COMPUTER ANIMATION II

How to develop a really creative character – well, in your case, recreate a character!

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Here are some tips to think about before we begin to redesign our original characters:

  1. Decide who it’s aimed at – who is your target audience?
  2. Research other designs – It can be helpful to deconstruct why certain characters work and why some don’t.
  3. Make your character distinctive - Whether you're creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character design needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people's attention.
  4. Use exaggerated characteristics - Exaggerating the defining features of your character design will help it appear larger than life.If your character is strong, don't just give it normal-sized bulging arms, soup them up so that they're five times as big as they should be!
  5. Choose colors carefully - Colors can help communicate a character's personality. Typically, dark colors such as black, purples and greys depict bad characters with malevolent intentions. Light colors such as white, blues, pinks and yellows express innocence, good and purity. Comic-book reds, yellows and blues might go some way to giving hero qualities to a character design.
  6. Add accessories - Once you give your character things to wear and interact with, it starts to come to life.
  7. Give your character personality - Interesting looks alone do not necessarily make for a good character design; its personality is key as well.The personality of your character doesn't have to be particularly agreeable, but it does need to be interesting (unless your characters are purposely dull).
  8. Give your character goals and dreams - The driving force behind a character's personality is what it wants to achieve. This missing 'something' – be it riches, a girlfriend or solving a mystery – can help to create the dramatic thrust behind the stories and adventures your character gets up to. Often the incompleteness or flaws in a character design are what make it interesting.
  9. Build up a back story – (we never had time for this) - If you're planning for your character design to exist within comics and animations then developing its back story is important. Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character. Sometimes the telling of a character's back story can be more interesting than the character's present adventures.
  10. Get feedback from others – REALLY IMPORTANT! - Show people your creations and ask them what they think. Don't just ask whether they like them or not. Instead, see if they can pick up the personalities and traits of your characters.

ASSIGNMENT:

Research – Please look at a famous character you are familiar with on the computer. Think about what makes this character successful. Please list 5 reasons why you think the character is successful.

Name of character: ______

  1. ______
  2. ______
  3. ______
  4. ______
  5. ______

Take a look at your original character design and think of ways in which you could change your character. You will need to create 3 rough sketches where you have changed your character. Use the drawing paper and pencil for the rough sketches only. If you plan on changing or showing color, please just label where the colors/textures will go.

You can:

  • Add new body parts to your character
  • Add extra props
  • Change the colors and textures
  • If you have an idea to really change the style to be more sophisticated you can do that as well, especially since I will be showing you some new techniques to create a higher level of detail.

Once the rough sketches are complete we will be critiquing them and getting feedback as to which character is the strongest. You will then be required to create a fully detailed rendering of your character in the traditional three position stance (front, side, back).