Semester 2 W3 | Character Design + UI Design Consideration

A story is no story without its protagonist and antagonists, I started to create the character design with the accumulative thoughts of recent trends and past favorite movie characters. I attempted to develop character design last semester and came up with a character that was inspired by Sakura from Naruto Shippuden and Danny Phanthom. The reason behind was that Sakura has very prominent features and her figure was signifying someone that is strong and brave. Danny Phantom's clothing was ideal to the cyber world to me and I think that a jumpsuit attire is quite suitable for the storyline.

The image below is the first attempt in character design of the Player. The hair is inspired by Sakura and green is the colour that fits the scene and its a colour that I really want to emphasize. Hair streaks are also inspired by Tiktok Hair trend where the front hair is lighter than the back. On the left is her normal office attire before she enters the cyber dive, and on the right is her cyber dive attire. The design is alright but I think it can be much more improved as this is only the first sketch.

I further improved the character and gave her more detailed features for example, the highlights and shadow on her hair are more refined. I gave her red under eyes to add some "spice" into the design. I also added a "Tattoo/marker" on her face to signify that she is actually one with the silent heroes but she has yet to know what it means as she is still new to the field and just starting out as a content moderator. The initials SH stands for Silent Heroes. The normal office attire is more formal as compared to the previous design, a button up shirt and a pencil skirt. As for the cyber dive attire, it is more inspired by TRON Legacy, a jumpsuit with line design.

SILENT HEROES DESIGN

Silent Heroes design are based off silhouettes in various body shapes to suggest variety. The reason to this is that the silent heroes will be in large quantities and this silhouette style will be easier to interpret and create. The yellow gradient is signifying transparency as well so when the character is implemented in the scene, it will add a touch of depth.

UI CONSIDERATION

As of the UI consideration, the grabbing and gazing Ui should have a timer so that users are more alert to the experience and allow them to know what to do next. The arrows can indicate the direction they should be looking if actions are delayed. Lastly, this is a late addition to the idea but the view of users can be of a user interface of a headset being in use, it makes the whole experience of "diving into the cyberspace" more realistic. An example of this will be as the photo below:

The silhouette of the headset UI is a nice touch to the experience and it also clearly let the users know whether they are in the cyberspace or not. For example, if the headset UI is not seen, it means the player is out of the cyberspace scene.

Indications such as this photo will be a nice touch to show on the headset UI too, makes the world more futuristic.

Lastly, the UI design will be leaning more to this style, more mecha and details instead of the old design where it is much more simpler. This new design is expected to be more clean and has more details, a design that can scream science fiction.