Character Design Analysis: Gill

To celebrate the re-release of Street Fighter 3: Third Stike-Online Edition, I figured I’d re post an article I wrote for Capcom Unity on to my personal blog. If you’re a fan of Capcom characters, this is a fun quick read!

Thanks for reading this post!

Through lots of observation, discussion with knowledgeable friends, and lots of research, I wanted to share some insight into the design of Capcom’s great character designs.

In Capcom’s games, its only logical that most gamers, companies, and website reviews focus on the gameplay. It makes sense–the product IS a video game after all. However, design (a passion of my own) is truly helpful in creating such wonderful games. Capcom is particularly noted for employing some of the most elite designers in gaming history. Think of a fighting game character,often times Ryu or another Street Fighter comes to mind. It is the power of an appealing design!

Capcom’s design team is noted for creating characters with universal appeal. This particular feat is impressive. Creating a sound and structural drawing can be taught; (though not easy) with  lots of practice and dedication, you could create a pretty solid drawing. However, making a drawing appealing…is lesst easy. Appeal isn’t taught. It tiptoes upon a fine line of subjectivity…but when mastered, its apparent. You know it, you love it.

Capcom character  designs, namely designs in the STREET FIGHTER franchise have this appeal.

So, I’ll discuss one, and lend some insight into possible design cues of the character.

For this first post, I’ve chosen Gill.

Gill, is the boss of the Street Fighter 3 series of games.  He is the emperor of the Illuminati, and unlike prior and future SF bosses…his motives were not purely evil. Methods are one thing…intention is another. It seems that this character wanted to create a Utopian society through the Illuminati, and was very….blunt about his position as a God, if you will.

This boss was an interesting design choice. It was very…surreal for the street fighter world. Crime lords, dictators, prideful Muay Thai fighters, brutish pugilists, and serial killing nobles were the bosses of the past. This character is a bit special, as he is of near-biblical proportion. Parting the ocean like the red sea, resurrecting, and creating the wings of a seraph are far more… “outerwordly”, capabilities than that of preceding bosses. There’s something to be said for that.

Technically, Gill is also notable, for being a two colored character. The first SF3 game, was the the first SF game on the new CPS3 board…so to show off a great design and technical capability…Gill was two colors! It may not sound dazzling, but this is definitely work. No need to use symmetrical letters (DeeJay’s MAXIMUM pants, anyone?) you could actually have a character with two sides animated on this board! Additionally, the element of his attacks also changed. Pretty cool stuff.

 

So, where did this character come from?Simply put…Akiman’s brain. Akiman (Akira Yasuda) is a genius designer, and Gill is no exception. Akiman is responsible for creating nearly each Street Fighter character, and was a senior art-director on many Capcom games. Akiman truly shows his love for art through this design. Its safe to say that Gill was of similar inspiration from the boss of Forgotten Worlds (another character that he created) Predominately blue, red when attacked,  wings, and a “middle of the earth ‘stage fused with Egyptian and classic Greek sculpture. Seem familiar?(You can see a video of the boss fight here:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT8JiUcFP2U)The FW boss and Gill both share common reference.

Gill is inspired by this painting of Prometheus, by Kupka. Take a look at this: the fusion of red and blues, the wild yellow hair-as if almost ablaze….its “trippy”, yet ultimately beautiful and fantastic at the same time! Its an imposing character! Very daunting.

Mythologically, Prometheus is great character to incite as boss like. Like Gill, he can very easily be seen as a hero or villain. Prometheus stole fire from Zeus, and is a ” champion of mankind.” He is very intelligent, maybe infamously so- and is tied to creation myths of humanity. Again, this is relative to his intentions of creating a new world in the SF3 games. The theme of taking Godlike power into human hands is something that unites the actions of both characters.

Prometheus also has ties to his brother(s) in mythological accounts. Its possible that this fact inspired the creation of the character Urien- Gill’s power hungry brother, and president of the Illuminati.The clothing- the short loincloth is indicative of the characters based upon this time. Referencing the story of Prometheus is in turn referencing antiquity-hence the clothing. I’m sure that the Classic masters and their sculptural works also influenced Akimans design choices namely the idea of giving Gill (and Urien) the idealized male physique, as noted by sculpture. They aren’t TOO large, (think Zangief) or too svelte and muscular (think Guy) Gill and Urien are a very distinct build-they are quite idealized.This probably had an impact upon the fighting style as well. As the attacks that gill (and Urien) use are variants or derivations of Greco-Roman wrestling techniques. Nothing really set in any other style,as you’ll notice that Gill really just uses force, with competent defensive technique. His block is a smart one. Not a quite block technique that say…Oyama would make, like Ryu’s. Not a kempo block, like ChunLi’s. He merely covers the vitals. And then either charges at you, or uses a great deal of force within one move! This is where the animation really shines through! Look at the follow through of the attacks. You can really feel them!
 

Another interesting note would be the similarity to Gill’s stages and Prometheus’ story. The Gill stage in New Generation and Third Strike references classic art. The New Generation stage is Mediterranean, featuring columns among the molten sea and an ascent to skyward heavens. Third Strike has an Egyptian boat and fantastic architecture.It seems mainly Greek or roman- as the building has columns, with flutes (Ionic, I believe) as well as the triangular pediments. Note the Illuminati crest on the floor, and the Eye of Providence repeated upon the ceiling. (That eye alone is sign of a character who is or believes in something Godlike.) Simply AMAZING.

What about that Second Impact stage? It reminds me of another Kupka work. Kupka’s Voice of Silence II. You can see the similarities below.

 
So there’s a little insight into the creation of the this character. I hope it was informative. I think the Capcom design team does some amazing work, its good to look just beyond the obvious and really see why the design is so fun!

Be sure to play SF3, and support pixel based fighting games. They truly are a work of art.