BA3: Contextual Studies.

Contextual Studies: Character Comparisons.

For Contextual studies we where set the task to take 2 characters from games (ideally characters with a story attached to them) and compare them, taking into account their traits and any cultural references. To make a more noticeable comparison I chose a character with a good storyline which has a lot of cross-overs with historical time periods and stays true to those times and my other character is someone with no historical or cultural background and a poor back and main storyline.

Ezio Auditore Da Firenze.

Ezio is a character with a very large story, his story spreads across 3 games (Assassins Creed 2, Assassins Creed: BrotherHood and Assassins Creed: revelations) He also has a animated short which portrays his life as a retired man who dies happily. This means we get almost a whole lifetime with this character to see them grow and have attachment to any adventures he has been in. Here is a brief overview of the character taken from the Official Assassins Creed Wiki. Ezio Auditore da Firenze (1459 – 1524) was a Florentine nobleman during the Renaissance, and, unbeknownst to most historians and philosophers, the Mentor of the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins, a title which he held from 1503 to 1512. He is also an ancestor to William and Desmond Miles, as well as Clay Kaczmarek. A member of the House of Auditore, Ezio remained unaware of his Assassin heritage until the age of 17, when he witnessed the hanging of his fatherand two brothers, Federico and Petruccio. Forced to flee his birthplace with his remaining family members - his mother and sister - Ezio took refuge in the Tuscan town of Monteriggioni, at the Villa Auditore.After learning of his heritage from his uncle, Mario Auditore, Ezio began his Assassin training and set about on his quest for vengeance against theTemplar Order, and their Grand Master, Rodrigo Borgia, who had ordered the execution of his kin. During his travels, Ezio managed to not only unite the pages of the Codex, written by Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Mentor of the Levantine Assassins, but also to save the cities of Florence, Venice, and Rome from Templar rule. He ensured the future travels of Christoffa Corombo to the "New World", liberated Rome from Borgia rule, and prevented the rise to power of Ercole Massimo's Cult of Hermes, helping spread the Renaissance and Assassin ideals of independence and free will throughout Italy. In the years that followed, Ezio began a quest to rediscover the lost history of the Order. Traveling to the aged fortress of Masyaf in order to learn more of the Assassins before him, he discovered it overrun with Templars and made his way to the city of Constantinople to uncover the location of theMasyaf keys which, as he discovered, would unlock the fortress's fabled hidden library when brought together. A decade later, Ezio had retired and resided in a Tuscan villa with his wife, Sofia Sartor, and his two children; Flavia and Marcello. Some time after helping teach the Chinese Assassin Shao Jun the ways of the Order, Ezio died of a heart attack at the age of 65, during a visit to Florence with his wife and daughter. This shows that his story has a actual time period and is set in spain during these centuries. In the games we see large references to people in the time period, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Giovanni Mocenigo, Andrea Del Verrocchio, The Templars and The Borgia. But enough about other characters, Ezio was designed to fit in this time period and every elements of him, from his outfit and weapons to his personality fits the time period almost perfectly and creates a very believable character even though he's been made up and dumped into a world of real 15th century characters. 

Chuck Greene.

Chuck Greene is the main character in Dead Rising 2. He is at the complete other end of the scale to Ezio in that he isn't in any time period with any real cultural influences. He's also in a world that's not overly expansive as is mainly just filled with shopping complexes and roads. He's also only in this one game so has no long-term attachment properties like other characters. Here's a brief over-view (as before) from the Official Dead Rising Wiki. Former Motocross champion, Chuck Greene is the reluctant hero and protagonist of Dead Rising 2: Case Zero, Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Case West, a psychopath in the non-canon game Dead Rising 2: Off the Record, and a character in Dead Rising 3. He is the loving father of the infected, but precious, Katey Greene. Since he was forced to do repairs on his own bike, he is extremely resourceful and can be considered the ultimate handyman. Due to this big advantage, Chuck can create unique weapons out of everyday items to wreak havoc on the zombie population. At one point, Chuck Greene was a married man, but his wife was zombified during the events of "The Las Vegas Outbreak" which preceded the events of Case Zero. The identity of Chuck's wife had been unknown until 2011 when Capcom and IDW Publishing announced a comic book series in development called Dead Rising: Road to Fortune. The series has shed light upon the mysterious Pam Greene, Chuck's wife and Katey's mother. It also tells the story of why the Greene family had been in Las Vegas during the initial outbreak which ultimately changed their lives forever, and created the unbreakable bond between Chuck and Katey. As you can see straight off the overview of this character is much shorter, this is because he doesn't have much of a story at all. Where Ezios description was very much cut down of his character and adventures this has been hardly cut down at all,  there is just that little about this character. The main character is some flashy, showy motorbike rider (who wears a jacket like a cheap kill-bill rip-off) who ended up in a zombie apocalypse, whilst every other character is running around scared and having bad things happen to them this character remains un-afraid and during the game seems almost invincible to zombie attacks, going against them with just a teddy-bear or something highly un-believable. Not only is he pretty emotionless and plays in a very un-realistic way, even in high pressure environments, but the only real emotion you see is in his connection to his little girl. This little girl is a girl who's only real part in the story is to be left for half the game only to return to her after a certain amount of game play time with some anti-virus to make sure she doesn't turn (as she's already infected). This makes the only depth of this character something that is pretty pointless as this girl and the father don't have any dark, emotional traumas in a clearly traumatic environment. A good comparison of how father daughter connections should be in a zombie based game is 'The Walking Dead' as it's characters are all believable and have genuine zombie-related traumas to adjust their humanity.

CS: Story Time.

We were set the task to create a 500 word narrative which included the characters created during a quick group task. For this group task we where put into groups of five and played the 'Monster Drawing Game'. This game is a very simple game in which the aim is to play with a selection of people (ideally 3-6) and each person designs a body section of the monster without knowing what other sections of the body look like. This is achieved by folding the paper over into sections with rough lines following onto the next persons section to act as guides to ensure the parts connect together. We had about 2 minutes each to sketch a quick section of the monster, fold it over and pass it to the next person. By the end each of us had a monster which each person in the group had drawn a section from, we then un-folded the paper and reviewed the creation we started. This was now our Monster and each of us had to implement this monster/ character into a narrative. The idea behind creating the narrative was to fit into a theory known as 'Structuralism' which was a theory created from Vladimir Propp (1895-1970). Propp’s method is driven by the central idea that a study and analysis of folktales can be made ‘according to the functions of its dramatis personae’. This means that every character or even object can be put into one of these categories:

- The villain.
- The donor.
- The helper.
- The princess, and her father.
- The dispatcher.
- The hero (seeker-hero, victim hero).
- The false hero. 

These are known as 'spheres of action' as they are actions which can categorize any persons. 
With all this information and a created, horrifying, being (Below) it was time to create my narrative. 

Prologue. 

I started coming up with a story to fit the creation and the spheres into and I ended coming up with a bit more then planned. My story had quite a lot of back-story based strongly around my character (the king of today) which is a big part of the story that the hero would be embarking on. Therefore I decided to write a prologue and then the 500 word narrative I would write will have a back-story and something to lead onto, These is a story wrote down by my character who is reading the tale to the hero of my main story. I also did another illustration of the monster we created.

Translation:

The Battle for Terimore.

      At first there was nothing. The world was a hollow shell filled with darkness and malicious intent. But then three strange crystals started to grow upon the land, these spread out from the soul of the crystals, each of the three crystals bringing new life with it. The first of the crystals came to be called ‘the crystal of growth.’ This crystal brought solid land, mountains and lush growth to the land. The second we know as ‘the crystal of clarity’. This one filled up the land with water and surrounded the land in a blue abyss filled with clouds which leaked upon the earth, feeding the growth. The final of the crystals is argued as one of the most powerful but without any one of them the rest would surely die, this was named ‘the crystal of spirit’. This crystal is the beating heart of the land, it brought life to the still land and started to grow creatures upon the surface. 

       We were among the first to come to the land and were created near the soul of the spirit crystal where the power is at its strongest, because of this not only did we develop physically quicker than the rest of the world, we also gained knowledge faster than those other creatures evolving around the land. My people saw it fit to look over the souls of the crystals and use our advanced physical size and knowledge to protect the land from any ill intent and for a while this worked. A few centuries past and the knowledge had expanded so much that my people became curious about the crystals; particularly my father and his best comrade, a very powerful sorcerer called Arlaag. They thought if they could take what they’d learnt from the crystals and develop their own crystal, combining the power of all three, they’d have an un-limited way of renewing the land no-matter what future dark creatures threatened it. My father and Arlaag started to develop their ideas under the great mountain Terimore, hidden away from others of the world, taking essence from each crystals soul and combining it with the power and knowledge contained in Arlaags’ soul a new crystal was forged. However this crystal was un-like the others, the crystal slowly spread and brought darkness to the land and spawned horrid corrupted creatures. 

      Arlaag aware of what he had created spent the next few months in Terimore, under protection of a few kings’ guards, trying to destroy the soul of the crystal whilst it was still weak and the spread was still minimum. As time went by Terimore became filled with more and more terrible creatures and Arlaag took with him more and more guards. My father (the king) did not see an end to this crystals power and feared for his people- with this fear came a terrible idea, one he quickly abandoned not knowing then it may have saved his people. The crystal was spawned from Arlaags’ soul, perhaps the death of his dear friend would cause the crystal to lose all its power, or at least become weak enough to be easily destroyed. But by the time the king realised there may be truth in this idea and it was the only way it was too late, Arlaag had become completely consumed by the crystals corruption along with all the kings’ guards in Terimore. My father knew now he must go to war on the creatures surrounding Terimore and destroy Arlaags soul. 

      The war was not a spectacular one, many of my father’s men died as they were no match for the corrupted elite guard of the king or the new creatures spawning from Terimores’ darkness. I went into battle with my father and together we fought our way into the hostile depths of the mountain but it was no use, most of the men had died or retreated and those that where left where exhausted and wounded.  Still my father valiantly fought on but to him those corrupted dark guards were still his closest and best guard, men he’d fought with for years, he could not beat the grief building up inside of him and he hesitated. With this hesitation he was killed brutally before my very eyes by the men he loved. Powered by grief and anger I thought on, determined to kill that. But it was no good, my narrow-mindedness made me un-aware of other guards and as I slayed the guard responsible for his death my other lower arm was cut off, shortly followed by a heavy blow in the side by another guard’s great hammer and that was it… I was dying, and yet I didn’t mind, for without my father and with this crystal still full of power what was the point? However those of my father’s men that where left saw this act of courage (or stupidity) and came to my aid, they pushed back the dark guards and retreated back with my crippled body to safety.

       My upper arm was amputated and my crushed side was held in place with the supportive frame you see on me now, the sorcerers left of us imbued the supportive spheres down my side with an enchantment which created an illusionary hand so I was still able to fight. But I dare never go back to Terimore, it was hopeless before and the crystal has only grown in power since. The world is now a hostile, dark place filled with daemons and dark guards doing as they will. This is the world we must all live in now, I wish it could be another way. 

CS: Presentation.

For this Contextual Studies we are not doing the usual routine of writing a essay. This is a far more visual project which requires us to create a character based off 'Salman Rushdie: Haroun And The Sea Of Stories.' First we choose a character represented in the book and using a mixture of the description, researches design our own visual image of this character. I have chose a young girl who is pretending to be a man so she could be a soldier (page) in the Gup City army (Library), her name is 'Blabbermouth' (A Gup City unisex name) . I chose her as she had not only a lot of character but she sounded like she had a very interesting design and as a character she has a lot of cultural background surrounding her being a suppressed girl. She has a lot of sas' and always a lot to say on any matter, but is as brave and smart as soldiers come, she won't back down from a argument and tends to enjoy being in one. She reminded me a lot of the story of Mulan (Disney) so I have briefly looked at references from that to see how she hid the fact she was a girl to join the army. Below you can see a mood-board with all the main pieces I researched into. It's also covered in quotes of Blabbermouths descriptions taken from the book.

Once I'd collected all my research I started to do my first rough design for Blabbermouth, paying close attention to book descriptions and any references. I done some scrawling around the sketch to show the pieces and how they relate to the book. I've also shown how the tunic works as it's covered by a lot of clutter in the image and I waned to show the way it looks like a book and is rectangular as that was a large feature in the book we read. 

From this I made a simple digital painting in Photoshop. Once I'd created my first draft I sent my design to my partner for this project (John Reardon) for some feed-back so I could take on any of his suggestions and implement them. After a bit of discussing we decided that the hat looked too much like a 'Trucker Style Cap' and it was a bit to 'Gangsta' which wasn't really the look I was going for. During my research I did research into a more rounded topped velvet cap so I used more this design for the cap and also added a feather being held under the badge to make it more of a Tudor feel design as the rest of my armour was very Tudor influenced. I sent this design off to John again and we discussed it some more and a good point was raised that even though I took note that Blabbermouth was not much older than Haroun she looked rather old in the design. The bulky armour doesn't help make the character look any younger so I enlarged the head slightly and added rose cheeks and freckles to give a more child-like image. These are my first 3 variants I ended up with for my character design. 

Now I'm happy with the sort've design I wish to carry into my final I went and created a concept sheet for my idea of 'Blabbermouth'. As well as the shaded design I also done a rough sketch of what blabbermouth looked like under the tunic to give some more depth and realism behind my character. this also enabled me to show a close up of how the tunic will actually look on library pages. I also designed a sword based around a bookmark image which is sheathed inside a long and thin book.