Generating Character Design Ideas

[Judging__Eagle]

I'll be honest, with all of the time and mental effort that I spend figuring and refiguring and then actually doing the work that I have to do for my classes this semester, I won't be finishing some ideas that I've started here any time soon.

Even when I get free time after the 14th of December, I won't be able to do anything sicne I'll be visiting family that I haven't seen in several years (the last time I went was the first time I had gone there and that was ~10 years ago) and lack of a computer compounded by probably having no net accesss means that I'll probably be enjoying time with my brother that I haven't seen in five months and my remaing grandmotherand her sister.

So, I won't be doing any updates to that Celestials & Fiends idea anytime soon. At least I'm not planning for it.

What I do however plan to do is generate character ideas since I need them for the next major assignment of my art for animation class and I'll be posting what I've got here description-wise.

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"middle eastern character"

-for my 'futuristic' city assignment

Race and basis of appearence
-Going for middle eastern since whitey has been done to death and asian is too fvcking common nowadays. So making him a Kurd, Arab, Turk or Ayran is how to go for a 'fresh' approach

Cyber-Arm/Torso... plus gender decision
-I'm gonna draw him (maybe a her, male characters are also done to death... yeah, a female character; good thing for writing shit down)... her as having a massive cybernetic arm on one side (perhaps even a whole side of the body from pelvis to shoulder is replaced with mechanical stuff) and

Melee Weapon
-I wanted to have a big old axe (sicne swords are also overdone) in the other arm, but it wil look dumb, a whip is too female, maybe either spear or polearm of somekind; I'm not gonna do a nagitana, those are classically 'female' samurai weapons so balls to that

Companion

-A hovering magical hookah (...uh, now an insence burner). It's her uncle that's been transformed into a magic hookah that has the power to give off healing/curative vapors (changed to an insence burner, since the idea of "smoking up" to heal is probably a message that I don't want to send, even if I have used a THC-induced mind-altered state to come up with ideas in the past, I don't want to do so in the future).
-The overall idea is that the 'hero' is trying to change her dear old uncle (let's make him the 'heroines' guardian sicnce she was orphaned as a child, to establish long-running 'ties' with the 'hero' and the 'companion'; and let's make him a lecher, since it's hilarious to have characters who love 'anything' and can't ever achieve their goals.

I know it's probably a trope, but I don't think that anyone has ever had a floating insence burner who tries to check out all the local hotties

-his reason for being kept around is that he makes sure that his niece is okay while she's fighting the "monsters" that killed her parents and then later changed her dear old uncle into an incense burner


Armour
I dunno what to for clothing/armour.

Going for none is patently ridiculous as even the biggest LARPer in my D&D group is a girl that loves getting adamantine armour for her 1/2 elf RoW barbarian. Also, I'm very much against the "chain-mail" bikini or "metal pasties" that are often used in fantasy art as a means to use near-porn to get purchasers or interest. Seriously, if I want porn, I'm perfectly capable of looking it up in my own time.

When I want to read well written fantasy, I want it to be well-written and not having dumb shit that is in there for author self-gratification or as a means of soft/hard-core female pornography (i.e. romance novels masquerading as fantasy novels). I don't want it to be "dumb-ass barbarian X" romping around with the local fleshpots b/c the author self-insert has a 12" dong and goes into excruciating detail about how much of a 'man' he is('t).

Bleh, rant aside, I want 'some' armour, but that leads to my next issue...

Going for too much will probably have a 'Samus' thing going on where the players know it's a girl, and the designers know it's a girl, but really you can't tell if you haven't seen the character or know what they are to begin with b/c of all that armour.


I want something that is probably something like...I dunno.

In any case this can wait a week (maybe two). As it hasn't been assigned to us yet (we're in week... 7 of 15 now for this semester's classes).

[Voss]

A random suggestion, that might be a bit off other peoples kilter, but since you are doing a middle eastern woman, have you considered having the armor (or clothing) styled (thematic at least) after the traditional Islamic female outfit (robe and burka style of thing, or a simple head covering and veil)?

Its a bit wacky and would need to be modified to not look completely absurd, but it covers some of the points you mentioned (like the look not screaming 'Boobies!' at passers-by), and its non-traditional for fantasy/sci-fi art. You could add in a couple twists- cyberized parts for example, could be exempt from the traditional modesty rules, being machine rather than human flesh, so any cyber-limbs wouldn't have to be hidden/obscured.

Just some ideas.

[Judging__Eagle]

Burkhas aren't exactly what I want to use and head covering with a veil isn't necessary either.


[goes off to check wiki on 'officiality' of the burkha]
Yeah, the burkha isn't mentioned in the Quran, so I don't feel obliged to draw one on. All the Quran states is 'modesty', I'll be frank, some Muslims are less modest than others.

I'm going to go for something practical for modesty I guess.

A fvcking rebreather/gas/air-mask that covers the mouth.

I'm gonna leave th eyes uncovered (or covered in a clear faceplate at the least) since not drawing eyes is a cop-out in character design.

Case in point: "Master Chef". He's a fvcking stormtrooper who I wouldn't give a fvck about if he died.

Hell, the Doom Guy image in the original 1990's Doom game elicited more pathos and empathy than Master Chief ever could. Since you could see his face, and you saw when he was truly hurting or when he was uber-pissed, you knew at a glance what he was feeling.

In Halo it's 'meh'; gold mask covers eyes and emotions.

[Catharz]

Sounds like a freemen lady with a hacked masjid incense robot (take that carpet!). Aesthetics pseudo-Iria (the anime rather than live action), but more Arabic. Don't forget to make excessive use of calligraphy.

العربيه جميله

[Judging__Eagle]

You know what?

I'm an idiot for not even considering the Fremen. Seeing as I've read every dune book Herbert released(with Chapterhouse: Dune as the last one) and a good chunk of the 'new' Dune books as well.

It's all in black and white as a render, but going for gold or bronze with calligraphy etchings all over on her cyber components and her fork-ended halbeard-looking weapon is gonna be hard to draw, but will look great.

I'll have to look Iria up. Thanks Catharz.

You too Voss. I'll probably have a loose blouse or cover her top with armour-plates and leave her face uncovered except for a mouth/nose...

or, I could just go all "dune" and have rebreather tubes in her mouth and nose. So it's 'protected', but not obscured.

I'll probably draw very short hair or the hair will be drawn up into a bun or ponytail; modesty.

[Judging__Eagle]

Next assignment:

Take the [counturl=115]Universal Pictures Monsters[/counturl] (Creature from the Black Lagoon, Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstien's creation, The invisible Man, The Mummy (Imhotep) and reinvent one of them.

I was thinking of doing Dracula, except one for problem. I've played and read Vampire: the Masquerade books, so almost any new take on what a vampire could be I've probably seen; the knight, the biker, the mercenary gunman, the rapper, the businessman, the silver-dagger wielding duelist; I've seen it one form or an other. So I'll leave old drac's alone.

I was working on a beatboxing, rapping 'C' from Da' Lagoon last night.

I don't really need to get them done, as we weren't given a homework slip with the assignment; but it's good practice. I've already got a 93 in the class at midterm, so doing stuff that's reccomended anyway won't hurt at all.

Some other ideas include:

A paladin of Charlemenge Wolfman (...with the head/face of a wolf, not the furry-faced man with fangs that the movie had)

Frankenstien's Creation as an honest to god scientist with cliched lab coat holding up two different test tubes; but with signs that say stuff like "No Exposed Flame" and "No Bunsen Burners"; 'cuase the creature hated fire.

The mummy as... an Indiana Jones type adventurer? or as some kind of 'strong' or 'tough' cliche; a gladiator (a good pic for that would be the mummy with greaves, a wide armoured belt with his enemies sword stuck right through him and doing no damage; while the mummy is cutting him in half with a two-handed khopesh or 'narrow at the edge' copper ancient Egyptian axe).

I think that I'm subscribing to this 'contrarian' character design mothod; take anything on a character concept and then do the complete opposite.

We had to do a 'new' or 'modified' X-men member in class.

So I went for a muscular, trim looking guy that drinks out of an ancient, simple-looking, tankard and turns into a hulking balding, beer-bellied fat man. The tankard is... Thor's, and drinking it makes you uh... fat and ... powerful. Yeah.

It got people amused at least and was better than the guy who simply put a gun hoslter on Wolverine's thigh.

[Catharz]

I like the mummy as a reclusive elderly antiquarian with a skin condition.

[Judging__Eagle]

Haha, that works.

However I'm trying to make him non-intellectual, non-mystic and not an Egyptian Priest.

Dracula you could turn into someone with a skin condition though....


Geeky Dracula, gives a real reason to the whole "stay out of the daylight!" cry. Give him taped up plastic coke-bottle glasses, a pocket protector, graphing calculator etc. etc. you get the idea.

Then again... the reason it hasn't been done is that no one tries to make a character in V:tM who's a 'loser' by anyone's defenition. Mostly b/c those people playing don't want to play anything that they identift with to closely.

So... 'uncool' roles or 'non-descript' ones are probably good ideas to use.

...Dracula as a plumber. Beat-up baseball cap, denim bib overalls, monkey wrench, tool box, a toilet snake and a plunger.

[Judging__Eagle]

Got this idea this morning while going to my 3ds max class while in a partly sleepy haze.

A mash-up of the universal monsters with 'character' types from a different setting. In this case, the WH40k universe, specifically chaos.

So the members include:

-The Blood-thirsty Servant of Khorne Dracula...which works better than I expected (I was thinking the mummy at 1st, and changed my mind now)
[red armour, one axe in each hand, snarling like a frenzied dog, massive fangs, jutting out bestial jaws, long mane of hair]

-(The sorcerous Werewolf) Alternetely, the Sorcerous Frankenstein's Creature
[long flowing yellow and blue robes, rings on its fingers, baubles on its armour/robes, necklace on its neck, and gently caressing the back of its chaos spawn pet]

-The sorcerer's chaos spawn pet, a massive hulking fur, fang and claw covered monstrosity (werewolf re-invent).
[so, five legs, two or three mouths, a bunch of sets of eyes, all fur covered]

-The (bloating with rot) leperous mummy of Nurgle; with a giant rusted looking cleaving axe [think a rectangle of metal, jaggedly sharpened on one edge and attached to the handle; armour is pretty sparse, but the hands have a finger or two missing]
-The decadent, drug-injecting, silks and silver decked creature from the black lagoon [So, black and soft pink trimmed armour; silver fittings on the armour, a silk tied around the neck and daintly tied to the armour, with some sort of sound-weapon the type that Noise Marines pack so a gun that looks like a guitar].


Once I gave myself a setting that was a lot easier to come up with an idea for each character than I thought it would be.

The mummy will be a leper, not bloating. So, he's missing an arm or fingers or something.

edit: more slightly different ideas for the above:

I came up with one this morning: based on the warhammer 40k Chaos faction: A muderous Khorne-berzerker dracula with two axes and a feral looking face; a leperously bloated cleaver-sword wielding mummy of Nurgle; a Frankenstein's monster of Tzeench with long robes and a chaos spawn pet
(modified blob + werewolf with 5 misshapen legs, three mouths with no proper 'skull' to use them on pseudopod 'necks'); the creature from the black lagoon in black lacquered armour with soft pink trim/outlines with silver fittings and a saxaphone-assault rifle (like a noise marine).

[Judging__Eagle]

I just realized that I fell for the "womanizing"/comic relief sidekick trope. Sidekicks are either effective and weaker than the hero; so they can fight mooks and beat them up but fail vs named enemies. Alternatively, they are obviously ineffective in 'fights', but perform some other role and are also comic relief.

I was thinking about the "elf" character in Berzerk, who is reffered to as a "walking band-aid" by Gattz since 'fairy dust' automatically stops bleeding (the elf is really a tiny sprite, it's also androgynous and can use burrs to paralyse humans or).

The relative transformed into a flying talking incense burner has to be a lecherous aunt or something and she's always checking out the guys.