Application of physiognomy in character design

Abstract

In this dissertation, I will address physiognomy and its effect on character design. Physiognomy is a method of studying a person’s temper by judging their facial features and expressions. Although physiognomy is considered as a pseudoscience, one can still see its impact in the representation of characters in games, cartoons, and comic books. My analysis of physiognomy and its influence will be based on characters from a game titled Dishonored and caricatures of heroes from a novel Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. I will start with the introduction to the history of physiognomy, its evolution and how this study was used by various artists. Later, I will describe design approaches to characters from Dishonored and list the physiognomical principles that had been applied. The next chapter will cover how I created my own characters’ design based on heroes from Dead Souls. The main goal of this thesis was to show through the works of old and modern artists how physiognomy can be useful in character design. The dissertation also describes how the application of physiognomical principles influence our perception of real people and how the overuse of these principles can cause a design cliché.