Character's and art styles from various games.

Character designs and their art styles.

Characters can be made with various styles of art that can create various different tones, ranging from comical, comic book like, to the more serious or dramatically exaggerated and even some impressionism elements, here I'm going to discuss their differences, similarities and ties to art styles and whether they fit the general tone of the game.

Firstly, there's Handsome Jack.

A quick note before I talk about the character, the definition of cell shading is a type of rendering often used to make an image look 2-d or comic book like.





Handsome Jack is a cell shaded character with brilliant writing and a very "screw you I'm going to win and insult you along the way" attitude.
His cell shading isn't just unique to him though, the entire staple of the Borderlands franchise is a solid loot generation system, witty humor in a cell shaded environment.
Between his dialogue and his look you can easily see the contrast between his aesthetic choices and his career, being the CEO of the Hyperion corporation you would imagine that he would be wearing a suit, tie and smart shoes, instead of the over coat, jeans and sneakers, but his character is based on the border planet Pandora a planet filled with raiders, bandits and all forms of creatures, and due to his "illegitimate" means of becoming the CEO his dress choices and character design choices make even more sense, resulting in a brilliant well thought out character that can simultaneously insult you and yet make you love his character.

 Next is Vergil and Dante

For the next characters I picked the "devil trigger mode" version from devil may cry 4 special edition.

Vergil has a very opposite color scheme and weapon choice compared to his brother Dante (as seen below)
Whilst Dante wields Rebellion, a large demonic designed great sword, Vergil wields Yamato, a sleek and fast katana as their main weapons and are always seen carrying them.
Vergil and Dante often have opposite ideals despite being twin but are not past joining up to defeat a greater enemy (like in DmC 3).
Vergil's devil trigger is reminiscent of his father Sparda's demonic appearance, and Dante has more of a moth like appearance whilst still being demonic and intimidating.
The contrasting color schemes are also a brilliant design choice especially during the first encounter where the rain causes Virgil's swept back hair to fall flat and in front of his face, looking identical to his brother Dante, if it weren't for the contrasting colors the two would of been indistinguishable and you wouldn't know who's who.
The characters are designed excellently and each show a bit of their personality through their devil trigger designs, Dante the cool, collected humorous demon hunter and Virgil, the brother who strives for power above all else and believes humans to be a weaker race than demons.
Whilst these particular designs are from DmC 4 Special Edition the attitude and ideology's of the characters stand true for each game they appear in, DmC 1, 2, 3, 4 for Dante and DmC 3, 4 for Vergil, DmC 5 Dante (as seen below) is a little different, showing a younger, more cocky and arrogant Dante rather than the cool and collected Dante people know and love.

After that is Link.

 Link is the main protagonist of the Legend of Zelda franchise, after undergoing several iterations of design over the course of many years, I chose the design for LoZ Skyward Sword, the impressionist style of art fits the entire game as a whole as i believe this is the reason links looks the way he does, the game is quite bright and vivid and lacks any real detail, this is further achieved well with Nintendo's limit on technology us
age for consoles, resulting in games that have to be stunningly beautiful whilst still being within the limits of the console's handling power.
Due to link being mute through out the game, barring groans and screams as he swings his sword. an attitude is something really hard to put to the character, rather making his actions speak for him, as with the staple of the franchise link is blessed with the Tri-force of courage resulting in him saving the princess or helping anybody in need over and over again even against impossible odds. The character is well designed, allowing for maneuverability to not be question whilst still showing some obvious protection in the form of leather boots and chain mail underneath his green tunic.

Next is Guild wars 2

Guild wars has many different classes to choose from (8 currently, 9 on the 23rd of October) I decided to focus on the concept art for the thief class.
As a designed character he has both practical and stylish armor that can easily suit his purpose, due to him being a thief one would expect that he would avoid combat but if he is unfortunate enough to be seen, either his foes will be intimidated due to his skull mask and tattoo's or decide to fight the thief to which he has plenty of armor to keep him safe.
The thief fits the world of Tyria perfectly, with plenty of places where long coats and medium armor is a staple fashion and all he will need to do is remove the mask to blend into the crowd as an average person.

Finally there's Wander

Wander is the protagonist from the brilliant game, Shadow of the Colossus, a game where the main character, Wander, has to slay 16 colossus to revive his dead girlfriend, Wander's design is practical and stylish, with maneuverability in mind as with link, the sandals fit the area of the game with it being soft stone and durable dirt that is easy to run on and not too tough on the feet, , his cape offers warmth and is rumored to hold some form of family or cultural design, his armor is practically non-existent, but his character doesn't necessarily need it due to the literal size of the colossus compared to Wander is well colossal, with many of them towering above Wander, his outfit fits the dusty scene of the world and as such he doesn't break immersion at any point in the game.