Outlaws of the Marsh is one of four great classical novels of Chinese literature. After deep visit and exploration, the author discovers that there are not complete representative facial makeup totems for Outlaws of the Marsh. Facial makeup currently painted in various activities presents weaker storytelling and implication. The author therefore designs the complete facial makeup totems for 108 characters in Outlaws of the Marsh. To design the facial makeup and totem based on art and cultural system, historical literature review of Outlaws of the Marsh is particularly planned in the discussion. The placement of contemporary culture and design theory provides reference for the design of creative facial makeup. Five chapters are divided in this study for the discussion and design.
Chapter One, Introduction, starts from research background, motivation, and objective, which are then organized to draft the structure for this design research. Chapter Two, Literature review, focuses the historical background and reference on “facial makeup culture”, “Outlaws of the Marsh culture” and “Neimen Song Jiang Battle Ritual culture”. Chapter Three, Academic and theoretical basis, precedes the theoretical discussions related to modern color, modeling, and word meaning as well as the reference for facial makeup decoding of Outlaws of the Marsh characters. Chapter Four is the core of the research design. Section 4.1 is the color and modeling design composition of facial makeup creative totems of 108 characters in Outlaws of the Marsh. Section 4.2 shows the study and conclusion of the appearance features of 108 characters for the reference of totem design in Section 4.3. Section 4.3 reveals the creative facial makeup totem design of 108 characters in Outlaws of the Marsh. Five major design elements, including “name”, “nickname”, “weapon”, “appearance feature”, and “others”, are used as the design reference. In this section, principles of chromatics and modeling principles are particularly integrated into the design thinking. Different from original design of religious totem, it is promoted to facial makeup totem creation design with art and cultural style. Section 4.4 analyzes facial makeup of 108 characters as well as the facial makeup design characteristics and covering meaning to construct facial makeup totem with personal characteristics of 108 characters in Outlaws of the Marsh.
Chapter Five, Design of derived cultural and creative products, is the practice of cultural heritage and social promotion to conform to contemporary popular culture trend and implant in current youngsters’ ideology to expand the new culture spread energy of Outlaws of the Marsh through young groups’ motion track. Accordingly, color thought and application of contemporary chromatics of Chinese Taoism five elements, fire (red), water (black), wood (green), gold (white), and earth (yellow), are integrated into the cultural and creative product design for the integration, application, and practice in various lifestyles. Finally, it is expected to carry the timeliness of traditional Chinese culture and promote local Chinese folk art through the facial makeup creative design of 108 characters in Outlaws of the Marsh and the cultural and creative product design & promotion.