Joanna Krystyna Nowicka BA Graphic & Media Design Growing up, I have adored watching cartoons and playing games. I always looked up to the characters, imitated their outfits, looked for myself in them. I started watching anime and playing more games hoping to find myself in there, but instead, I found men. Every type of a man you can imagine – men of colour, fat men, ugly men. Women were always skinny, pretty, long-legged, fully-breasted with long shiny hair and pecky lips. There were no deep stories behind them, just tits with legs to appeal to the male audience. Sometimes it disgusted me to the point where I completely stopped watching anime and have a very high standard for playing video games now – they have to tick all of my boxes before I even consider trying it. I decided that all the aforementioned things are a problem – I looked into female gaming forums, and discovered that it is not only a problem for me, but also for other women and non-binary people – the lack of representation and relatability. The lack of depth to characters. I decided to explore this in my thesis, of which the topic is: ‘Design of Female Characters in Video Games: Representation and its Role’. Another problem I am currently stumbling upon is the lack of female concept artists and character artists involved in the making of my favourite games or in big companies overall. This whole process is bringing a new perspective for me and my practice, and what I could achieve. When I was doing research for possible references I could not find a single female one after an hour of work, and I thought to myself – ‘No wonder there is barely any diversity in character design if all character designers and concept artists are men’. The first reference I have chosen, painfully, after trying to see if there was any female artists involved in the design process of characters of the Dragon Age franchise, is Matt Rhodes, previous Lead Concept Artist and current Art Director at Bioware. He was heavily involved in making of my favourite titles like Dragon Age and Mass Effect. Focusing on Dragon Age, it is one of the few video games where female characters are not only well-written, but also well-designed. They have specific features, crazy haircuts, and most importantly – no tits on show whatsoever. I have to admit with all the outfit options in-game I even tried to find more scandalous ones, but there is hardly any. Female characters are diverse, have interesting outfits and nudity is an important part of them and serves a purpose, rather than being very mindless. Even then, there is only really two characters within the games (Witch of the Wilds Morrigan and Pirate Captain Isabella) who have skimpy outfits. Early concept art of a character called Merill from Dragon Age: Origins and notably Dragon Age 2. Almost final concept art of aforementioned Witch of the Wilds, Morrigan. She uses her wits and her body – as taught by her mother – to deceive men and get whatever she wants. We meet her with a skimpy outfit, but in another game she is far more covered. My second reference would be an Associate Art Director for Valorant, Larry ‘The Bravo’ Ray. He has been heavily involved in the character design process, most notably of my favourite character of the series – Viper. Her description in the game says: ‘The American chemist, Viper deploys an array of poisonous chemical devices to control the battlefield and cripple the enemy's vision. If the toxins don't kill her prey, her mind games surely will.’ She is mysterious, ruthless, and well-designed. She is considered one of the ‘sexiest’ agents of valorant, probably due to the tight outfit, but I think her design is brilliant and very suiting to her role within the game. It’s air-tight, with useful parts for guns, orbs and whatever else she needs – it looks realistic enough for me not to stop and stare at her assets and think if this could be an actual outfit (if super agents protocol like this existed, of course). This project has given me a whole new perspective on character design and concept art, and definitely motivated me to try my best with it so I can be the part of the change – so I can draw relatable characters, fat women, non-binary characters, everything that is hard to see in current times. Research showed me how much armoured bikinis there really are, and how disgusted that makes me and other women. How I just want women in cool agent outfits that don't show off their bosoms and assets, and with cool guns and cool combat shoes that are not heels.
It hurts my soul my favourite artists are men, and although that is not inherently a bad thing, it definitely shows the industry is non-representative of real life and also of the characters being designed. I wanna change that and this project allows me to take a leap of faith, take a risk and do something that I was always scared to do before and I did not believe I could actually do – design characters. I hope that in a few years, there will be teenagers looking and interacting with my work and being able to relate to it. That is my ultimate goal in my career, and has been throughout my personal, bodypositive art, and this Self-Initiated Project is a start of another part of it. Thank you for reading!
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