visits
V&A museum – group visit with Lucy.
Before going into the museum we discussed between ourselves what we were hoping to find, then highlighted the areas we felt would be most relevant. During the visit I was hoping to gather photos on different materials so garner ideas on what could be incorporated into the prosthetic for my character so felt areas such as metalware and ceramics could be interesting. Ultimately I found the theatre and performance section to be most interesting as it offered ideas surrounding environment design and puppets – which could be useful when designing articulated prosthetics.
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Hunterian Museum – independent visit
While smaller in size, I was able to gather much more specific material for my character, revolving around that of prosthetics and facial injuries as well as medical instruments.
Using what I saw at the museum, I was inspired to explore a similar facial prosthetic for my character, where some of the scarring was. To see what this could look like, I drew over the facial expressions. This design was additionally inspired by earlier research into Kinitsugi (on the Milanote) and the phrase “Rose Tinted Glasses”.
I also considered making one of the lenses cracked, to show how her perfect world is falling apart as she’s forced to confront the reality that her husband is dead. The cracks are there but she’s choosing to ignore them by making her husband in robot form.
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Science Museum – independent visit
I chose to go to the Science museum to look for moving parts that could help me with the prosthetic design. When there I was draw to looking at lots of different mechanical designs, such as engines and clockwork. During the visit I also found they had a section on death and medicine which was interesting to look through to read different people’s experiences. This section gave me insight into how my character could be affected emotionally by her husband’s death, however I did not use any of it visually.
Live Film Tests
To help Lucy with her animation we taught ourselves how to dance and recorded it. During this process our film director Mike instructed us to take turns balancing tape on our heads to give the other person something to fixate on so we would keep our heads up instead of looking at the ground. This also helped the person with the tape to maintain their posture throughout the entire dance in order to prevent it from falling.
As neither of us were familiar with dancing we spent 30 minutes before hand learning and practicing the steps. This was challenging as we were teaching ourselves using step diagrams which we struggled to understand initially. I think it would have been useful if we had watched a video alongside using just the diagram to help us as we were unsure if we were following the steps correctly. As a result of this we improvised the moves slightly to better fit what we were capable of doing.
By attempting to copy the steps like this we were able to create more meaningful reference images. It was particularly useful having it recorded from above which would have been difficult for us to have done without assistance.
Ultimately, while I did not use any of these in my own work it was interesting to put immerse myself as my character. This helps me to consider the emotions of my character and consider how she could feel in instances like this.
