Main Research
(KULTUREHUB, 2022)
What are furries?
A furry by definition is an enthusiast for animal characters with human characteristics, in particular a person who dresses up in costume as such a character or uses one as an avatar online. However, some people view these people as weird, and see it as a "fetish" which I aim to change through my RPG.
But what exactly is the fandom?
The furry fandom is a subculture interested in anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, speaking, walking on two legs, and wearing clothes.
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The characters for the game I aim to design will have human characteristics such as, facial expressions and walking. That's all you will be able to see through the design. If I were to make it a proper game, you would be able to see them walk and here them talk.
Aren't furries a fetish?
It can be, most furries only like the roleplay aspect, and they go to conventions dressed as furries, others are in the fandom just for the art aspect. But there is a small amount of people who use the fandom as a fetish. But because this small group was well known and was on the news everyone built up a stereotype that all furries do this. This is why I want to change peoples perception on furries and that they are a culture rather than a fetish.
Research
(Bethesda Game Studios, 2011)
Skyrim is a major influence for the characters I'm basing my game in because my game is a medieval RPG and so I will be looking deeper to see what the main conventions are to making a medieval RPG.
(Lee, 2016)
This is a prime example of character design with different styles. This will be what I will be doing when making my character turnarounds. I will make sure to do headshots and full body and do them with different styles.
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(MATA, 2022)
I am looking into researching Winds of Change. This is because, the art style and character design is similar to what I want to have in my own game. I love how cute the characters are but how they also clearly show off the different character types. Such as: Tank, Healer but also the different communities. For example, Desert, jungle and city.
The types of clothes they wear clearly show what area they are from. The colours also show if they are are good or bad, for example the white character is a good character maybe a hero and the black hero could be some sort of evil mastermind.
(kvist, 2021)
"RPG classes are the character frameworks and templates you use when playing a role-playing game. Character classes differentiate characters from one another by wielding different weapons and possessing different skill sets utilized by players." (Wirtz, 2021) These are the class systems that are seen in an RPG and I will be using these to base my characters on. As I wanted a Tank, a healer and an assassin these are the three basic types. With the healer being magic, tank being combat and assassin being stealth. Having classes in games brings a whole new experience to players as it changes the way characters play the game due to the different abilities.
Clothes Research
(Reallusion, 2022)
I want to do a medieval theme for my characters, and so I wanted to do peasant clothes, as it would bring out a good underdog story where the peasant becomes the hero. So for this, I am researching peasant clothes in games to see how I can go about making Peasant clothes for my character.
(Fantasy Character Design, 2022)
I have researched old desert clothes to get a basic idea of what someone would look like if they lived in the desert.
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I really like the look of the cloak and think that would look great on my character.
(MedievalShop, 2022)
This is what people wear in forests in a fantasy world. This has given me inspiration for my hero's design if he were from a forest biome. To use this I will even make different designs of the clothes ranging from them being different colours to having different stitched designs.
(Armory, 2022)
This medieval armour would be a good style to draw my character wearing. This would show that the player could later on get armour, and the narrative would show that he has gone from a peasant to a fearsome warrior.
(Explore Land Ltc, 2022)
This is a scarf used to shield people from the sand in the deserts. I want to use this on my characters, because what people wear in deserts stereotypically.
(Art, 2022)
I changed my perception on what the armour would look like for my character. I found this armour and thought I would draw my hero with this armour instead, as it looks more realistic.
I will also make a version of this armour for the mini boss, but make it black so that it coincides with the black knight who is traditionally a bad guy who masks their identity.
(Pinterest, 2022)
To me, this is what I imagine a evil boss' armour to look like, so I was inspired to do this to my main boss character. The spikes at the black rags make the character look big and powerful and scary which is what a boss is supposed to look like. With this armour the character also looks like he's has seen a lot of battles and won, which adds to the feeling of fear and powerfulness as it means that so far no one can beat them and they are undefeated.
(Amazon, 2022)
I want the main boss to be some sort of evil king, so I will be taking inspiration from this to get the design down and the idea of what a king would look like, however, to make the king look evil, I shall be changing the colours to fit the theme.
Environment Research
(Philip Carruthers LTD, 2022)
This is a modern house but it looks old due to the accents on the walls. This style was used in medieval houses and inspires me to draw characters that would live here.
(Hurst, 2022)
This is what a typical peasant lived in, in the medieval era. The thatch roof and the accents on the walls, really show how old the building is. It also looks run down. So when designing my characters I will make them dirty and their clothes have holes in because they are poor and cant afford repairs on their home or themselves and cant afford to get clean.
(The Elder Scrolls Wiki, 2022)
This is Dragonsreach in Skyrim it's basically a castle for the jarl an so basically, this is a medieval castle and so I could use this to create my own map so I can place my characters and design them based on the where they live.
Map Research
This is a map of Skyrim it has many small locations, but the main areas are territorial seen by the different coloured areas. So I shall design my own map and make up different areas.
(iconspng.com, 2022)
This is an old treasure map, its got the beige colour and it has parts of the map torn as it has been exposed to the elements. So when creating my map I can rub parts of the map out. The corners are also blacked so I could do that to my map as well.
Other Research
(Newsbeezer, 2022)
Stereotypically, villains have scars, so knowing this, I could make a design for my main villain to have a scar. I do not know why it is a stereotype, but I believe it makes the character look more threatening and makes the person viewing them feel scared as they don't know why they got that scar and how they came out on top and what happened to the other party.
(Corporation, 2012)
This is the colour theory and tells us what colours goes best with what. My character Lucky uses the analogous colours which uses colours that are next to each other on the colour wheel.
(Corporation, 2012)
This shows how well colours go together and the shadings. For my evil character I am using analogous colours that are modified using only colours blended from the starting palette. My hero actually uses the split complementary colours.
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This is because evil characters use darker colours are often depicted as evil characters due to the fact darkness flows with in you and the battle of light and dark, which is why good characters use lighter colours.
Questionnaire
This is the answers to the question about what people expect to see in an RPG. I have already included the RPG classes and I have included medieval armour so that is the medieval styles of clothing. I will use this infomation
This is the outcome to the second question and what locations should I add. So I will try to update my map to have those locations. But I shall also use these locations to add clothes to my characters.
I asked if an underdog story would best fit an RPG, half the people said maybe, maybe because they couldn't imagine it but some people said yes, so I could do a rags design for my hero and start them start of in the slums.
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This question was only for the people who answered no to the previous question. I asked them what they thought would be a good story and I quite like the idea of the riches to rags redemption, maybe we start the character off as a king or something and he loses his throne to the main villain
This question shows that furry games are not well known and hardly anyone knows any. This is shown through the fact over 3 quarters of the people said no.
This question was only given to the people who does know about furry games. I asked this questions so I could further my research. However when researching the games, none of them really connected to the genre I was aiming for.
This question was asking people what they think the furry community is, and most people have done their research themselves and have heard of the furry community in some way. This helps when I go to show the furries and for them to chose which style the like more.
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This was the feedback for my Lucky headshots and clothes, I wanted eye patch to get the most votes with the forest clothes. However this was not the case and instead the normal design had the most votes along with the desert clothes.
This question was to find out which forest design they liked better only if they had chosen the forest design in the previous question. Some people however didn't follow this and chose the design anyway which was ok, not a major thing I could still use their votes if forest design did win. I really wanted black to win and luckily black has the most votes.
This was to get feedback on my mini boss Xavier. My favourite design was the patch head with cloak and luckily that was what had the most votes.
Finally, this was to get feedback on my Chronos head and his clothes. My favourite by far was this character and my favourite designs was the scar and blind eye with the thorned armour and most people agreed with me because they voted that as what they thought were best.
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I will use this information along with the canvas size to create the final art pieces.
Presentation
I think my powerpoint is very planned out, it has bullet points so I am not reading directly from the powerpoint, and I can effectively show off my idea and present/pitch it well. If I were to be critical about it, I feel that I could add my own digital art and make it more interesting to look at. I could also show off bits of research I have done. To make the pitch more engaging I could have questions for the audience to think about and answer at the end of the pitch.