It might sound kind of obvious that characters and creatures are different from each other but sometimes… It’s not that easy to tell. Back in university my colleagues and I had a rather interesting discussion once. When are you able to call something a character or a creature? Your surprise, some of us had rather different opinions about the whole thing. This is why that discussion inspired me to look deeper into the matter. In this article I want to share with you my personal experience and my findings during my research.
The Principles Of Creatures & Characters
During the time I studied Concept Art at Syn Studio, we had to design multiple things for our portfolio. This included things like props, environments and of course characters and creatures. With this portfolio, we would start our carriers in the Game Industry.
The designs were in the same IP throughout the whole project. This was to show if we’re able to come up with multiple great designs and if they stayed cohesive. In order to be able to focus more on our drawings instead of struggling to come up with an idea, the teachers gave us a few stories to take inspiration from to make it easier for us. Of course they didn’t allow us to simply copy it one by one. Rather than that we should give it our personal twist that makes it unique and stand out from the rest.
One of the three stories was about the Greek hero Perseus. His goal was to kill the infamous Medusa who was able to turn people into stone when they looked at her. While I chose a different one (The Cowherd & The Weaver Girl), lots of my colleagues picked the ancient Greek classic. This meant they had to design Medusa in one way or another. Some made her human while others made her look like a beast. But sometimes, it wasn’t quite clear in which category she would fit best in.
Why this usually wouldn’t be a problem in the industry, it actually resulted in some confusion. Some of my colleagues did not know if they should tackle their Medusa in the character or creature design class. Even the teachers were not sure from time to time which caused rather confusing and contradictory feedback.
One of my colleagues especially had trouble with their design since they tried to combine both classes to save time. They created a DarkSouls-inspired Medusa that would act as a boss fight in their IP. I sadly can’t show their design, but you can compare it to Quelaac from the first ‘DarkSouls’ game. Part of her being a beautiful woman and the other part being that of a horrendous beast.
While our character design teacher tried to dial down the beast parts massively, our creature design teacher told them that she didn’t have enough monstrous features. This meant they had to decide which one of them they preferred. After all, it was impossible to do both at once. Of course there is a lot of personal opinion on this matter. But this still raised the question: What exactly is the difference between a creature and a character?
Their Differences In Appearance & Personality
As you can probably guess, there is usually a huge difference between a character and a creature. Especially when it comes to their visuals. While a character often looks a lot like a human, creatures most of the time resemble either animals or other things coming from nature. But this doesn’t mean that everything that looks humanoid is a character nor that everything with animalistic features is automatically a creature.
A wonderful example is Morgana from ‘Persona 5’ that we pictured in the banner on top of the page. He has two different forms throughout the game. In the real world, he is shown as a simple black cat that blends in perfectly with his other conspecifics. But when he travels with the protagonists through the shadow world, he changes. Morgana turns into a speaking chibi-like figure that’s standing on two legs instead of four.
While Morgana is a cat, he’s considered a character thanks to his human-like features in the shadow world and his outgoing personality. He not only took a liking to one of the protagonists but also seemed to like nothing more than treasures. If you stumble across one in the palaces, his eyes light up and he begins to drool. But he’s not the only cat-like companion you’ll find in video games.
The Calico-Cats from the ‘Monster Hunter’ series for example are considered creatures even though they share a lot of features with Morgana. Even though they also walk on two legs, wear clothes and fight alongside your character as companions, they don’t really act like real party members. They can’t communicate with you except through their meows and while they are extremely intelligent, they act more like funny little creatures than a character.
Amount Of Intelligence
The intelligence of a figure also often plays a huge part in differentiating between a character and a creature. Even if a character is considered and seen as dumb, they usually still have a basic intelligence that stands above that of a mindless creature or the average animal.
For example, nobody would deny the fact that a zombie is a mindless creature and not a character even though they look more human than monsters. They are robbed of their ability to think thanks to some sort of virus. This results in them wandering aimlessly in the hope of stumbling across some fresh meat to feed on. But what if we suddenly give them their brain and personality back?
Let’s imagine a person who got infected by the zombie virus but lives among other people, talks like them and only feeds on corpses to still their hunger. Suddenly this zombie turned from a mindless creature into an interesting character we want to know more about.
Another great example would be Smaug, the dragon living in Erebor from the ‘The Hobbit’ trilogy. Usually dragons are considered powerful, fire-breathing creatures that appear in all forms and sizes among different kinds of stories but Smaug is a little bit different. He’s not just an animal that follows his instincts to hunt their prey and protect their nests or treasures. He is very intelligent and speaks the human language. Not only does he have an insatiable desire for gold & treasures but he even shows emotion like anger during the movies. Those traits make him feel like a character even though he is definitely a dragon that usually tends to be called creatures.
Familiarity & Empathy
As humans we automatically feel drawn to things we are familiar with and don’t feel comfortable interacting with things we don’t know. Things that look new, uncanny or different often make us wary and cautious around it since we often don’t understand what we’re looking at. Even our likes and dislikes can influence how we see certain things.
If we just look at a picture where you can see a woman and something that looks like a slimy alien, you would automatically think the man is the character and the alien is the beast. But what if I tell you that the woman is in fact a man-eating monster and the slimy alien is a loving mother of three children? Suddenly you would feel empathy for the slimy alien and absolutely despise the woman-looking predator.
If we feel connected to something, we often tend to look at it in a different way. Just look at all the people treating their pets almost like a child. While it’s obvious that they are animals, they look at them as friends and family.
In Final Fantasy 16 exist so-called Icons, people that can transform into powerful beasts through magic. Most people look up to them as Gods and look at their avatars with respect. On the other hand, there are also people that think of them as vile creatures cursed by the deity. Behind every single one of those creatures stands a person and even in that universe people can’t seem to decide if they are creatures or humans.
This is no different from our own perspective. Look at Gollum from the ‘Lord of the Rings’ saga. Some people say he’s a creature, some say he’s a character. So more often than not it lies in the eye of the viewer.
As you can see, the line between a creature and a character is a very thin, yet pretty obvious one. Creatures usually tend to act on instinct while characters are more purposeful with their actions. The more human a being is, the more connected we feel to them. Even if you are sure that something is a creature or a character, you always have to look at them with an open mind because everyone has their own opinion on the matter.
If you’re interested in the difference between characters and creatures you probably also want to look at the fundamentals you need to become a great artist:
7 Art Fundamentals Every Digital Artist Should Master
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