Character Development Homework 3 Favourite Characters

This task was a bit difficult for me I don't have a huge range of favourite characters. There's a lot that I'm fond of but not many that really stand out, while I was thinking about my favourites it also occurred to me that a lot of them have similar traits.

Dick Grayson (Nightwing)

Dick Grayson has always been my favourite character, he has a strong sense of justice. He's cocky, quick thinking and at some point brash, but it helps him come to life. He is arguable one of the most relatable heroes ever created. He has no powers, he relys on his wit and his strong bond with friends and family. Often described as Batman lite as he is never as dark but is almost as good as Batman. He uses his humour to ease tension where he can but is not afraid to stand up for anything that he or his friends believe in, this makes him one of the most reliable of all characters I know.

Guan Yu (Romance of the Three Kingdoms)

Guan Yu has only really become a favourite of mine recently. He has become a Chinese Saint of War, though he was a real person during the Han Dynasty where he was a general. Most information and character basis for him now comes from the book 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms'. He is a strong and loyal general. Often portrayed as one of if not the strongest of fighters, until his untimely demise comes. He is often looked to for leadership during battle as well as not letting anyone allies fall. A very skilled man with a weapon and a glorious beard to match. One of his greatest feats was charging through an army just to get at the leader, and living afterwards.

Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo (Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo)

Bobobo is arguable a character that has influenced me the most. He is very out there, for lack of a better term. While remaining the key figure of good in his story, he is prone to going off course. He lacks a boundary often resorting to throwing friends as attacks instead of doing it himself. People still look to him for what to do but it makes sense in his wacky land. He uses humour as a weapon, all of it seemingly pulled out of thin air just for the sake of it being funny. Ultimately it still leads him to his goal while he still somehow has friends that put up with him. I always found him to break the norm of a lot of Anime that became popular over here, in some ways he openly parodies and mocks them. I found it to him to be a breath of fresh air, in an arguably stale style.

Character Development Week 1

In this module we will be covering how to create believable characters and the processes that go with it. We started by listening to 'A Well Respected Man' by The Kinks and discussed what image the lyrics made us think of. 

I thought the character would be something like a 1960's suited gangster that was very smug and full of himself. Though as we heard other people's versions of the character and how they were different it showed that everyone gets a different idea from the same piece.

We then split into groups and designed a character based on an image. We cam up with the Idea of a Bear who was a Mafia boss, and wanted to be a chef. It all got convoluted and was hard to follow the feedback we got was there was some good ideas but ultimately it just didn't mesh we needed to be more streamlined in our ideas and not so out there.

Another Idea we had but we didn't present was a trans gendered girl that struggles with who they are and seeks recognition for who they are. I felt like the idea made sense there was conflict it wasn't to far out there it meshed together but the group wasn't as sure on it as me so we didn't use it.

Character Development - Original Character idea

I started by drawing random people in public and trying to get some mannerisms. I saw someone who his a lot behind their fringe and seemed to be quite shy. So I got a couple of quick sketches. Also I need to work on quick sketches, and be less precious about my lines I take way to long and it loses energy and commitment. I will stick to using pens in my sketchbook when I'm out and about so I can't just erase lines I don't like and hopefully that will capture the energy I need.

After I got those sketches I started to combine it with how I imagined shy girls to dress. Wrapped up not showing much, possibly quite baggy clothes. I used a friend back home who is quite shy as a basis for the clothes worn. most extremities would be covered unless absolutely necessary, I tried to stick as close to that as I could.

The character I created is called Kim. She is fairly shy and rather introverted. She would prefer to speak through her hand and avoid eye contact over anything else. most of her hands are cover by her sleeves as she is fairly short. She has brightly coloured hair, but it's mainly covered up as she has her hood up most of the time. Almost always wears a hoody if she can so she can hide it in if she gets embarrassed, which happens a lot. She also covers her face often, which generally results in her pushing her glasses into her face. She speaks softly almost to a point of a whisper so no one picks up on what she says so she doesn't have to worry about an outcome. 

Innovative Animation Week 1

This week we looked at Blu, a graffiti artist, who turns his graffiti into animation. He incorporates not just his art into the animation but the area in which it is done as well. He doesn't limit himself to one location either and can change area as he sees fit. His work seems energetic in how it is done as you can see some of the previous line work while the animation plays. Below is a link to his website which shows his work.

http://blublu.org/

After we looked at Blu's work we were then split into groups, we were the largest group with 5 people as such we had a few plans, we stuck to the one of doing a circle. We felt that this was the best way to capture Blu's style and his way of morphing one thing into another.

We ended up elaborating on our circle idea turning into the world being hit by a comet. I feel like there is a bit of humour to the piece which isn't far fetched for the style we were going for. I think it would have been fairly easy to expand upon our work if we wanted, as the hardest part was making sure the group could gather to all play a part in the making of the piece. I found this type of animation interesting because it's not typical. I had never even thought of surface animation until I saw Blu's work, I will have to look into it more in the future.

Finished piece

Animation Essentials Projects

Walk Cycle

This is my walk cycle the hardest bit for this was putting the arm and leg movements. I had a habit of match up everything on the same side so the right arm with the right leg, I corrected it so it was opposite arms and legs in motion. It wasn't a major change but it helped to make the piece believable.

Reaction Piece

Here is my reaction piece to a fly buzzing around and landing. I added in the sigh at the end because it felt a bit stiff. I feel that all of this was a bit stiff to be honest, something I will be doing my best to work on.

Lip sync

With my lip sync I kept the initial head movement similar to the original, but I wanted to add something to make it seems  a bit more cartoon like so I added in a bit of extra head movement in towards the end. The head also gets smaller as if moving away, this wasn't intentional but I like the idea that it feels like a the head movement is a bit greater than it seems. The drawing itself isn't my best work though I'm still getting used to the graphics tablet, and I will continue to use it so I can improve.

Show Reel

This is the final show reel for animation essentials. I picked the least offensive music I could find, Kakariko Village, and put it all together hopefully to show what I've learned doing these projects. I'm happy with this, I enjoy simple editing and collecting everything together. It just feels nice to have everything condensed.

Animation reference Material

Walk Cycle Reference

Walk Cycle Reference 2

Walk Cycle Reference 3

These are references to a happy walk as performed by my sister. I took it from different angles to make sure I could understand what needed to be drawn and how it should be done. With the lack of room where I live it was hard to get everything I needed at once. i also directed her to have different movements, if only slightly, every time I recorded her.

Reaction Reference

This is a reaction to a mosquito flying around, landing, and being squashed. This was a spur of the moment decision by me, from my original idea to do a reaction to a family death. I feel I can get a lot more out of this reaction than my previous idea. 

Lip Sync Reference

This is me mouthing and acting along the lines of how I want the lip sync to go. I used the first idea that came into my head to do it focusing solely on head movement. I felt as though this was the best course of action for the sound clip I chose. I don't feel like it needs a lot of body movement to convey what the character is feeling. i think It can all be portrayed by the eye and head movements.

Creative Edit Resit

Creative Edit

Here is my redone creative edit. I edited the soundtrack myself to make it fit roughly together with the original edits of the trailer. I then edited the film segment to make sure that the voice over would fit into the footage and cuts made there. I tried to incorporate a few different types of edits where I could but I stuck mainly to the basic cut to black to make it still seem like a modern trailer. I think this project has gone a lot better than my last one it all fits in much better.