A selection of my life drawings to date for this semester.

 

 

I just found a few photos that I'd taken when I started to make the maquette of Character 2. I was making it to scale - in relation to Character 1 - so it needed to be fairly big. It's approximately 220mm high and 300mm long, which would have meant using a lot of Newplast, so I decided to bulk out the inside of it.

 

 

I had a semi-circle of expanding foam left over from my animation short project, which I had made as a back-up for the body of the Buffalo character. The surface of it had never been smoothed down which meant it was ideal for the lumpy surface I want this character to have. It was also a good match for the overall size and this helped reduce the amount of Newplast that would be needed.

 

After wrapping the foam in Clingfilm (helps when removing the newplast) I began adding the Newplast in small flattened circles until the entire surface was covered. This was then transported to the studio at LSAD fort finishing.

 

 

The finished product.

 

 

The original design.

 

 

I've created the model sheets for both characters since the last post. I also made a maquette of character 2 - the protagonist.

 

Model Sheet for Character 1

 

 

Model Sheet for Character 2

 

The Maquette of Character 2

 

If I get to animate these characters this one will be getting a semi-translucent skin so that it's internal organs and veins can be seen. It will also have a slimy texture and, having no skeleton, will be able to change it's shape. - Talk about giving yourself a challenge!

 

The finished Adobe Illustrator version of Character 1

 

What I need to do next is give these guys names. I think Character 2 will be male, but I haven't decided on Character 1 yet. It might create more interesting situations if it's female. I'm going to do a bit of research next into stereotypical opposing duo's, to get a feel for what type of character traits each of them could have.

 

These are some of the images from my contextual research for the character design project.



 

Some images I captured myself - there was a few of a beetle that was on the outside of a window but they were too blurred.

 

Parasites and deep sea creatures inspired the composition of my characters.

 

One character - the protagonist - will have the texture of a slug

 

Slugsy from 'Fifi and the flowertots' is kind of similar to my protagonist character.

 

Beast from 'Maggie and the Ferocious Beast' has the sort of demeanor I have in mind for my protagonist

 

I did think of 'Ren and Stimpy' when I was creating these characters and would like mine to have the same sort of tempestuous relationship.

 

 

I'm also hoping to create a semi-translucent skin on this character similar to these frogs.

 

The second character - the antagonist - will be more like the parasites/bugs with an exoskeleton, pincers and sharp teeth. He will be much smaller and scurry around causing trouble and being annoying whilst the other character will be calm and relaxed, saving the day or coming to someone's rescue. It has been suggested to me to create a back story but I'd like to think that they could slot into any scenario. I suppose I could make up some kind of background history for them.