Character Design - Task 2: Concept Development

23.05.2024 - 20.06.2024 / Week 05 - Week 09
Ilhan Rayan bin Khairul Anwar / 0361205
Character Design / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Task 2 - Concept Development

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INSTRUCTIONS

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PRACTICAL

The second task for this module is to expand upon our character for Genshin Impact by creating the weapon design, poses, as well as an alternate outfit for the character which certain characters in the game have. 

Part 1: The Weapon

Figure 1.1: Weapon Moodboard

I started off by collecting different Middle Eastern swords to get an idea of what I could work with when creating Zarrar's signature weapon. I also used the swords wielded by the Eremite Sunfrost since he's the only Eremite enemy with a unique sword type. I really liked the idea of having a curved pommel on the sword so I decided to try and include that in my design.

Figure 1.2: Weapon Sketches

Because I wasn't sure on what to do for the weapon, I started off by doing some basic sketches before really liking what I had made on the second sketch, so I decided to stick with that design. One thing I noticed with a lot of the five-star signature swords is that they all have the same length when it comes to the grip, the blade on the other hand varies in length.

Figure 1.3: Final Turnaround

This is the final version of my weapon design that I had in mind. I used the colour scheme of other Eremite characters alongside my character’s own colour palette. I included the bright yellow / orange line along the side of the blade as all of the Eremite weapons have a matching glowing element on them. The text along the side of the blade translates to “Lisan Al Gaib,” a reference to the famous quote from Dune. 

One detail I noticed with one of the Eremite weapons is that the text on their blade roughly translated to “Khopesh” which is the type of sword he was using.

Figure 2.1: Pose Ideas

For his poses, I wanted to either be low to the ground or have a commanding presence. The former to communicate his stealthy and fast movement while the latter is meant to communicate his powerful nature. I started off by sketching three basic ideas but I realized that it would be easier for me to create more poses on a website called “Hero Forge” as I was more familiar with how to use that site; and because my anatomy skills are not very good.

Figure 2.2: Colour Palette

This was my general colour palette idea for Zarrar’s design for both his base and alternate outfit. I used elements from Cyno, Dehya, and Candace’s colour palette to draw inspiration and give myself an idea of what I needed to work with.

Figure 2.3: Alternate Outfit Moodboard

For my alternate outfit design, I decided to give him a formal outfit since Genshin’s alternate character outfits were separated into different categories, those being: Festival, Themed, and Travel. I decided to have my alternate outfit focus on the “travel” aspect as there wasn’t a festival that best suited what I wanted. 

I was originally going to do the Sabzeruz Festival from Sumeru but I found out that the festival stopped happening in the lore so I scrapped that idea. My second idea that I had planned was to have a "Pharoah" inspired outfit similar to Cyno's design as his alternate outfit however I felt that it would have looked to similar to Cyno.

Figure 2.4: Alternate Outfit Sketches

These were the four sketches that I had came up with for my character’s alternate outfit. I originally tried to give him dreads like the Eremite Stone Enchanter, however I couldn’t find a way to make it look nice with my character so I decided to stick with my original hair. The third design that I had made was inspired by the Akademiya outfit that some characters wear.

Figure 2.5: Alternate Outfit First Design

This was the first design that I had for his alternate costume, I combined elements of Wriothesley’s vest and Diluc’s suit together to create an outfit that would look great on Zarrark. I was still unsure about the colour scheme as I wanted to keep the Eremite red on the design but as I looked back on the Eremite designs, not all of them had the red on their designs. I also wanted to have my character feel more “Geo” as the current colour scheme didn’t portray that idea very well.

Figure 2.6: Final Alternate Outfit Turnaround

After looking back at the design in figure 2.5 and looking at other Geo characters, I felt that he looked more like a Pyro character rather than a Geo character. Because of that, I recolored him to have a lighter and more beige color palette.

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FEEDBACK

Week 6:

The text along the blade would be an interesting design element. The forked end would also be very interesting to do. 

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REFLECTION

I found this task to be pretty interesting as I had very little experience working on making weapon designs so getting to create one for the first time was good way for me to practice. The alternate outfit task for this module was also interesting as not all of the characters in the game have an alternate outfit. Only fifteen of the eighty-eight characters in the whole game have special skins that you can use in game so having to design one for our character was interesting.