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Antagonists In The Antagonist

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Antagonist is the opposite of protagonist, it comes from Greek “opponent, emeny”, and, in most cases, battles against protagonist. Antagonists are usually represented with angular, spikier shapes and dark, or “dangerous” colors.
The best way to make an obvious antagonist is to make it as opposite to the protagonist as possible. A good example would be Scar from “The Lion King”(Fig.12). He has a completely different from the protagonists color scheme, different body shape. When put next to protagonists, the contrast is obvious.

Fig.12 Lions: Scar, Mufasa, Simba. (1994)

There are also two most successful types of antagonists. One of them is truly evil character, sneeky, smart, somewhat scary. The second way is to make it, intentionaly or not, fall into the uncanny valley.
Evil Or Uncanny?

Evil characters are represented with angular shapes, the more, the better. The best way to make a character scary is to give it as many visual cues that are burned in human subconscious as dangerous ones. Basically, to give it as many “dangerous” shapes and color as possible. Take a look at Anton Ego from Pixar’s “Ratatouille”.(Fig.13) Earlier …show more content…

G-Man from Half-Life is a great example of both a strong antagonist and an uncanny valley character. (Fig.20) The only thing that gamers can tell about this mysterious character is that he is “not completely human”. “The G-Man speaks in a slow, raspy yet commanding manner, with a certain accentuated low-key moroseness to his tone, sometimes placing unusual stress on syllables, stressing the wrong parts of words, making unneeded pauses, and awkwardly changing the pitch of his voice, sometimes in the middle of a word. He speaks as if he was uncomfortable with human speech.” This is one of the videos representing the G-Man:

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