When it comes to designing my characters and icons, I need to make sure that every clothing choice, pose and every facial detail helps craft a story. While I am now able to see the design in which my audience wish to see, that being Overwatch character style and Rainbow Six Siege icons, I must ensure that this is not sacrificed in a way that does not allow me to express the personality and attitude of the character, something that I mainly need to display in the Avatar creation. This is where my Iconography blog can assist me.
First, I must define what Iconography actually is, in terms of art and creation. Iconography is the use of traditional symbols to symbolise a concept or meaning. For example, in Overwatch, the character Reaper is seen as a mass murderer who is deadly at a mere touch. This fright and evil is shown through his dark colour combination and his grim reaper style clothing choice. For my actual Icons that will be incredibly important, I must ensure to create something that relates to the character with a simple image. An example of this relation is Sledge’s Icon in Rainbow Six Siege, in which his icon is that of a smashed wall next to a sledgehammer, his signature weapon.
In terms of movies or films, Iconography becomes redundant when the actual character is shown on screen or on all marketing. This means that they will never have to reference the character or what his background is due to the high viewership and general openness of the character. In games however, Iconography is one of the best ways to secure your games public reception while also helping the marketing. While I mention marketing, I don’t mean that I intend to sell my product, what I am doing is thinking from the standpoint of the viewers watching the Exodus games (This is the name of what the games are actually called inside the story of my game) who will not be able to keep up with what everyone is doing inside the arena. Therefore I need to make sure that I take a more branding style approach to these Icons, such as Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 unique brand but in a more visual sense than name tag.
A perfect example of Iconography in media is within the My Hero Academia manga which is a story of Heros with a more educational setting. The character Katsuki Bakugo is a hot headed Hero in training who has major anger issues that sometimes brings into play his reasons to why he wants to help people. His superpower is the ability to create explosions from his palms which help his aggressive fighting style while also fitting his personality. The place in which Iconography enters is his suit design and personal look.
While he may look like a normal average student with no real meaning behind any choice, you are able to see the style in which his hair is designed. The explosive like look is the first piece of foreshadowing of his explosive nature. Next we move on to his suit. Straight away you notice the colour choices of black, green and orange each having a link to military explosive like weaponry. His best piece of armour is the Grenade bracers he wears on his arms. Not only is the utility explained for these but the art reflects so much of the character. The grenade fits perfectly for his explosive quirk while also displaying the perfect explanation for his character design.
This is something I need to take into account when creating my own characters. While having the blast full hair is a cool look. I need to make sure that it makes sense for my character to have it. With this understanding I feel confident in my ability to produce a product that has sufficient iconography and will allow me to express personality through my characters to avoid the scary blank slate that I intend to miss.
Final Major Project Year Two 