New face, old myth

Abstract

We live in a digital age where information on foreign cultures is no longer hard to come by. Designers can easily access any foreign religious symbols and mythical stories by simply searching the internet and then interpret in their own way without consideration as to their original meanings. With this convenience, however, information from the internet is sometimes misconstrued after several interpretations, or it simply may not be correct. As a result foreign cultural elements may seem misplaced or ridiculous to audiences who are familiar with the culture. As a 3D designer from Asian culture, I often sense these misappropriations of Chinese cultural symbols in entertainment products such as video games and movies. In those products the cultural symbols only serve as graphic images and lose their meaning as metaphors. The goal of this thesis project "Old myth, New face" was to create a series of digital characters which are not only able to preserve the cultural connotations, but also could be accepted by users who are familiar with the character style of existing entertainment products.