There are many different types of characters in Ready Player One, including Sixers, Gunters, and Innovative Online Industries (IOI) employees, among others. I created my character to be a Gunter in the OASIS. She is in search of Halliday’s egg but prefers to search for it alone. She doesn’t have any close friends like Wade are Aech are to each other; this is because her main character flaws are that she is aloof and arrogant. People are not naturally attracted to her personality by any means. Although she is lonely she brushes that away and focuses on her true passion. She loves archery and practices constantly when she isn’t searching for the egg, which is rarely. Luckily her arrow will always hit its target whether she aims directly at it or not. She created her screen name Arci3re to reflect her love for archery; arciere is an Italian word meaning archer.
The drawing style I used is somewhat realistic, but thoughtfully simple as well. My character design was inspired by an Illustrator video I watched. From this video I learned how the pen tool can be used to create an interesting character. I drew my character with a bow and arrow to show motion, that way my poster would be visually interesting instead of static which I think turned out great.
I researched a lot of different Illustrator poster designs to give me inspiration for this project. I also wanted to focus around a specific color pallet so that my poster looked put together and visually appealing. I used the complementary colors blue and orange. In the diagram reading, I learned that scale and color play an important part of the design process. I used scale to bring attention to my avatar’s name. I used color by making all of the text boxes the same color. This helps my viewers differentiate between the text and the digital art. In the Hierarchy readings, it explained how placement is very important. I created hierarchy by placing my text boxes slightly behind by avatar so that my viewers could tell that my avatar is the most important figure in the poster. I chose a font that was already provided in Illustrator. I was considering downloading a font, but I ended up loving the way the provided font looked. I wanted to also create a text box that described exterior features. I always loved learning how old, or what height a fictional character was as a child. I wanted to add this information because I know I would have loved it as a child.
I used the pen tool mainly for this assignment. I found it very helpful in creating the exact shapes I was envisioning. I also used the gradient tool to create more dimension on certain parts of my avatar. My main inspiration came from the YouTube video I mentioned above. I added detail to my avatar where I thought it would enhance the image. When creating her eyes, I added white ellipses to show light glinting off. I created these with the ellipse tool. I also drew individual eyelashes as well as pieces of hair to give more detail. I used the shaper tool to create the arrow tip. The shaper tool ended up being a very handy tool along with the pen tool. Overall, I am very happy with my avatar and how the poster looks like a real graphic design piece.