Research: Antagonist Characters (Using culture to Influence Design)

For the Antagonist characters during the dream sequences, I decided to focus my attention on something that was a rapid departure from the protagonist, who will be largely Human-based if not entirely. When brainstorming ideas and concepts, I really enjoyed the idea of Japanese Mythology and wanted to combine that idea to create something unique. Keeping with the theme of Japan and the Shogun, I went and also researched Samurai. The Samurai would often create masks and armour that would be practical while also often resembling Animals and spirits. I thought that I may be able to combine these two ideas. I created two Moodboards, one for Japanese mythological creatures and the other for various samurai attire.

The first mood board is a showcase of various interpretations of Japanese Myths and creatures within them. Many of the designs were often bipedal but the body of the characters do not conform to the basic human anatomy. This is good because it should be helpful when creating a distinct silhouette for the character, that will make the character stand out from the other characters around it. I particularly liked the first image on the board, the additional limbs, combined with the sort of mythical/ horror vibe worked really well for me.

In the second mood board, I created was all about samurai armour, The most noticeable aspects of the armour were the Helmets and masked with there large decorations on them, and also the broad plates of armours, as well as the iconic samurai sword. When I am designing my characters I want to focus on creating a creature that design will incorporate these ideas, and if ideally, they can be an organic part of the creature, rather than a set of armour it is wearing, I think that would be particularly cool. 

To begin the designs of this character, I began with thumbnail stick figures and silhouette drawings, focusing on tweaking the anatomy and giving it a distinctive and striking statue. Once the initial sketches were done I created another set of sketches, taking bits and pieces from my favourite thumbnail sketches and combining them into character while trying to keep that shape distinctive and unique.

Once I had created 5 final silhouettes I selected 4 and went back into them, adding some very basic details, trying to work out how they would look beyond just the silhouette.  Designs 1 and 4 immediately took my interest, and a quick pass around and feedback session revealed to me that these two designs were, in fact, the favourites. I plan on doing several variants based on each of the two final designs, focusing on things such as facial features, clothing, colour palette and other such things to create a final design for these two characters.