This week i started my second rotation, game design. I’m very excited about this rotation because i enjoy character design, and it’s involved a lot here. I’m not really considering going in to game art in the future, but i’m sure i’ll learn valuable skills here.

Our task is to create a character design for one of the seven deadly sins, starting with research and 8 rough silhouettes influenced by the research. I knew right away that i either wanted to choose sloth or lust, so i looked at these two sins in particular detail.

I started with general secondary research about the sins, to grasp an understanding of their origins. According to ‘psychology today’ (link https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-red-light-district/202002/where-did-the-7-deadly-sins-come), the sins are rooted in Christianity, and have gone through many different meanings and amounts of sins to become the 7 deadly sins known currently. Each sin was associated with an animal and a punishment; http://www.deadlysins.com/sloth says that sloth’s animal is a goat and it’s punishment is being thrown in to a pit of snakes in hell, while lust’s animal is a cow and it’s punishment is burning in hellfire and brimstone. Each sin is also associated with a colour; light blue for sloth and regular blue for lust.

I also found out that there are specific demons associated with the sins; Asmodeus is a demon associated with lust, and Belphegor is a demon associated with sloth. By now i was leaning more toward sloth, so i looked more into Belphegor; according to https://mythology.net/demons/belphegor/, belphegor is a former angel, and a sinister demon who lures people into adultery and procrastination. He’s an unpleasant demon, often pictured with a gaping mouth, horns, leathery skin and sharp teeth.

I created a moodboard for the sin of sloth before starting on my silhouettes, to get some inspiration and ideas from other artists that would influence my design. I noticed that most things associated with sloth and the night time are round in shape, and use a variety of blues, greens and yellows.

Finally, i started on my silhouettes. I thought of what i usually do while procrastinating; i usually stay in my bed with my phone or other distracting things. Because of this i wanted to portray sloth in pajamas, looking lazy and a bit out of it. I tried to avoid energetic poses; i avoided anything too dynamic, mostly going for yawning poses or more simple ones. I wanted to make my character cute, but i wanted to keep some of the demonic elements without them feeling out of place, so i added small horns and tails to most of my designs. i made all of my designs either feminine or more androgynous looking, because Belphegor would usually appear to humans as a young girl. I also gave some characters very long and large arms/hands, to represent the sloth animal a little. I contemplated adding snakes to my designs in reference of the punishment for sloth, but i avoided this because i feel like snakes are more often recognized as a symbol of envy, and i didn’t want an overlap of concepts. I also tried to include mostly round and floppy shapes in my silhouettes, because they feel less energetic and sharp than sharp lines and shapes.

There are a few features in paricular that i think i’ll carry over into my rough designs; i like the motif of clouds for the character, because they remind me of dreams and imagery associated with sleeping. i also like the moon as a piece of imagery, and i like the z-shaped tail i gave to some of the characters, as sleeping is often represented by the lettr z (zzz), and the tail corners contrast well with the rounder lines on other parts of the designs.

Overall i’m happy with my end result; i have a rough idea for what i’d like the character to look like, and i think it’s clear from looking at the image that i chose the sin of sloth. My next step will be considering what subtle details outside of the outline/shape of the character i can include to reference symbols associated with sloth in my design.