Concept
I’m locking this in now (30/1/2023) so I can dive straight into creating as much high quality content, so lets’a go:
the documentation of the Nier Replicant game through the eyes of the character Accord, presented as items within her case.
I have quite a few ideas of what I might like to do:
create a weapon that houses it’s story
character profiles for the Nier Replicant cast
Drakengard -> Nier Replicant timeline
create apart of Accord’s outfit
Accord repair kit
There are so many potential ideas & concepts that I would like to do, but of course, time is finite and I must prioritise. I think the best place to start is with Accord as a character and identifiy what would make most sense for her to keep in her case.
Accord
Whelp. Accord is a tricky little biscuit. To try make sense of her character, motivations, personality and the such, I went to her wiki page.
f o u r s e n t e n c e s
that is not enough to work with at god damned all
queue me going on a multihour hunt for any information about Accord as a character- finding that apparently nobody has been as interested in characterising her as I am (not surprising to be honest, Drakengard 3 only sold around 150,000 copies, very tiny compared to the other games in the series), and realising that if nobody else has done it, I’m going to have to.
not me spending four straight days going through every appearance of her in Drakengard 3, noting down EVERYTHING SHE SAYS AND DOES, then taking six iterations of summarising to finally condense it down into something digestable.
it was pain, but enjoyable
Accords Appearances
Accord appears in/is mentioned in a few of Yoko Taro’s games (her creator), so here are all of those.
Drakengard 3
It costs £35 to get drakengard 3, and although I love its story, it is admittidly a shit game and I’m not suffering through that, I’m pretty sure it would count as self harm. So I’m watching this cutscene supercut that was uploaded to youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD5OZAmJbVU&ab_channel=Gamer%27sLittlePlayground and basing my notes off of that.
Dialogue and Behaviour Notes
Nier Replicant
Although she doesn’t appear in the game physically, there are two instances of notes that name her, confirming that she is in the universe, alive and active during this timeline.
Nier Automata
Much more of a little easter-egg reference for Yoko Taro’s more eagle eyed fans in Nier Automata, Accord only being referenced in a line of dialogue with the weapons shopkeeper, and a flyer that mentions a chain of weapon stores named after her.
Nier Reincarnation
We get a note referencing Accord in Reincarnation, and there’s a few other bits and bobs that hint to her having an active role in the world of the games setting - The Cage.
The other tid bits have to do with messages we get from an anon in game through a phone- they match her dialogue style, as well as coming through on her preferred communication device- a phone.
Accords Design
Character Summary
Project Content
Now that I have Accord sussed out, I can focus on what will be in her case, how I will retell the story of Nier Replicant through Accord’s eyes, and my ultimate goal for the impact/experiance I want for the viewer.
The Viewers Experiance
I am struggling to put into words the feeling and experiance that I want to come across to the viewer, but I will try my best.
There are kind of two sides to what I want to express, but in essence, I am trying to recreate the experiance that I have had exploring the worlds of Nier/the community. Looking through fan content, losing myself in multi-year hunts for hidden secrets, the joy in compiling data and information to create a complete story. I want to viewer to almost be- challenged and overwhelmed at first, recreating that initial dive into the community where I was faced with people who have been documenting the games for over two decades. Overwhelmed with where to start but absolutly in awe at the passion and love that these people held for the Nier and Drakengard series, and wanting to join them in this celebration of these stories.
Then the next step, realising that this all connects- all this information, stories and content you have had to dig through four different linking forum threads to get to, decade old posts, websites created in 2003, google exel sheets with over 342 entries detailing timelines. It’s scattered in so many corners but once you get it, you get it, and that feeling, that you get what they are talking about and can join in on discussions is wonderous.
The first step- I believe I can recreate and have a couple thoughts as to what I’m going to do, while the second, I think will depend on the viewer. Some people just don’t connect to media/fiction the same way as others do- the second half of the viewers experiance, the “getting it” bit, is dependant on the viewer, and an experiance I can only encourage by trying my best at persenting the information and passion I have through Accords case and belongings.
The Case and Its Contents
As advised- I’m going to create two lists on the content I am going to create for the project. One will be priority while the other will be extra material that while not nessercary, will improve/benefit the viewers experiance.
Priority
Accord’s Case - the upmost priority as the housing to all other elements, size and avalible space will determine the size of other elements and what may potentially be cut from being included
Accord’s Book - the book that Accord carries will be filled with the timeline from where we last se her in canon (Drakengard 3), up until the end of humanity (end of Nier Replicant)
Accord’s Notes - loose sheets that will detail the events of the Nier Replicant game and its branching timelines following Nier/Kaine
Secondary
Accord’s Outfit - spares of various smaller elements of Accord’s outfit, her glasses, gloves, collar and tie
Accord’s Keys - Keys will be kept with the case to unlock it anyway, but in her official art she is seen in possession of various ‘ye olde’ keys on a ring
Repair Kit - Accord is an android and a small repair kit hinting to her non-human form seems fitting to allow to viewer plenty of space to speculate
A Weapon and It’s Story - the ultimate ‘if i finish everything else to an absolute perfect degree i’ll do this’ I would like to recreate a weapon from either Drakengard 1/3, or Nier Replicant, that also houses its own story. Accord is shown to have a deep passion for weapons and I’d like to include that element of her character in her most prized possession, her case
Workshops
Bookbinding
In this workshop we learnt several different ways to bind paper, as well as how to make a hardcover for our bound book. We learnt how to create a perfect bind, a figure 8 bind and a coptic stitch bind. Then to finish off, we covered our coptic stitch bound paper in a hardcover made with greyboard and fabric.
apparently i just didnt??? take photos??? during the workshop??? hello and welcome to amelia being a silly little billy. I do have a picture of the books once completed though as well as (admittidly bad quality) sketchbook notes on how to bookbind, pretty sure the hardcover notes are somewhere in my yellow book so sorry for not compiling them better lmao. I have bound books before so i kinda smashed the workshop lmao still really enjoyed it, never done a perfect bind before so that was cool.
24hr Zine
Tasked to make a zine in 24 hours (three copies of one zine), I decided to be an extra little bitch and I regret it immensly. I will never torture myself like this again.
not pog decision making amelia, n o t p o g
i thought itd be funny if i titled it like that cause shit cant make u bi lmao it just made me realise. hehehoha so funni very pog
Intro to Adobe Illustrator
We were given an online class to introduce us to the adobe program illustrator. Illustrator works with vector elements, which will not distort or loose quality when resized. In the tutorial we were shown how to create shapes, lines and how to use the pen tool. We were shown more, such as how to outline objects, add colour and ‘paint’ but by this point I had gotten lost in the tutorial and couldn’t follow along anymore. The program certainly seems interesting and useful, but for now I’ll stick to the programs I know as I am not too interested in exploring vector illustration currently.
Gif Workshop
Gif workshop was cool as heck, easily my favorite of the bunch. I’ve done a few 2D gifs before this, so i decided to try push my understanding of 3D movement. We were told to spin a wheel for a prompt, and make a gif inspired by it!
After being given the prompt ‘warm’ I got the idea to animate a character with a warm coloured lantern. To push my understanding of lighting and 3D movement in the timespan avalible, I decided to rotoscope the base from a content creator who posts drawing poses and move on from there. First it started with extending the pole she’s holding, then the lighting cast by the light, then the character themselves. This resulted in the final gif in the section of photos above. Despite trying to not be as try-hard as the zine workshop, procreate records the amount of time you draw on the canvas and uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh whoops 11 and a half hours spent on a 24hr project LMAO.
