Character Design : Task 01 Personification, big idea

20/09/2025 - 29/12/2025  (Week 1 –  Week 14)

Katherine Alexandra Sutanto / 0373585
Character Design / Creative Media / School of Design
Task 01 Personification, big idea

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Instructions

2. Task

3. Feedback

4. Reflection

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INSTRUCTIONS

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TASK

During the first week, Sir Fitri introduced to us about the Tasks as a whole, therefore we'd start our first task by building an ideation for our For my ideation, I choose Castlevania as the world my character will live in, as I'm very interested in the gothic and dark aesthetic of a world. 

 1.1 Castlevania menu title 

Right after, i proposed my idea during my second week to Sir Fitri in an Adobe Illustrator form.

 1.2 Ideation Compilation

I then start sketching the character from my own imagination, which is as following:

1.3 Sketches

My first idea was to build a masculine woman type, or a straight up male character. However, I thought to make her a woman with a a masculine fashion.

For the full characteristics of the character, I’m interested in characters that is calm, introverted, yet knows the challenges they faced. I’m also looking to create a supporting character that will have an impact into the main character’s story. The character inspired is Juste Belmont a vampire hunter that will be contrasting with the intended character I create, which is a vampire. I took Juste as an inspiration due to this characteristics and character/aesthetic design that screams pale white but deadly red.

1.4 Juste Belmont from Castlevania

For the role of the character itself, I'd like to think that she is an immortal or rather a vampire whose role a mortician in this world of dystopia. Except that she’s an unusual kind of a mortician, myths has said that nails the coffins of the dead to revive them as vampires for centuries, though it may not be confirmed but cemeteries of both hunters and vampires were found in a mysterious manor which was claimed to be the mortician’s land. In the myth, she’s been known as the bard or the storyteller of the dead as she is experienced and an a known mystery of a figure by the society for being greatly related to the dead , thus naming her ‘The Sepulchral Rhapsodist’.

Sepulchral = Relating to a tomb, gloomy, burial ; Rhapsodist = Storyteller/Bard

After all consideration, this is the outcome of traits I've thought for the character:

- Wears gold mask to brings up the mysterious vibe

- Calm, reasonable 

- Wide knowledge, philosphy and experiences with the dead 

- Extremely close to her duties

- Mysterious vibe

After building the traits of the characters, her attire will be based heavily on the victorian goth which would be consists of:

- Suit, neat, polite attire

- Gold ribcage accesory

- Red roses around the chest

- Vampire cloak (Coat as an alternative)

- Wears white gloves

- Arm scarf wrap around her right arm

The prop featured would be her own signature coffin designs since her own identity is being a mortician.

Speaking of morticians, they’re not portrayed to be the ones that hold the weapon, but instead be the people to bring closure to the deceased. I’d like to think that the coffins are not only acting as her signature prop, but is also a defense mechanism aka to trap any enemies into the coffins with the support of her dark magic.

1.5 Coffin inspirations from Pinterest

After done with the ideation, I'd proceed with various sketches to work with the silhouettes and thumbnails which also can be a material for Task 2 for building character design

1.6 Thumbnail sketches 

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FINAL OUCOME

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FEEDBACK

Specific feedback: During Task 1, Sir Fitri shares that eventhough i planned to make a masked character, he heavily suggested to build a face for the character itself.

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REFLECTION

During this task, I had fun personalizing my character as if it belongs to a character. I've had a bit a struggle to make it stand out since Castlevania universe has a very distinguished standard of building a character such as the character needs to fit in the gothic universe but it had to stand out than most characters since most existing characters are already unique on it's own. But at the end, I did achieved the task and i learnt a lot from researching and discovering the franchise itself.