Researching into Villains

3 Different options

I find that when it comes to character designs, I always go for a similar look. Often dark and creepy, imagining a character in 3 different ways will help me decide if I want to go down that path or try something different.

I decided to come up with a few characteristics I would like to portray through my character, I came up with a few:

• Observant
• Intelligent
• Sarcastic
• Charming
• Arrogant
• Precise

I did notice that all of my characteristics add up to making Sherlock Holmes, but I like his (and that type of smart sarcastic) character. So it makes sense.

I thought about shapes and symmetry, the guy seems to have a lot of points to his face. Along with triangles. He has big eyes (even though it doesn't) but it shows he's observant. (I have big eyes, and I am not observant) I also felt like a fox portrayed that same kind of characteristics, it's an example. But I feel for the project that I should stick to a human face, it will give me experience technically in rigging a human.
Through these characteristics I've decided I want to create a villain, but a fantasy villain.

Task - Reviewing characters

Shape Language - Everything about the character en composed.

Silhouette - Two dimensional representation of the outline of an object, as a cutout uniformly filled in with black,especially a black paper, miniature cutout of the outlines of a famous person's face.

Asymmetry - Not identical on both sides of a central line; unsymmetrical.

Below are examples of what i think good character design looks like. I could come with many more, but these ones came to mind first.

There are just a 'few' examples of good character designs, in my opinion. Everyone wont agree with me. All of these are very 'fantasy'based characters, which means when they were being designed the designer had more creativity. 

Kirby - She's incredibly simple as a design, her main and seems to be only shape is circles. Circular shapes in nature have a tendency of being soft and harmless and evoke likeable characters. Her colour helps to her be harmless, with the warm pink colour. Her silhouette would be pretty easy to know it was her, she's a famous character. 

Cloud - I chose to compare cloud and Kirby due to how different they are, Cloud is incredibly stylised along with his giant sword which is incredibly recognisable. Much like the entire final fantasy franchise, because of this hair he isn't asymmetrical. However the majority of him is, which is pleasing to the eyes.   

Amazing PDF on character Design : http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:637902/FULLTEXT01.pdf

It's different talking about realistic character designs, proportions can be altered in infinite ways and they are especially useful to create many various human-based characters: A character with a small head and a large body will communicate in an entirely different way compared to a character with a small body and a large head.

Group Task (It was fun)

We each had a a sheet of 'blobs' we each had to draw over in attempt to make some sort of character, we would then choose our favourite one. In my case it ended up being this grumpy looking mouse. He has his back to the camera in this rendition, so I had to imagine what his face looked like. 

As you can see my original image is the largest here, he's pretty simple. I wouldn't be happu with it as an actual design, I would adapt it into something I was happy with. This is what the rest of the group helped with.

Each one of our drawings were shown on screen, to which we all had to draw our own renditions of what we think the character should look like. They're all pretty amazing. This then gives us more ideas on how to expand our characters. Showing that not all first ideas are good. They need to grow and change. I won't be using my mouse as my character for the project, as I just want to do something different. It doesn't interest me.

Introduction

Develop a character through experimentation of design and technical solutions of your chosen area of specialism. You will bring the character to life in an animated sequence, continuing to extend your fundamental animation skills.

I MUST HAVE:

• Character Bible including written description of characters narrative arc 
• Pre Production including animatics, tests etc 
• Experimentation Reel detailing your iterations towards the final outcome. 
• Character Reel 3 shots showing the full range of dynamic movement from your character. 
• Research Portfolio a link to your blog demonstrating sustained engagement with research, development and an awareness and application of the industry practices expected within your animation technique. This must include a weekly summary. 
• Reflective Journal a PDF extracted from your research blog containing all weekly summaries and a final critical evaluation of the project, with a suggested word count of 250 words.

DUE:  17/02/2017