Peer feedback- emotional responses to my concepts

Analysis

I decided to  review my progress so far against what my class mates thought and felt when they examined my Soucouyant, Jumbie and Douen concepts. I asked several classmates of their opinions and recorded four detailed accounts from classmates regarding each of the three characters. At first, I did not give any context to see how they first reacted, and then when I gave the context after, I was able to see if their views on my work were any different. I asked what the initial feelings were, if the work reminded them of anything/anyone, and what they found most interesting about the work.

For all three characters, I received the general response that they were scary and evoked feelings of sadness and confusion. This was very useful feedback for me as I knew that my designs were in line with the Horror genre, which was most important to me at this stage. I did not want to produce something with the intention of it being scary, and having it end up appearing positive and humorous. For the Soucouyant, after giving the context to the people in interview I received good feedback for what I could improve: e.g. experimenting with adding more fire when it is angry in the game, and looking at natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, which could span to the other characters too.
The feedback from the Jumbie was also useful: I was told that I could look at different types of ritual scarring from countries and tribes within Africa and the symbolism of scarring for greater knowledge and context. I was also told that I could look at other creatures from TV shows and anime's such as Doctor Who and Bleach, as well as to find what makes those creatures in the shows scary to the viewers. Lastly I was told to look at other natural events such as insect wood rot from termites and similar bugs, an the formations that they produce, relating these formations to the wooden body of the Jumbie. The last creature, the Douen received the feedback: looking at textural differences, e.g. skin on the outside and the inside of the body, as well as being told that the entirely void face was scarier than the void face with the eye. This, according to my peers, made the Douen feel less human and more mysterious and unknown, as well as evoking more fear due to the almost endless appearance of the face.

Evaluation

This feedback was highly valuable to me as I was given an outside perspective of the effect my characters give with and without context. I knew that I was on track as the horror theme was clear and as well as the feeling of fear, I was told of other emotions that my classmates felt when looking at the creatures, which I did not consider evoking before, e.g. sadness and confusion. Although most of the feedback was useful to me, although I will only follow up research on the aspects of feedback that most interested me and that I deem most suitable for my designs and context.