Seven deadly sins - standing on the shoulders of giants

 Starting off by looking at how other industry professionals have used the themes and ideologies around the seven deadly sins in game design and character art. Specifically at what niche elements have been used to develop the art or the process itself, whether its the medium and styles used or representation of the theme within the characters abilities, clothing or style. 

The most obvious game that comes to mind is Dante's Inferno which was developed by Visceral Games and published by Electronic Arts loosely following 'Inferno' the first canticle of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy which itself was illustrated by my favourite illustrator Gustave Dore who used wood engravings for these illustrations.

Gustave Dore 'Inferno' artwork

Gustave Dore 'Inferno' artwork

Cover artwork for the Dante's Inferno video game

Concept artwork of the gates to hell within Dante's Inferno video game

Dante and the plethora of bosses within Dante's Inferno video game 

Throughout the game the protagonist Dante travels through the nine circles of hell which are represented through different sins of man leading to their placement within hell i.e. first circle = limbo, second circle = lust. third circle = gluttony, fourth circle = greed etc.

The game relies heavily on the historic characters present within the source material such as Cleopatra and Mark Anthony to develop how they look whilst the environments and standard enemies have more of an aesthetic theme in line with the representative sin.

A gluttonous enemy, bulbous and overweight with multiple mouths.

Below is more concept artwork for the game displaying bosses you'll face in each circle of hell, trying to be representative of the theme for that layer and the sin or action it's based on.

These pieces of art are particularly representative of the themes more so in some rather than others but find themselves to be predictable and often overused tropes such as semi-clothed female for lust or fire based enemy for anger. I feel limbo is a place of loss, you can't figure out how to make up your mind on a decision, this would lead to a split body more so than greed in my opinion, likewise in todays more progressive society why should lust be based on gender - obviously Dante is a heterosexual male character so it makes sense for his character but if you wanted your player to choose their own character for more immersion then the Lust character cannot be reflective of this in its current iteration. This is why the feelings and emotions evoked by the word and themes have to be de-constructed and a new way of displaying them in a character or environment can be found with a better outcome. One particular artist who I feel grasps this methodology better than Dante's inferno is Marco Mazzoni who takes emotions or cognitive disabilities and illustrates them with small animals in abstract ways that depict and evoke the feelings one may have whilst suffering or encountering these feelings and symptoms. 

 

These images are taken from his series titled "The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Mental Illness". I feel these images are much more representative of the symptoms in a more authentic and empathetic way, people suffering these ailments cam identify with these images more and contrasting them to the overused tropes in Dante's inferno they'll feel more represented rather than just another victim who's being shown false sympathy as there is value placed in scarcity with things that are overused placing less value on those who suffer the issues. This allows me to carryon deconstructing the methodology of successful art in this manner and find new resolutions to the problem without coming across as a knight in shining armour looking to show pity on individuals but rather display engaging art that is representative and allows people to have the hard conversations about these disorders or emotions.