I have a particular affinity to still life, hands, and the idea of the "awesome in the ordinary." I'm really tired of all the "super cool," "super macho," and "super sexy" characters that overpopulate our media. And I'm quite sick of the mass media concept of an adventure which include an excess of explosions, guns, magic, and jumping out of fast moving vehicles. I believe real stories and real characters can be so utterly silent and happen so quickly that it takes a bit of redefining and slowing down to remember them.
So hows this for a set of main characters? Since I first got my N.E.S. as a child and played Super Mario Brothers 3 with my brother, heros, in my mind, come in pairs. If you have ever read any of my writing, it's obvious that I only write from my own experiences. This tends to make all of my main characters me. So it's no surprise to me that the main characters of GuitaRPG will be two characters that resemble my brother and me (and maybe my sister somewhere down the line). When was the last time you saw a pair of Black main characters in your games? Let alone ones with normal hair cuts, and normal clothes. I'm even keeping our glasses. I want to communicate to the player, or the onlooker, that the material in this game isn't created from a stretch of the imagination. Though it may be packaged in an unconventional way, it's all stuff from my life. I don't think I could tell a story using real music without being real in this regard as well.
3 comments:
I think its quite unusual the approach you are wanting to take. I don't know how your idea/story board is planning out but I feel like you are going to "real world" with it? Was that your original approach? I mean, its possible to produce fictional characters who have the experiences and trials that you've gone through without replicating yourself. In that note, I think its fine that you yourself would be one character, but from just looking at the picture without reading your text, I thought it was two of the same people. (I mean yes, you guys are brothers and look similar to a point.) But I feel you should emphasize more distinction in both characters. Basing your game from your experiences is good and has merits, I just hope some fictional aspects will still be left intact.
On a different note,
Maybe you should have a hot headed spiky haired asian kid just for a friend ;]
Not quite "real world." There will be monsters to fight and caves to explore like in most adventure games.
How distinct was Mario and Luigi in Super Mario Brothers? Really, the only difference between them was a color change. I'd rather let the story, narrative, and most importantly the music characterize the characters.
I didn't feel like going with the... "that one's this way because he wears that shirt and has those colored glasses." I wanted to pull attention away from the characters and focus more on their roles and actions within the game world.
Oh, that's.... one spiky haired Asian kid coming right up.
I like your images, but even if you're going to use ordinary characters, I think you might want to inflict some degree of "stylisation".
One suggestion, would be to look at anime. I don't mean the typical, gun slinging, hyper-awesome anime but stuff with more ordinary characters like Pat Labor or something.
Or even take a look at some comic book styles and combine that with your charcoal and painting.
I like the direction you're heading but think you need a more defined style.
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