In this class we were mixed with graphic design student from sem 3 and 2 (us) learn the basic on how to design a character, we've been shown a few statistics to show us how important a character design is and how they can live over decades. Then we've been taught about the Pokemons. The lecturer used them to explain to us how to be inspired to create a character. We've studied a few examples such as the literal inspiration, which can be a pokemon made from a cat which looks like a cat but with different colors, then we've studied the anthropomorphic type where we've been showed the example of an ice cream pokemon, then the zoomorphic, which is taken from reference from the nature, some pokemon inspired from different cultures and pokemon inspired from combinations of several things.
From then we were divided into different groups including the graphic design from sem 3 and we had to work together to design a character with an interesting background.
The first inspiration we had was from my country Mauritius where there was this mountain called Pieter Both which had the shape of a person sitting on the top. So there was a local myth surrounding this mountain which the elders use to tell to the kids, which claims that there was a mischievous kid who was told to stay away from the mountain, since it had monsters on it, but the kid since he wouldn't listen to any rules he went there anyway and he met a witch who turned him into the stone figure on top of the mountain.
My first proposal was 2 pokemon, one that looks like a small kid which a mischievous expression but who evolves into a stone creature, but my group eventually decided that we will do only the stone pokemon instead of showing the evolution and we decided to base ourselves more on suggestions rather than on a finish pokemon.
The first idea was a direct inspiration from the mountain itself, It has the shape of the mountain and with pieces of sticks with leaves coming out of it to represent the trees on the mountain. Then we added to big strong arms and hands to show how strong it is, it had to be strong since a mountain is a hard giant standing on each lands, and of course it had no legs and it uses it's hands to move.
Then from one of our member we decided that we can do a combination of this inspiration and one from chinese culture, where there's a god called Sun Wukong, which is depicted as a god riding a cloud, he is usually depicted as a strong old figure. Since he rides a cloud adding his features to the pokemon it could suggest the quality of the height of a mountain. So my second proposal was a pokemon with an old face to represent the face of that god and using the similar features from the first idea, the rocky strong body, the sticks and leaves and it's actually floating over a cloud just like the god Sun Wukong, to make it more interesting we made the face of the pokemon to float over a cloud as well.
The third idea was from a member in the group which suggest a quite interesting concept of like a pokemon with a shell that looks like the mountain with the shape of the boy sitting. However the living part is inside and we haven't designed it, but I actually prefer it like this since it gives the creature a more mysterious personality and again the design of this shelled pokemon represent the part of the story where the boy was transformed into stones as if there's still a life beneath the stones.
The forth idea was again from the other members, and this was is again a mixture of the Sun Wukong god and the myth from Pieter Both. So it suggest a rocky character riding a cloud and surrounded with pieces of clouds, to make it even more interesting we decided that we will relate this one to the psychic pokemon type because of the coulds of course but then we thought of not giving this pokemon hands to add some emphasis on the strength of his mental abilities.
The fifth idea was from another member too and it suggest the idea of the little mischievous boy before he was transformed into stones. His body itself looks like a kid and he has an innocent face to represent his ignorance towards what awaits him if he keep on doing what he is told not to do. His head has some rocky features to relate back to the mountain.
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