Wanda Wayang Bima as a Visual Exploration

Dodi Hilman

, Tubagus Zufri

Animation Program, Visual Communications Design Departement, School of Design, Bina Nusantara University, Jakarta.

Indonesia 11480

Keywords: Wayang animation, storytelling, visual exploration.

Abstract: The development of Intellectual Property around the world, growing so fast, so does in Indonesia. This

sparked the IP designer in this country to be more creatively, create different variants of the outcomes, and

spoiling the game consumers whose increasingly growing, rapidly. Character is not just a "Visual Form" but

at the same time, also a representation of an ideological, who designed, that is able to communicate more

intimately and intense through specific visual language. Character, consciously or unconsciously, have basic

roles as an ambassador of the message and the idea that is being built by designer.

1 INTRODUCTION

As a medium of a storytelling, comic and animation

must have a capability to build a “connection” with

the audience so message, information or whatever

that exist as content can be effectively delivered. By

“connection” we mean all kind of continuous

audience responses after a comic was read, or an

animation was watched. Was they amused, touched,

disappointed, or even was feel nothing. This

“connection” is emerged by the presents of the

character in comic and animation. A successful

character can create a boundary to the audience, not

just appear as a picture, figure or a model, it will

appear as a representation of a “live” character

(Mattesi, 2008).

It is essential to give more attention on designing

process because character is not supposed to designed

based on rough sketches only, without any depth

concerning developing only visual aspect. The

process of personified should become an integration

of visual, psychology, language, ideology etc.

This writing is a preliminary research because

from the author concern, there are not many writings

debating whether which part in the development will

be focused on to developing some comic or animation

projects. This writing hopefully will help people who

want to build some animation projects and will be

guide them to make some decision because to build

some animation project there will be a massive effort

to conduct.

The lack of attention toward character design for

a local comic and animation has to be changed so

there will be an alternative among hegemony of

tremendous influence of imported product not only to

local audience but local comic creator and animator

as well.

Wayang (Golek and Kulit) have a potential to

become a stepping stone for contemporary character

design exploration. Wayang has a plenty character

with many of symbolism that very close to Indonesian

root of culture which can became an identity that can

be recognized (Isbister, 2006).

2 METHOD

In this research purpose is to gain information base on

existing data to induce a depth explanation. The result

will not be data quantification, but it will be more

descriptive approach about design that involves

Wanda as a pattern to create some character. Author

tries to reveal uniqueness of individual in this case

Wayang’s character.

Wayang is one of Indonesian National Heritage as

mention in Nurgiyanto on his Journal (“Wayang Dan

Pengembangan Karakter Bangsa” that is published

in Jurnal Pendidikan Karakter, mention Wayang has

been recognized by UNESCO as the Masterpiece of

Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. The

puppets are recognized as masterpieces because the

puppets have a high value for the human race.

Wayang full of values, whether reflected in the

Hilman, D. and Zufri, T.

Wanda Wayang Bima as a Visual Exploration.

DOI: 10.5220/0010006100002917

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Social Sciences, Laws, Arts and Humanities (BINUS-JIC 2018), pages 261-263

ISBN: 978-989-758-515-9

261

character of characters, stories, as well as various

other elements that support. All of that is well used as

a reference development of the character of the

nation. Once acknowledged as a masterpiece, the

puppet must be preserved its existence, and it

becomes the duty of all nations in the world,

especially the Indonesian nation that has the puppet

culture. We must believe that the existence of the

Indonesian nation today cannot be separated from the

traditional noble values that have a very long history

in guarding the growth and progress of this nation,

one of them is the wayang culture. In today's global

era, local advantage is needed because that is what

distinguishes it with ethnic and other nations

(Kusano, 2003).

The use of research method analysis and visual

exploration as mention in Karen Isbister book: “Game

Character Design. A Psychological Approach”, that

contains a discussion about how to design a character

for game. Even at the beginning the book concern is

for character design for game, at general it is still

relevant. In this writing, we use a great proportion

from that book and then combined with visual

exploration to developing a draft and future final

artwork. In this writing, author conducting data

collection at certain period, qualitative data analysis

performed interactively. This activity includes data

reduction, data display and conclusion/verification.

Wayang (Golek and Kulit) have a potential to

become a stepping-stone for contemporary character

design exploration. Wayang has a plenty character

with many of symbolism that very close to Indonesian

root of culture which can became an identity that can

be recognized.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This writing aim to look closer at the character design

as a front point of comic and animation Industry that

should well prepared. The result is not visual, it more

like categorizing and coding that can be used by

further researcher.

Mythology that taken from a local culture can be

used as a reference that is widely used by character

designer, especially character design that became part

of the story-based character. In cultural context, it is

almost impossible to define Indonesia as simple as a

country. The richness of Indonesian culture is too

complex and varies. Indonesia is not like (let say)

Japan which relatively homogeny compare to

Indonesian culture range. Every sub-culture in

Indonesia has its own uniqueness that sometimes

seem like cross over one to another. The variety of

Indonesian culture becomes a challenge as well as an

advantage, so many and varied the culture of

Indonesian can be used as a source of ideas and

references.

Figure 1. Framework

The use of color in different sub-culture can

propose a different meaning. So, the variety of

expression and social life can be different in each

cultural context. One of the Indonesian cultural

artifacts that are potentially to dug into the base of

character development is the art of Sundanese

Wayang Golek (puppet shows made of wooden

puppets, which are especially popular in West Java).

This is one of the many proofs of richness and

mythology of Indonesian culture. Therefore, this

variety of cultural richness of Indonesia holds the

potential that can be explored as story-based

characters.

In character design, the evil character (villain) are

almost always depicted with dark colors, endomorph

body shapes and cynical facial expressions. Likewise,

the character that represents goodness (hero) is

usually displayed with a proportional body shape

(mesomorph). It is represented on the visualization of

Wayang Golek. The audience will easily recognize

the character and role of the character through its

color, attribute, expression and attitude of each

character (Weintraub, 2004).

In this research we try to compare the Wayang

kulit Purwa (puppet show made of leather,

demonstrate the play of Babad Purwa Mahabarata

and Ramayana) design with Wayang Golek design by

Karen Isbinser visual category as written in her book:

Game Character Design. A Psychological Approach.

All aspects that being compared then analyse to gain

an understanding about what in the identity of an

Indonesian character design. We believe it can be

useful for further research. In a wrapt semiotic

approach can enrich the analysis, in order to reach a

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deeper understanding about meaning, message and

ideology within character design (Nurgiyanto, 2011).

4 CONCLUSIONS

In Wayang (Kulit and Golek) as a national heritage

has a potential to be explored as a source for character

design development that not yet found its format or

pattern. Character design is an important part in

creative industry. Character is not only just an actor it

is an ideological representation of the designer, so it

can communicate through certain visual language it

also has an important role to deliver a message or

ideas (Tillman, 2011).

Unfortunately, character designer in Indonesia

give a less attention and concern more about visual

exploration that often only just skin deep and then

forgettable. Character design not yet able to take a

step away from the foreign visual style hegemony.

Indonesian character design still struggles in

interpreting a visual literacy from what we so call

local content. The product of characters emerge in

different shapes follows the Industrial trends that

dominates.

This writing describes an early description both

visual and non-visual that we must consider as an

important aspects to find a character design formula

through a cultural heritages such as Wayang.

In the development stage there still, a lack of

attention towards character design. Character only

present as hollow visual artifacts. To bring the

character to live we should integrate aspects such as

visual, psychology, symbol, ideology etc. Less

attention to character design for local comic and

animation became severe condition, the existence of

foreign products make it worse especially in comic.

The development of cultural-based character

design, especially the culture of Indonesia is still very

open. Especially in the area of integration between

local culture with popular culture. In the end it will be

create a character design with the Indonesian local

content, both in the conceptual and visual areas.

There are a dozen issues about style adaptation.

There is nothing wrong with that but still we have to

move on to a better approach so in the future we can

be proud for ourselves knowing that we able to create

our uniqueness character (Haryanto, 1991).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to express heartfelt thanks to

Danendro Adi, S.Sn., M.Ds. Dean of Design Faculty

and Darmawan Syamsudin, S.Sn. M.Ds. Head of

Animation Department for their support. We also

appreciate Binus University for providing financial

support.

REFERENCES

Haryanto, S. (1991). Seni Kriya Wayang Kulit: Seni Rupa.

Jakarta: Grafiti

Isbister, K. (2006). Better Game Characters by Design: A

Psychological Approach. San Fransico: Morgan

Kauffmann Publisher

Kusano, Y. (2003). Super Character Design & Poses.

Tokyo: MPC Publishing

Mattesi, M. D. (2008). Force Character Design from Life

Drawing. Burlington: Focal Press

Nurgiyanto, B. (2011). Wayang Dan Pengembangan

Karakter Bangsa. Jurnal Pendidikan Karakter, 1.

Tillman, B. (2011). Creative Character Design.

Kidlington: Focal Press

Weintraub, A. N. (2004). Power Plays: Wayang Golek

Puppet Theater of West Java. Ohio University Press

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