Character Design - Task 1: Personification

on
24/09/25-22/10/25 (Week 1 - Week 4)
Samuel Keane / 0376236
Character Design / Bachelors of Design (Honors) in Creative Media
Task 1: Personification

JUMPLINKS

1. LECTURES

LECTURES

Lectures were given in class.

    INSTRUCTIONS

    TASK

    Task 1: Personification

    Concept World Creation

    I have been interested with punk-oriented, grind fiction narrative which can be seen on franchises such as Cyberpunk, FLCL, Persona, Gachiakuta, etc. I also am fond of post-apocalyptic and dystopian stories. For this module, I will not be using a pre-existing franchise as a base for my character, instead I am going to build my own world called Photosynth.

    My character will be set in a city called Oasis, the capital city of Jiwan, a city where the rich keeps on turning richer and the poor will always be poor. It is a paradise for the corpos and hell for the rejects. Just like how punk stories start, the character that I will be making is a poor kid who wants to survive in the harsh society he lives in.

    Fig. 3.1, Moodboard & Visual References

    Click here to learn more about the world.

    Ideation & Backstory

    The idea us to make my character a quiet and strong leader of a small punk group that live together as a family in the slums of Oasis. However, before all this happened, he is just a loud and noisy punk kid that joined another group of punk. The backstory I came up with showcases how he went from being a loud and aggresive punk, into a more calm and collected.

    Name: Sorin Kim
    Species: Human (Bloomed)
    Age: 21
    Weight: 68 kg
    Height: 174 cm
    Alignment: Chaotic Good

    Sorin Kim was born into a lower class family. His parents were Workers, ration-bound citizens scraping by under Joylink’s control. Every night, Sorin watched the silver tower from afar, dreaming of reaching its top and giving his parents the life they deserved.That dream burned away when Joylink escorts came to their sector. His parents were “reassigned” to Eden, promised stable work and comfort. They never returned. Records vanished, neighbors stayed silent, and soon their names were forgotten, except by Sorin.

    Years later, he broke curfew and slipped into the inner city, desperate to find them. The air near the tower shimmered with chemical fog, remnants of Ova Delta 8, the bioweapon that caused the Blooming. The fumes filled his lungs, his skin cracked and glowed with green veins. He had bloomed.The Cherubs detected his Linkfit signal before it got jammed. Joylink’s enforcers came swiftly, branding him a contaminant and torching his block. His home was gone in an instant. But before the flames claimed him, a group of rogue Florists dragged him to safety: the Dead Signals.

    Led by Shin, a white-haired fighter whose heat could melt steel, the group of Rejects lived in the southern ruins, stealing rations, sabotaging Eden’s systems, and helping the forgotten survive. Among them were Jayden, a sharp-tongued brawler who could multiply himself mid-fight, Isabelle, an agile contortionist with a quiet smile, and the twins, Yujin and Doyoon. For a while, they were his new family. They left marks of hope across the city, graffiti that read “WE STILL BLOOM.”

    Then came the sanitation sweeps. Joylink declared their sector unfit for habitation and razed it overnight. Fire took everything again. Shin, Jayden, Isabelle, Yujin, and Doyoon were all gone. Only Sorin survived, half-buried in ash and loss.For the next few years, Sorin made new friends. Dom, Erika, Mi Yun are the victims of the sanitation sweep that happened 2 years ago. They all have the same goal in mind, to take down the company.

    Visual References

    Sorin is a quiet and calm leader of a punk group. So, I took references from Chihiro Rokuhira and Joker from Persona 5 to learn more about the characteristics behind their outfit. Dark and layered clothing. However, I still chose to let a little bit of rebellion in his outfit, so I threw in some punk accessories. 

    Fig. 3.2, Character moodboard

    I decided to make his weapon a katana, because I want to show that the world to be filled with a mix of culture from different region. Besides, who doesn't think katana is cool? I decided to put charms on it, too.

    Fig. 3.3, Weapon moodboard

    Character Study

    I looked up images from Pinterest and Google to look at how characters from these setting would look like.

    Fig. 3.4, Character study

    I tried 3 different style for the character. I designed Outfit 1 to show his quietness through his black outfit, while also showcasing his punk attitude through his bleached buzzcut. Outfit 2, which is actually Sorin’s first design, is rougher, more rebellious, with worn and damaged clothing that reflects everything he has been through while showing that he keeps moving forward. For Outfit 3, I stripped everything down to pure survival, focusing less on style and more on function, showing the version of him that comes out when things get serious and he is fully ready for battle. Long dark hair to show his mysteriousness and the trauma that he went through.

    Fig. 3.4, Costume variatons

    After receiving feedbacks from Mr. Fitri, I decided to combine all of the aspects of both 3 costumes into one full outfit. I changed the denim jacket in outfit 2 into a leather jacket, keep the multiple belts on, and the black shirt combined with a scarf to cover his face to show he is quiet.

    Final Outcome

    Fig. 3.5, Character turnaround

    REFLECTIONS

    I have drawn quite a lot of characters, especially when I was actively playing D&D with my friends throughout my highschool years, but all of that were just for fun. In this task, I learned how to do a character turnaround. It was hard to keep my character's look consistent on every angle.

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