Recap:
This past Monday also passed the first iteration of prototypes. For my first set of prototypes, I focused on character design, starting off with size chart’s for the characters I’d be featuring in my animated pilot. I must admit it probably wasn’t all that effective trying to convey the personalities of through static t-posed positions, but it did help me get a better sense of how I want to angle their anatomy and compare their over height next to each other. In doing this, should help me keep them accurately proportioned, although I realized with the upcoming prototyping I’ve done this week of 11/9 to 11/15, I may need to practice some more with keeping my characters on model. I’ll likely be elaborating on this more on my next prototype post and/or in a reflection post on it.
Too Cute to be Killer?
Nevertheless, I was going through some uncertainty with my character designs. My main concern was if the visuals might clash with the idea themes I wish to put into play in the story . To put it mildly, my writing can be visceral, and there will be instances where characters face evident danger. Now, I’m not necessarily killing characters off left and right, but I feel that adversity can go a long way in storytelling, especially in stories with expansive worlds and lore. Plot armor shouldn’t be some safety net to fall back on, no matter how formidable a character is. Anyways, what I mean to explain was that I was nervous that my character might seem too PG to fit in the darker story I want to tell.
What say the Fellowship? Classmate Input:
I was uncertain whether my designs seemed too “cute” to be placed in the hostile world of the story, but I was met with a sigh of relief after sharing and conversing my prototypes with my fellow classmates. To my surprise, they thought my designs were rather mature for how they looked. I was afraid my design would seem oriented to a younger demographic rather than young adult age range I was aiming for, but apparently characters in TV-Y7 and younger children’s animation typically have super simplistic styles and heavily exaggerated cute design along the line of small bodies and huge heads and eyes. Thinking back now to that I watched as when I was really young, like Dora the Explorer or The Backyardigans, I can totally understand the comparison now and totally agree with the statement. It actually makes me chuckle now thinking I was nervous about my designs seeming too childish, considering I was aiming for a semi-realistic style of anatomy and only exaggerated certain parts of the animal characters to better aid in facial expression (for example, I have a bird character that represents a species a vulture known as a Lammergeier, or Bearded Vulture. I tailored their feathered beard tufts in a way that I can animate them like eyebrows without having to give them actually brows, while still maintaining the charismatic look of the animal.) My classmates gave me some really consolidated advice to not worry too much about design demographically. It’s really the approach in writing and the art that dictates gauges a particular audiences interest. One good example is Genndy Tartakovsky’s tv series Primal [as a side note, high recommendation to watch, great non verbal storytelling, compelling without needing to be overwhelmingly complex.]. It rarely uses any sort of coherent dialogue outside of grunts and screams and also follows an art style that’s simpler and doesn’t breach over-the-top in flooding with visual aesthetics (basic color palettes, subtle lighting, etc.) like I aim to do, yet it’s world is incredulously hostile and the story leaves scenes of violent action or compelling themes. Its a really nice mesh of maturity and artistic simplicity that I think I can really take inspiration from when fleshing out my own story and characters!
Speaking of fleshing out Characters…
During the critique discussion, one critical mention I took note of was in regard to my human character and that it is imperative that she is relatable. Being that she’s the core protagonist of the story, I understand that I should try to make her at least likable since we’d be stuck with her for the majority of the time, and despite the animal characters having some extent of anthropomorphism (they’ll, of course, be talking and emoting in complex expressions that only humans, primates, and select species of canine could realistically produce without physically breaking their faces), she’s really the only human character we’d be interacting with throughout much of the story (both in the thesis pilot and the general, expansive story), and therefore is our only human perspective into this mysterious world inhabited by non-human animals fitted with human-level consciousness. Going forward for this human character, I’ll need to be very mindful on how she interacts with this world, since she’s the only character we can reliably identify with from the get go and hold onto when being introduced to this story. it definitely brings in some question on how I should try to construct her character:
- How is she feeling being around these animal characters she can somehow communicate with? Is she fearful, cautious, or in awe of it all?
- How is she handling navigating the wilderness, and for the first time? Is she an outdoors champion, or is she fumbling everywehre she goes in Survival 101?
- Would she come across problems that would be an mere inconvenience back in civilized society, and how would she approach/react/resolve them?
There’s a few factors I’ll definitely need to consider while working on her personality in the coming weeks to makes she’s relatable enough to the point we can reliably follow her along this journey and experience as she does accordingly. This also opens up for questions I could ask my classmates next discussion revolving around this human character such as what would they want/expect to see her do in this world, how does she react to it, and so on. I’ll definitely be needing to work on some poses/expressions and some beat boards that I can share with my classmates and ask for feedback to help build this character (and probably the other characters) some more.