On Show

Georgina Rose Carpenter

BA [Hons] 3D Design Modelmaking + Digital Art

I'm Georgina Carpenter. I'll be graduating from IADT with a degree in 3D Design, Model making & Digital Art. My particular interests are character design, world building, and creating and texturing digital assets. I felt inspired to make a story heavy project with a focus on character design from playing Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. I have been enamoured with the medium of video games ever since I was little, and so I thought this would be the perfect medium to bring my story to life.

Conceptual poster design for the games release. It features the main character: The peryton with the shadow of the player character underneath. This hints at one of the main plot points of the story, as the peryton shows the shadow of the being it last consumed the heart of.

The main character model for this project: The Peryton. To keep the character detailed but low on resource consumption, I first made a low poly model. I would then sculpt a high poly version and bake the normal map onto the low poly version.

Design sheet for the Peryton, this was used for sculpting in 3DsMax and ZBrush.

I studied how bird feathers are layered when designing this character. Even though he is a fantasy beast, I wanted to structure his design on real creatures.

The peryton sitting and enjoying the sun

I made a quick little animation in 3DsMax for the Peryton sitting by the logs.

Concept design sheet for the barn. I have always adored when environmental storytelling is used in games, and so I wanted to do the same with the barn design. The large ribs making up the roof gives the player a hint that larger beasts roam the world, and gives a mystery on how this one died in this area.

One of my hero items for this project: The Rib Roof.

Made to look as though it has been patched with mismatched leathers over the years, it acts as protection for the barns inhabitants.

As well as the peryton and the Rib roof, I also made these items. The player character I made as my initial project a few months prior. All other items were either free or pay to use assets from Megascans and the Epic store.

A quick run through of the environment. The landscape was sculpted and painted by myself using textures and foliage from megascans.

Creature Creche

I have always had a deep love for video games, character designs and mythology, and so I decided to bring all of these together in my final year project.
Following the classic trope of the player starting as a simple farmhand, the game starts out in a barn. However this houses mythical creatures instead of the stereotypical farm animals.
I wish for this project to act as a mini portfolio of my work for my applications to work in the video game industry as an asset creator, concept artist, or character/creature designer.

Thesis: Character design in video games; an examination of its role in contemporary culture

Since their inception in the 1950s, the video game industry has grown to become a mainstream form of entertainment, particularly during the 2020 pandemic. This study investigates the character designs of video game protagonists, and how they have evolved over the industry’s lifetime. Specifically, it analyses character designs in relation to gender representation, racial diversity and sexuality. These topics are discussed alongside themes such as the male gaze, hegemonic masculinity, and immersion potential for minorities. The objective of this dissertation is in finding solutions to this exclusionary element in character design in the video game industry, and how to further diverse representation in the medium.
To accomplish this, several video game protagonists from different periods have been selected for case studies. An investigation into their creation, reception, and how they influenced the industry is explored in order to ascertain the significance of their role in contemporary culture. In doing so, an exploration into the statistics of video game developers and how they relate to the diversity of video game protagonists is executed.
This analysis will uncover whether the correlation between the identities of video game developers and the protagonists in video games have directly correlated as the workforce has evolved. This thesis will outline evidence to support the presented arguments, and will suggest possible causes and solutions to this growing divide in the social inequalities within roles of video game design and development