The 5 W's and an H | Victor van Schagen

Visual Storytelling - The 5 W's and an H

Introduction

As a game artist, or as any other creative person faced with the task of designing new characters, environments and such, it might sometimes be difficult to get the creative process started, or find the right direction while working. Sometimes information is provided, other times not. The quickest and easiest way to begin is of course by just making thumbnail sketches, and go from there. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I myself am a big supporter of a conscious, deliberate design process.

To help start the creative process, and channel it in the right direction, I like to ask myself questions based on the ‘5 W’s and an H’:

Where, When, Who, What, Why and How?

Answering these questions for yourself, even superficially, will help cover all bases and provide potential interesting leads to useful design choices.

Character Design

Let's first look at how this can be applied to character design.

Where was your character born and/or raised?
This helps set a cultural and social background. Did your character grow up in North America, Europe? Asia? And in which country? On a superficial level this may determine a character's ethnicity, but on a deeper level this will have an influence on their behaviour, ideas and tastes. How a person acts, speaks and dresses publicly or privately can vary greatly in different cultures and is important to consider thoughtfully. In a SciFi or Fantasy setting, this is a good occasion to think about the cultural background of the alien, elf or other person you're designing.

Influences: Social behaviour, clothing style, pose and gestures.

When was your character born and/or raised?
This tells you not only their age & possible physical appearance, but adds another cultural and social layer. Which significant historical events have been witnessed by your character? What were the social and cultural norms of that time? In which social and economic class was your character raised? Did your character grow up in a rich South-African family? Poor Russian single parent family? Middle-class Kansas farming family? It will have some influence on your character.

Influences: Social behaviour, clothing style.

Who is your character?
After you have decided where and when your character was born and raised, you can set some basic personality traits. These traits have an impact on how a character behaves and dresses. An extrovert might be willing to draw attention to themselves and dress accordingly, while an introvert would prefer to blend in. A neat person might, though wearing old rags, be careful to keep them tidy and presentable; a messy person might wear a new, tailored costume, but will look untidy. This also extends to personal care - cleanliness and physique. How these various elements are mixed tell a lot about where priorities lie with your character's personality, and therefore design.

Influences: Clothing style, fit and maintenance. Personal appearance. Pose.

What kind of occupation or role does your character have?
In character design, this is usually the first and most obvious question that's asked when starting. This establishes basic clothing or accessory requirements. You can also think about how your character acquired this occupation or role - by chance, by choice or by force - and how this impacts their appearance.

Influences: Clothing type, accessories.

Why does your character do what they do?
This concerns a character’s motivations, which can be short term, or very obvious, like "get food", "acquire money", or "find a partner for tonight", but can also be long term and more subtle, like "earn validation" or "find happiness". These elements will have an impact on how a character might behave and dress; for example, mimic another character's clothing and pose to create a connection, or choose to 'dress for success'.

Influences: Clothing type, accessories, pose and gestures.

How does your character try to achieve their goals?
By using violence? By using honesty and kindness? Or maybe by using sly, calculating intelligence? Is your character lazy or driven? This too can be reflected in a character’s appearance, especially facial features. We, as human beings, subconsciously attach certain character traits based on these features.

Influences: Accessories, pose and gestures. Facial features.

Creature Design

This technique also can be successfully used for creature design:

What kind of creature is it?
This can help you determine basic shape requirements. Is it a mammal? Reptile? Insect? Other? Is the creature a herbivore, omnivore or carnivore, or does it eat something completely different, like energy? These various potential differences in appearance will also lead to clear symbolic connotations. An insect-like creature will feel alien, emotionless, creepy. A hairy creature will evoke feelings of wildness, animality, barbarism, even more so than a lizard-like creature.

Influences: Creature type, body shape and pose.

Where is your creature’s natural habitat?
This also has a large impact on its physical attributes. Does it live on land, in the water or air? Think about how it moves. What is its natural biome? Is it warm-blooded or cold-blooded? What kind of protection does it have against the elements?

Influences: Creature type, body shape, skin and skin cover.

When was your creature born?
On a surface level this tells you the age and possible developmental state of your creature, but can also add some cultural frame of reference. How is your creature's ideas, tastes or even choices of appearance shaped by its age? Do any accessories you want to give the creature fit a certain time period, or level of civilization?

Influences: Physical features, props.

Who is your creature?
You can think about your creature's personality and disposition, as well as its life until that point. Has it been living peacefully in its natural environment? Is it, or has it been, domesticated? Enslaved? Has it suffered hardships?

Influences: Physical details, distinguishing marks, props, pose.

Why does your creature behave the way it does?
This concerns your creature's motivations, which can be short term, or very obvious, like "get food" or "protect itself", but can also be long term and more subtle, like "find a mate" or "find a safe habitat". These elements will have an impact on how a creature might behave, and can lead to considering additional design possibilities, like mating characteristics (colourful feathers).

Influences: Physical details, pose.

How does your creature try to achieve its goals?
By sheer force of strength? By using sly, calculating intelligence? With friendliness? How does this juxtapose with its body shape and personality?

Influences: Props, pose.

Environment Design

Also environment design becomes a lot easier when using these six questions to establish some kind of background story:

Where is your environment or location situated?
For artificial (constructed) locations, this question helps to establish a cultural background. Is it on Earth? If so, in North America, Europe or Africa? In which country? Which culture? For natural environments, the biome and climate matters too. These help set an environmental and biological background.

Influences: Architectural style, construction techniques and materials; Terrain type, plant life, animal life.

When was your environment or location created?
This sets up another layer of possibilities of physical appearance. With artificial locations, you get to deal with architectural history. In which style was it built, with which materials? Is the time period between its creation and the setting of the story short -providing a pristine surrounding, or long -showing wear and tear, or being run down? Is it maintained? Also in a natural environment is age a visual element. For example, old forests and old mountains look very different than new ones, both biologically (different plants and animals, old trees) and geologically (sharp versus eroded peaks).

Influences: Architectural style, state; Terrain state, plant life, animal life.

Who built your environment or location?
This question goes into further detail on your environment. If it is artificial, then who built it? Did this person or persons do a good job? What was their motivation? Did they have access to everything they would have needed to create it? If your environment is natural, has it been formed by certain geological processes? Did volcanic activity, weather erosion or other processes help shape it?

Influences: Appearance, props.

What role or function does your environment or location have?
This establishes the basic function of the environment or location, and for a large part determines lay-out and prop requirements. If artificial, what furniture, decoration, machines and devices, etc. are expected in this space? If your environment is wild nature, what plants or animals can be found there. What geographical features are needed, like rocks, waterfall, river, etc.?

Influences: Lay-out, props.

Why is your environment or location there?
Of course a certain location may have a specific function. An office functions as a workspace, a petrol station is for filling up the tank. But what is the need that is being served? Maybe the office serves as communication hub for a region, and the petrol station is the last chance to get any for 100 km). This can help you to determine which lay-out and props would be most suitable.

Influences: Lay-out, props.

How is your environment or location being used? If artificial, does it still serve its original purpose? Has it, at some time, been abandoned or sold and is being re-used? If natural, is it used at all, by any person, group of people, creatures or animals? In either case, does it serve its purpose well? Or iIs it ill-suited and a cause of frustration?

Influences: Appearance, distinguishing marks. Props.

Tips

Here are some additional tips to help you during your design development process:

Use the symbolism of the various visual elements and props that you use consciously.
Most, if not all of the visual elements you can use to design your character, creature or environment, will have some symbolic meaning, beyond the physical meaning. Knowing what they are will help you to create better, more meaningful designs. Not only that - this meaning can vary in different cultures. It is important to be aware of that to avoid potential problems. Either your audience will not understand you, or worse, you might unintentionally commit a faux-pas.

Use the 80/19/1 rule.
In visual design, the 80/20 rule is sometimes used to determine the amount of elements to incorporate in your design that are familiar to your audience, to preserve a recognizable frame of reference. For example, when designing a SciFi or Fantasy character or environment for a general public, it is recommended to have about 80% of the design recognizable, with 20% parts that are fantastical. I like to call it the 80/19/1 rule - 80% recognizable, 19% unfamiliar, and an extra 1% wow-factor. Just that one little detail that makes people say "That's so cool!".

Be mindful of the type of reference you use.
Using references is very important to achieve a suitable level of accuracy in your design of real-life elements, materials, etc. If you're not sure what something looks like, look it up! Reference material can also help create the right amount of believability with fantastical elements. However, using work made by other artists as reference can be dangerous. First of all, you're hampering your own creativity by piggy-backing on another. (Which is why some designs keep popping up over and over, as artists are inspired by each other's work). Secondly, you risk being accused of copyright infringement.

Victor van Schagen