The shaping process and the economic benefit of the characters – An empirical study of the illustrators engaging in social networking

本研究企圖探討當代插畫創作者之於角色的創作能力生成歷程，因應行動網路成熟與社群網路崛起，插畫創作者如何運營社群平台，提供角色展演舞台，並能更進一步衍生角色商品。據此，本研究試圖討論：（1）插畫創作者如何形塑角色？（2）參與社群平台的插畫創作者如何以角色衍伸經濟效益？ 本研究將引用李仁芳（2008，2015）、李世暉（2013）與黃鈺茗（2015）分別主張之「創意心靈」、「A型團隊」、「角色」、「情感資本」、「粉絲」、「漣漪效應」作為架構主體，以次級資料分析法、深度訪談法為資料蒐集方式，借質性研究之解釋型個案研究，對研究個案整理歸納、分析後詮釋。本研究依據角色之生命週期而擇定處於養成期初、後階段與流行期之三個案：吃貨雞仔、保羅先生與Duncan（當肯）。 本研究發現：創意心靈為插畫創作者孕育角色之技術、內容與情感的孵化器，且其飽滿度影響角色的感染力。藉由社群平台的傳播效力，對於角色產生認同與感動的粉絲，由於來自社群平台的參與感而更累積情感資本，並依附情感資本於角色商品。插畫創作者還可與守門人以A型團隊的合作模式，額外增加經濟效益。This paper attempts to explore the shaping process of the charactors established by illustrators in recent years, and to discover, with the flourishing of Internet and Social Networking, how illustrators manage their own SNSs that the characters could perform on, furthermore, how illustractores change the characters into the characterized products. Consequently, the research questions are: (1) How do illustrators shape the stylization of the charactors? (2) How do economic benefits come with illustrators engaging in social networking? The study applies concepts of “Creative Mood”, “A-type Team”, “Character”, “Affective Capital”, “Fans” and “Ripple Effect” as the research framework, and develops according to Explaining Qualitative Research Methods as Secordary Date Analysis and In-Depth Interviewing and Case Writing. Three cases investigated in this study are (1) Eating-Chick, (2) Mr. Paul and (3) Duncan complying with the life period of characters. Summarized as follows: Illustrators with the creative mood could inject technology, content and emotion into the characters. The deeper the creative mood saturation is, the more the influences of the characters have. Besides, with the communication effects of SNS, the fans that have made identify and impressions on the characters will join SNSs accompanying with storaging more affective capital for the characterized products. Illustators and gatekeeper could cooperate as A-type team for additional economic benefits