Our first task is to research 3 protagonists using in depth the creative process and use one of them as in inspiration to create our own character.
The first character that I’m researching is Lara Croft from the famous games ‘Tomb Rider’.
Lara Croft has an iconic appearance which doesn’t throughout the game series, except in the new 2 games where there are minor changes. Her hair is always tied in a ponytail, but with a few curls sliding down her face. Her face has undergone 3 main design styles during the game series. In the early games, her facial features are rather neutral because of the technology insufficiency of the time- she is neither beautiful nor resentful, but the fact that she is a woman is merely stated. In the later games, when the technology was improved her face gained the features of a strong beautiful woman i.e. a connection between her appearance and her physical character was made. In the latest two games, Lara Croft possesses more soft facial features, giving her a hint of an innocent characteristic. Her clothes are a distinctive combination, which has become generally recognizable: bright blue top, small brown backpack (which was removed in the latest games), light brown shorts with a holster for her iconic two pistols (they are changed to a pair of long pants in the last two games) and brown boots, also they have added different styles jackets for winter weather conditions.
Lara Croft is an adventurous, self-sufficient woman, willing to take risks and is not afraid of near-death experiences. Her main characteristics are intelligence, curiosity, and determination. Her actions are driven by the thirst for exploration. She comes from a wealthy family with a father archeologist from whom she accustomed the adventures lifestyle. Her skills include an expert level of hand to hand combat, professional climbing techniques and the ability to use a wide range of firearms, such as pistols, rifles, bows and etc.
In the first Tomb Raider game, Lara was made only of 540 polygons, which resulted in a more ‘sharp’ looking in-game design. While a lot of the discussion was about her edgy looking bust size, it was actually her out of proportions tiny waist that made her chest to look so large. In the next four games, she keeps her main design, but with a more curvy look form the neck below, as the face still remains with a low amount of polygons. Her shoulders width was reduced and the tank top was lower cut.
The sixth Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness game featured Lara’s new look, which was inspired by the film adaptation. The main changes were on her face which was made to look more natural by changing the muscle and bone structure. Although the game was received poorly, in my opinion, they did a good job with the design of Lara and the fact that for the first time the in-game model closely resembled the promotional design is no small feet.
For the next game Tomb Raider: Legend the studio that made it was changed to Crystal Dynamics, in hope to achieve better reception than her predecessor.Crystal Dynamics focused on believability rather than realism to re-develop the character.They introduced a feature that causes the character’s skin and clothing to appear wet after swimming and dirty after rolling on the ground.Crystal Dynamics updated the character model to add more realism but retained past design element.The polygon count increased to over 9,800. More attention was paid to the character’s lip-synching and facial expressions to allow for dynamic emotional responses to in-game events. In redesigning the character’s appearance, Crystal Dynamics updated Lara’s hairstyle, wardrobe, and accessories. Her shirt was changed to a V-neck crop top, her body was given more muscle tone.
The next game didn’t feature a lot of changes to the design of Lara except slightly reddish hair and narrower eyes. The real difference came with Tomb Raider: Underworld where Lara was made of 32,816 polygons and was the most detailed video game character ever according to Guinness World Records.
In Lara Croft and The Guardian of Light, only Lara’s tank top was changed from brown to the iconic light blue again.
In 2013 the whole franchise was rebooted and featured a younger Lara Croft before she was an explorer and archeologist. This incarnation looked closer to a real human than the previous designs, removing anatomical exaggerations and using motion capture to make more lifelike movements and animations. The designers used movies like ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Descent’ as an inspiration to ‘to capture and add their dark beauty to Tomb Raider.
In overall, the creative process of designing Lara Croft has shown me that there might be stages through which I could go before getting to my desired end product. Moreover, I understand now that I shouldn’t be afraid to experiment with different approaches or styles to my creations, as a designer can go through many stages before achieving the best results. Negative feedback mustn’t stop the creative process, instead it should fuel it to continue forward and to learn from past mistakes.
Sources:Â https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lara_Croft#cite_note-PTOM-11-76
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/tomb-raider-art-interview
My second chosen character is Nathan Drake, from the ‘Uncharted’ games.
Nathan Drake has a typical male appearance-fairly fit, but not muscular, short black hair, dark eyebrows and generic looking facial features. His nose is sharp and long, his beard is never fully shaved. In all games, he is wearing jeans and a T-shirt with a holster around his shoulders for his pistols. In ‘Uncharted: Drake’sFortune’, his T-shirt is dirty-white and he has typical blue jeans. Later in ‘Uncharted: Among Thieves’, he has swapped the white T-shirt with a brown one and his jeans are darken. In all of the Uncharted games, his clothes are suited for the setting and the theme of each game, for example in ‘Uncharted: Drake’s Deception’ because a big part of the game is in a desert, he has a scarf to cover his face from the sand and his jeans are beige, so he can blend into the scenery.
Nathan is an orphan and a possible descendant of  Sir Francis Drake, an explorer, and a Buccaneer. It is likely that Nathan’s intelligence and a taste for adventure were inherited from him. As an orphan, Nathan has learned to be independent since he was a young boy. He is not only self-driven and self-sufficient, but he is self-educated in history and various languages. Drake always makes sarcastic comments and taunts in dangerous situations, showing how lighthearted he can be. Nathan is not a hand to hand combat expert and throws punches with style or skill.
‘It’s lighthearted and amusing, but it also demonstrates that Nate is aware of how absurd his predicaments sometimes are. It’s a small, unimportant communication, but it makes sense that the two would behave exactly as they do.’- Matt Casamassina of IGN™.
During the creative process, the designers wanted to create a stereotypical action and adventurous character, by giving him a blend of good and bad traits and strived not to create a perfect character but more realistic one. The designers took inspiration for his looks and personality from Johnny Knoxville and Harrison Ford. Richard Lemarchand, the designer of ‘Uncharted’, listed comic characters Doc Savage and Tintin, as well as ‘Die Hard’ protagonist John McClane, as inspirations for the character. Nathan has a physical ability similar to that of Doc Savage and a will for traveling just like Tintin.
The designers aimed for a photorealistic style for the characters. In the first two games, the engine which was used remained the same, with better details for the second game. Drake was also made to look more bulked, as they thought he was too skinny in the first game. For the third game, an ‘evolved’ engine was used that allows the game to have better physics, visuals, and environmental effects.
For the newest game, a greater attention was given to detail- clothing and other items were considered how and where to fold, crease, etc. under different circumstances. Instead of these textures being painted, like before, the designers decided to use shaders, which will give them higher resolution details and keep the polygon count low. Drake’s hair was greatly improved, by giving each hair strand its own wind dynamic. The same was done for his clothes and even chest hair. His hair and clothes were also made to alter, look wet, when in contact with water.
The character design of Nathan taught me that there is no need for a hero-like character in order to make him popular and likable. Moreover, your character might end up looking nothing like the initial design
Sources:Â https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Drake_(character)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted_3:_Drake%27s_Deception
https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/breakdown-character-design- uncharted-4-thiefs-end
My third and final character is Batman, from the Arkham game series.
Batman has an iconic appearance which has been generally kept throughout the Arkham games, only a few improvements were made. He wears a black helmet, which is cut in the middle revealing the bottom part of his face. On the top of the helmet there are bat ears. He wears a bulletproof gray suit, with a giant bat logo on his chest, an armored gauntlet on each arm, the left one has a mini computer inside of it that Batman can use to hack almost anything and his leg armor starts from the knee down. Batman has a belt equipped with his main gadgets, batarangs, batclaw, smoke pellet etc. and a cloak with which he can glide for a long time.
Batman’s primary traits are:
Wealth- he owns his parent’s company ‘ Wayne’s Industries’, which brings him millions, and he lives in his family’s mansion.
Physical prowess- he is constantly training so his body can always be in physical perfection, in order to fight even villains who have supernatural powers.
Intelligence- he is a genius, who studied to become a scientist.
And his main trait is obsession. Batman is willing to go to almost any lengths in order to stop the bad guy, which includes torture and kidnapping, and the driving force of this is his parents being murdered in front of his eyes when he was a kid. He faces ‘monsters’ every night in Gotham and always has the will to continue forward even in the gravest situations.A simple technique Batman uses to keep his sanity is through the use of strong moral codes and rules. Batman will not kill. As Nietzche once said, ‘He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee’. In the end, his mission is one that should not be a personal vendetta, but rather a means to attain justice and order for all.
The developers of Batman Arkham Asylum aimed to create designs that combine comic book style with realism. They used as inspiration the Batman’s design in the work of comic artist Jim Lee, who portrait Batman as a strong, muscular character who could believably take part in extreme combat. His black and dark gray costume was based on modern versions and has military influences and an industrial look. Many concepts were produced before his final appearance took form.
For the second game, Batman Arkham City, the design and the look are almost identical except some minor changes like shown below.
The left image is from the first game and the right from the second game. The overall style of the second game is a little more realistic compared to the first one, which has more comic traits. The main change is the belt’s design, on which you can now see the pockets and it is more 3D. And the other noticeable changes are, the design of the gauntlets on his arms, they look more realistic and detailed, and the cape is behind his shoulders not over them.
The third game, Batman Arkham Origins, is a pre-sequel to the first two games. Designers wanted to make the younger Batman’s outfit look ‘assembled versus manufactured’, as it creates more beliavability. Holmes said, ‘Batman’s suit is not something that was made in a factory. He’s taken pieces of tech either he’s invented, he’s fabricated or things from the Wayne facilities, and he has made this costume out of these pieces.’ To emphasize the mystery and fear instilled by Batman in this early stage of his career, art director and the design team used silhouettes and film noir-style low-key lighting to make the character more imposing. The name ‘Batman’ is used sparingly in this game to emphasize his urban-legend status and the lack of understanding of the character.
The major changes to Batman’s suit come in the last game, Batman Arkham Knight, where Batman’s armor was redesigned to match that of the Batmobile to make them appear visually similar, and appear functionally compatible with the high-speed methods in which the character enters and exits the vehicle. The design also added armor over Batman’s shoulders, covering the previously exposed cape, to make it appear as if could hold Batman’s weight without failing during gliding.
Games Design 