Narrative Strategies

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Short 10 minute writing exercise based on 'The Carew Murder Case'

The night is dark as I walk through the fog creating a pathway behind me. I see a stranger before me. An old man with ashy hair hanging limply over his wrinkled, decrepit face. As I move towards his wiry frame his identity becomes apparent, Sir Danver Canew stands before me, his face contorted with confusion, showing the beginnings of fear. I take this twist of fate into my own hands and allow my shadow to engulf his. His grey eyes fill with fear.  I strike the blow. And again. And again. The force of my cane leaves my hand stinging, tickling my skin. I cease to see the bounty of my hard work.  The old man lays flat on his back, arms outstretched. This feels like a warning from God. I spit on him, my saliva thick from the smell of blood. I strike him again, leaving his body in the fetal position. Let this be my warning to God.

Notes from short piece
Positive
Like the religious aspects
good use of language in areas
Like the mystery at the beginning of the scene - Hyde doesn't know who his victim is.

Negative
I want my work to be more sensory, more emphasis on how things look, taste, feel and sound to the character.
More metaphorical language
Writing style and narrative could be more subtle
Use of colour to make point and for more interesting read.

More focus of tone of piece, parts are quite lazily written.

DUALITY OF MAN

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/duality-in-robert-louis-stevensons-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/jekyll/themes.html



Modern cases of duality in media
I thought it would be interesting to look at modern interpretations of Duality of Man and see how they are represented in new media

Breaking Bad:2008-2013

Like Jekyll, Walter White struggles with his own morality. He tries to keep his family and his growing drug trade separate but finds this difficult as the seasons go on. It is when he creates the persona 'Heisenberg' that attitude changes drastically, giving him two separate personalities. Walter, the good natured push over and Heisenberg the manipulative, arrogant and selfish drug manufacturer.

By the last season, like Jekyll, the two merge in to one and the Walter we met in the first season is completely erased from the character. His dark side becomes more prominent and this ultimately leads to his downfall.

Fight Club: 1999

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club

 Fight Club is famous for it's theme of duality.  The two main characters could not be more different

but Tyler the alter-ego is everything Edward Norton's unnamed character wished he could be. The twist ending sows them to in fact be the same person as Norton's character struggles with split personality disorder in order to deal with his own issues.

HOW COLOUR IS USED IN BOOK

London experienced terrible, thick, poisonous fogs throughout the second half of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, caused by air pollution. Stevenson uses the fog to make the setting particularly sinister. In reality, the fog did provide cover for criminals, including Jack the Ripper (the ‘Whitechapel Murderer’), who killed at least five women two years after the publication of Jekyll and Hyde. The fog is described as a ‘chocolate-coloured pall’ (p. 22) and‘as brown as umber’ (p. 23). As it comes and goes, there is an eerie sense of what is unseen. When there are breaks in the fog, ‘a district of some city in a nightmare’ is revealed (p. 22).

WHAT DIFFERENT COLOURS REPRESENT

Red

¨      Red is the colour of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

¨      Red is a very emotionally intense colour. It enhances human metabolism, increases respiration rate, and raises blood pressure.

¨      It has very high visibility that’s why stop signs, stoplights, and fire equipment are usually painted red.

¨      In heraldry, red is used to indicate courage. It is the colour found in many national flags.

¨      Red is widely used to indicate danger (high voltage signs, traffic lights).

¨      This colour is also commonly associated with energy

Light red represents joy, passion, sensitivity, and love.
Pink signifies romance, love, and friendship. It denotes feminine qualities and passiveness.
Dark red is associated with vigor, willpower, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing, malice, and wrath.
Brown suggests stability and denotes masculine qualities.
Reddish-brown is associated with harvest and fall.

White

¨      White is associated with light, goodness, innocence, and purity.

¨      It is considered to be the colour of perfection.

¨      White means safety, purity, and cleanliness. As opposed to black, white usually has a positive connotation.

¨      White can represent a successful beginning.

¨      In heraldry, white depicts faith and purity.

¨      Angels are usually imagined wearing white clothes.

¨      White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and sterility

These are the two colours which I want to concentrate on in my own piece.

OTHER NOVELS OF THIS TIME PERIOD

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/themes/the-gothic

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/mary-shelley-frankenstein-and-the-villa-diodati

https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/Dracula

Sweeney Todd
https://www.timeout.com/london/film/the-story-behind-the-legend-of-sweeney-todd

AMERICAN LITERATURE THEMES

https://prezi.com/nmkv3p7wpqvo/major-themes-in-american-literature/

http://teacherweb.com/CA/WestlakeHighSchool/Schlehner/American-Themes.pdf

http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/natural.htm

http://lzmarieauthor.com/seasons-in-literature/

https://www.britannica.com/art/American-literature

Story Plan

First Paragraph:

Jekyll wakes up , not knowing where he is, he is covered in blood.

Scarf missing and heads to nearest street.

Second Paragraph:

Finds newspaper on floor, give him potential clue of Hyde's activities from the night before.

Heads to new destination,

hears people speak of hyde

Third Paragraph:

Gets to crime scene, sees scarf used as murder weapon,

goes and sits in park,

loses all hope.

 

1st Draft of short story. 

I woke in the cold dawn of day in a dark, unfamiliar alleyway. The scurrying of rats was the first noise my startled senses had come to notice. It is at this moment that I snap back in to my own reality. I look down on the clothes, belonging to Mr Hyde; his doused, white shirt fits snugly on my larger frame. Then I see it. Red. From the torn sleeves to the bottom of his dishevelled trouser leg, there was only red. Panic hits. I have no recollection of taking the potion that made me into the creature not so unlike the rats at my feet. What did Hyde do last night to leave me in such a state of disarray? I search for something to cover myself and found my coat on the floor beside me, scuffed, but inconspicuous. The scarf given to me by my mother on the year of my twenty-first birthday was missing.  I wrap the coat around myself to cover what’s hiding beneath and stagger down the alleyway and into the nearest street, keeping out of sight of passers by. As I limp slowly back to my own, safe home, a newspaper of today’s date lying flat in a puddle stops me in my tracks: ‘Horror at Local Brothel!’ the rest on the information distorted by murky, stagnant water. This is bad. As much as I could hope it had nothing to do with Hyde, something inside me said otherwise. I stagger through the streets as fast as I can to my new destination. Common people whisper about how a small man with indescribably evil features had haunted their street last night with shrieks of laughter. Paranoia hits me like one liquor too many. I’m drunk with guilt. The same people who gazed upon the honourable Dr Jekyll with holy grandeur now gorge themselves on the tales of the revolting Mr Hyde.  He had been here; my body knew I wasn’t far from the horrors ahead of me now.  I move forward, knowing where to go from vague memories, which had never belonged to me. A crowd of intrigued spectators are gathered up ahead. What are they looking at? I see now. A woman brought out under a pearlescent, white sheet enveloping her tiny frame. But there it is again. Red. Sullying her now unimpeachable, pure body. Something familiar pokes awkwardly out from under the sheet. My mother’s scarf clenched around the girls throat. I stumble away. My saliva becomes thick with sickness and guilt. My senses betraying me, I move through tunnel vision. A bench appears up ahead and I sit listening to the birds sing telling me spring is here. The warmth of the sun hits me through the trees and dries the wet ground below me. The irony is revolting. My head collapses into my hands. I whisper to God “What have I become? What have I become?

Notes on short story first draft.

American Literature references

Story telling devices
Duality

Religion VS Class

Tone of piece

Story Telling Devices

I found this short story quite difficult to start as I wasn't really sure what aspect of the novella I wanted to concentrate on. I knew I was interested in the language of the book and the detective aspects in the narrative. I wrote this entire piece in one sitting, it took about an hour to get it all down. Parts could definitely be better and some of the language is a bit sloppy in areas.

I knew I wanted to have Jekyll wake up and retrace his steps but I wasn't quite sure how I would make it work. I originally was thinking of having him find a ticket to the brothel (or something like that) in his pocket but I thought that would be a bit obvious. I  preferred the idea of subtly throwing details in to the story as he re-traces his steps so we learn plot devices as he does. 

I liked the idea of using a personal item of Jekyll's, this example being the the scarf. It was a personal object to Jekyll which hyde had used to kill someone. The innocence of J receiving this scarf from his loving mother to celebrate him turning 21 made it's usage as a murder weapon all the more brutal and more of a blow to J. I wrote about it very subtly at the start of the piece to make its existence clear to the ready but made the fact it was missing not seem too important to the narrative.

I also thought leaving the newspaper open ended left more of an air of mystery around the case. I didn't want it to be too blatant or for the reader to figure everything out too quickly.

I also wanted there to be connecting elements to the beginning and end of this piece as I prefer this type of narrative. I also feel that it is in keeping with the mystery genre as the reader has to read in between the lines in areas of the writing. 

I wanted to make a direct connection between Jekyll at the beginning of the piece with the girl at the end.  To do this I chose to make a comparison between the way Jekyll awakes (white shirt doused with blood etc) to the girl covered in a sheet (again white and red) 

Connection to the Book

Links to Chapters
Chapter 4 : The Carew Murder Case
Chapter 8: The Last Night.
Chapter 10: Henry Jekyll's Statement of Events

I wanted my short writing piece to have as many subtle connections to the book as possible. This made me consider the language used in the book. I analysed the way Jekyll talks in the book, especially in the last chapter where he explains himself and tried to mimic it in my own writing.
I wanted it to be similar while still being slightly more relaxed; educated and articulate, while also seeming to be from Jekyll's own head. Sentences such as "on the year of my 21st birthday" are very close to the tone of the novella as well as others of it's time period.

I also looked into Chapter 8, The Last Night, which focuses particularly on the colour red and decided to also use this in my own work. I wanted to use this colour to emphasise the loss of innocence in Jekyll.  He's wearing a white which symbolises purity but is also covered in red, tarnishing that purity. Symbolic metaphors are so important in Jekyll and Hyde

American Literature 

 American literature is my favourite genre of writing and I couldn't help nut notice that Jekyll and Hyde shares some of the same themes. 

Often in American Literature the protagonist starts off being innocent but the evil in society brings them to a state of disarray and weakness. I believe Jekyll's transformation into Hyde was something that the rigid society he lived in pushed upon him. He was expected to behave a certain way as a member of high society which made the idea of Hyde all the more attractive.

I also wanted to use Spring in my own piece as in American Literature, spring  is the the season that represents hope and opportunities.  

Religious Language/ Imagery

 In in the novella, religion and class are placed closely to one another which is evident in chapters such as  Chapter 4, The Carew Murder Case, where a politician is described like a holy being by a lowly servant girl. This inspired me to make a close comparison between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in my own piece through the line "the same people who gazed upon the honourable Dr. Jekyll with holy grandeur now gorge themselves on the tales of the revolting Mr. Hyde." The point being that if you take away Jekyll's place in high society, you also remove his 'holy grandeur'.

Feedback meeting: 

I really struggled with the tensing of this piece going between past and present frequently. After a meeting with Lynsey, I found that this may be because when we speak out loud we go in between tenses all the time and I hadn't even realised I was doing it.

Lynsey also said I should paragraph my piece, again, something that hadn't even occurred to me. 

She also said that the 'new destination' that Jekyll goes to wasn't clear enough and I should think of a better way of putting it.

She also told me to get rid of the line "The irony was revolting". I had been more subtle throughout the rest of the piece and this was a bit blatant.

Second draft, Short Story

I awake in the cold dawn of day in a dark, unfamiliar alleyway. The scurrying of rats is the first noise my startled senses come to notice. I snap back to my own reality. I look down at myself and see the clothes, belonging to Mr. Hyde; his sodden, white shirt stretched snugly over my larger frame. Red. From the torn sleeves to the bottom of his disheveled trouser leg, there was only red. Panic hits. I have no recollection of taking the potion that made me into the creature not so unlike the rats at my feet. What did Hyde do last night to leave me in such a state of disarray? My head is as foggy as the streets in winter.  I search for something to cover myself, finding my coat on the floor beside me, scuffed, but inconspicuous. The scarf given to me by my mother on the year of my twenty-first birthday was missing. It’s a shame, but not something to consider at this moment.

 I wrap the coat around myself to cover what’s hiding beneath and stagger down the alleyway and into the nearest street, keeping out of sight of passersby. As I limp slowly back to my own, safe home, a newspaper of today’s date lying flat in a puddle stops me in my tracks: ‘Horror at Local Brothel!’ the rest of the information distorted by murky, stagnant water. This is bad. As much as I could hope it had nothing to do with Hyde, something inside me said otherwise. I stagger through the streets as fast as I can to witness, with my own eyes, this headlined ‘horror’.

Local common people gossip about how a small man with indescribably evil features had haunted their street with shrieks of laughter the night before.  Paranoia hits me like one liquor too many. I’m drunk with guilt. The same people who gazed upon the honourable Dr. Jekyll with holy grandeur now gorge themselves on the tales of the revolting Mr. Hyde.  He had been here; my body knows I’m not far from the horrors ahead of me now.

 I move forward, knowing where to go from vague memories, which had never belonged to me. A crowd of intrigued spectators are gathered up ahead. What are they looking at? I see now. A woman brought out under a pearlescent, white sheet enveloping her tiny frame. But there it is again. Red. Sullying her now unimpeachable, pure body. Something familiar pokes awkwardly out from under the sheet. My mother’s scarf, now clenched firmly around the girl’s throat. I stumble away. My saliva thickens with sickness and sin. My senses betraying me, I move through tunnel vision. A bench appears up ahead and I sit listening to the birds sing telling me spring is here. The warmth of the sun engulfs me as it flickers through the trees and evaporates the puddles from the damp ground below me. My head collapses into my hands. I whisper to God “What have I become? What have I become?”

Notes on Final Short Story

All the parts in orange are the changes I made to this version. I took on board everything that Lynsey had to say about my first draft and also asked several of my peers to read it through to help me with the tensing of my work.

There weren't too many changes made but there are areas where I improved the language or added some words to add to the effect I was trying to make.

I added some urban gothic context at the start with the comparison to the winter streets. I felt this was something I hadn't touched upon yet but wanted to at some point in my piece so I just put in a small line early on to bring context to the piece.

I also put more emphasis on his reaction to the scarf being missing, making it clear that the loss doesn't seem to be of huge importance to the character.

With Lynsey's feedback, I made it more clear where the character is heading "headlined horror" I also prefer how this sounds in the essay.

HYBRID ANIMATIONS - HOW THEY ARE USED

https://www.creativefreedom.co.uk/icon-designers-blog/advantages-of-hybrid-animation/

That is a case of each part being a separate sequence.  I also believe there have been shorts where a 3d puppet moves in a 2d set, and also perhaps a 2 1/2 D set - like kitchen cupboards that were 3d boxes, but the surface details and handles were all drawn on.  I think the opposite has been done too, a 2d animated character moving in a 3d model set.  Sometimes a set of replacement card cutouts, sometimes composited in afterwards, with the 3d set simply acting as a background image, much like a photo of a real world location.

Stop Motions

Madame Tutli Putli

I really love the way that CG and stop motion are used in this piece, the faces show emotion so well and helps the audience understand the character better.

Making of Madame Tutli Putli.

Street of Crocodiles

The music in this piece is really chilling and effective in achieving the gothic horror vibe of this animation. 

2D Segment

The Corpse Bride Concept Art

This is the style of art work I would like my 2D segment to be in, I want it to fit in with the gothic undertones of Jekyll and Hyde and I think the colour palette and art style is really good in these concept pieces for The Corpse Bride.

Lip Sync

I close sound clip 8 for this project and knew straight away that I wanted to look at Disney for interesting mouth shapes and how they chose voice actors etc. I haven't really looked into Disney properly for any of my other projects yet but they famous for so many reasons, including their interesting design and lip syncs.



Genie Lip Sync and character performance



Robin Williams' performance of the Genie is one of my favourites of all time, the animation is so dynamic because as the directors Ron Clements and John Musker said 'when you get Robin Williams, you get hundreds of different characters'. I found looking into his performance really interesting and inspiring for my piece.

Voices of Alladin



Jafar Lip Sync

Jafar has arguably one of the most interesting lip syncs of any Disney character, his face is so strange that they really had to think outside the box on how they would animate him.

Beast Lip Sync and character design

 I looked at the beast as I was fairly sure I wanted my character to be an animal and I was interested to see how they got around the difficult elements of his character design when it came to lip sync.

Basic Mouth Shapes.



 

From the subject matter of the voice clip, I decided I wanted my character to be an orang-utan which lead me to closely research King Louis lip sync in the Jungle Book.

I did some sketched based on his different mouth movements and what shapes his mouth makes during his scenes in the film. 

 

The picture above is probably how I'll frame the character in the actual animation.

This helped me to familiarise myself with the character design and the mouth movements. However they are a bit too sketchy to be in the style for the final animation.

Screen Shots of King Louie

'ER' Sound

 Potential 'W' Sound

'AR' Sound



'AH' sound

'IH' sound

'EE' Sound

'OO' sound



The Jungle Book 2016

I also looked into the new version of the Jungle Book to see how it was done there. This video is really interesting as it breaks the animation down layer by layer and shows you lip sync in different ways. 

Basic Sketches for my animation

Here are some sketches of the basic mouth shapes I will be using in the animation. I decided to have the characters head facing the side as I think this will be easier to animate and show different movements in the mouth.

Here are all the basic sounds and mouth shapes needed for the animation.

Some are better than others but this means I already have planned exactly what shapes his peculiar mouth is going to make before I start and this gives me a better chance of pulling off.

There are many things I would change about this piece. I feel that due to time constraints it ended up looking a bit messy. I tried really hard to get the lip sync right but it isn't quite there. However I am glad that I attempted a difficult lip sync and it threw me in to the deep end and has really helped me to develop my understand of lip syncing to a character.

I would have loved to have worked more with hand gestures and body movement to go with the lip sync but I didn't feel I would have as much time to spend on the lip sync if I attempted it. This is something I will definitely look into in my next attempt at lip syncing.

Character Bible

Before starting this project I knew I wanted to work in 2D drawn animation. I am generally weaker in this type of animation and would normally chose to work in Stop Motion as I feel much more comfortable in the medium. However I wanted to push myself to try something a bit different (by my standards) and do my first 2D drawn animation of my second year.

First Lecture- Ink Splat exercise

In the first lecture for this project we made little characters from ink splodges, I found this activity really useful when trying to come up with ideas for character and made me think in a more creative way when it comes to character design.

Anxious Cat

This is the first character I came up with in this session. I didn't use it in the end but it was useful when considering how to break down the semiotics of a character.

Benny the Elephant

Benny the elephant was the second character I drew in this session, I preferred his original drawing to the Anxious Cat design. I like that his body is more rounded and the lack of expression on his face.

Here are some different peoples takes on Benny.

This is the final design of Benny having considered all the different interpretations people had of him. I actually ended up liking him less by the end of the session and will probably drop the idea altogether. However I found the ideas and techniques used in this session very useful and will definitely experiment with this technique further.

Ink pieces

From the first session I decided to try out the ink blot technique in my own time and found it very useful when trying to think outside the box and create some interesting character designs.

Some of these are just plainly awful, such as the weird misshapen blob on the top left of the picture above, however there are some which are really interesting (almost good) ideas for the beginnings of a character design.

I found this process more difficult in my own time than I did in the lecture. I think this may be because I decided to use coloured paint when making these blobs which made it quite distracting when trying to find a character in the pattern. If I try this technique in the future I will stick only a few colours or maybe even keep it black and white so it isn't as difficult.

This is the ink splat I decided to go with in the end, it looks kind of like a doll which I think will be interesting to animate. This was by far my favourite ink splat creation although I think a lot of changes will need to be made to it's design for it to work as a character.

The Creation of Gus

I started by simplifying this character, almost so it had no features at all. In this image I can't help but see the resemblance to the Studio Ghibli tree spirits from Princess Mononoke. I wanted to avoid it looking to similar to any other character design and so I decided to develop separate parts of the character further.

Body Shape

Because I wanted to avoid my character looking to spirit like, I looked at Ugly Dolls for inspiration in this part of the design process in a attempt to push the character design a little bit and look at a bit differently.

From this I decided that I would prefer the character to have a more human like body and so abandoned the ugly doll designs and started concentrating more on voodoo dolls for inspiration.

The Ugly Doll's were definitely useful for the next part of the design process, it made me consider the length of the limbs of the character and what effect that would have on it's movement.

Different limb length experimentations

Example of larger head to limb ratio.

voo·doo

 (vo͞o′do͞o)

n. pl. voo·doos

1. A religion of West African origin practiced chiefly in Haiti and other Caribbean countries, based on animism, magic, and elements of Roman Catholic ritual, and characterized by belief in a supreme God and a large pantheon of local and tutelary deities, deified ancestors, and saints, who communicate with believers in dreams, trances, and ritual possessions. Also called vodoun.

2. A practitioner, priest, or priestess of voodoo.

3. Deceptive or delusive nonsense.

tr.v. voo·dooed, voo·doo·ing, voo·doos

To place under the influence of a spell or curse; bewitch.

adj.

1. Of or relating to the beliefs or practices of voodoo.

2. Based on unrealistic or delusive assumptions: voodoo economics

Semiotics.

After this I looked into the semiotics of a character. The design on the left is rounder, making it look more friendly and trustworthy, potentially better for a protagonist.

The character on the right. on the other hand has much sharper edges and a more triangular shaped body. I also thought this made it look more feminine than the one on the left.

After this I experimented with different eyes for the character and where they wold be positioned on the head. I decided that I preferred the eyes being further apart and being made from buttons rather than being stitched on.

Dolls from different cultures

Wooden Japanese Dolls.

Kokeshi (こけし, こけし^?, kokeshi), are Japanese dolls, originally from northern Japan. They are handmade from wood, have a simple trunk and an enlarged head with a few thin, painted lines to define the face. The body has a floral design painted in red, black, and sometimes yellow, and covered with a layer of wax. One characteristic of kokeshi dolls is their lack of arms or legs. The bottom is typically marked with the signature of the artist.















Russian Dolls.

A matryoshka doll  also known as a Russian nesting doll, or Russian doll, is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside another. The name "matryoshka" literally "little matron", is a diminutive form of Russian female first name "Matryona"  or "Matriosha".





Worry Dolls - Spain


Worry dolls are mostly hand-made. In Guatemala, they are made of wire, wool and colorful textile leftovers. The dolls are then dressed in traditional Mayan style. The size of the doll can vary between ½ inch and 2.0 inches. In western culture, the dolls are mostly made of pressed paper, adhesive tape, paper and colorful wool. Here, the dolls can be remarkably larger in size.^[2]

 

In the dolls' original Guatemalan tradition, a local legend about the origin of the Muñeca quitapena refers to a Mayan princess named Ixmucane. The princess received a special gift from the sun god which would allow her to solve any problem a human could worry about.
In traditional and modern times, worry dolls are given or lent to brooding and sorrowful children. They would tell their doll about their sorrows, fears and worries, then hide it under their pillow during the night. After this, the child will literally sleep over the whole thing. At the next morning, all sorrows are said to have been taken away by the worry doll.
Worry dolls have also played a role in modern pediatrics and child psychiatry. During a psychological interview with children, some counselors have offered a worry doll to the child as some kind of imaginary, but trustworthy "listener", "allayer" and "contact person". The doll, in turn, will work for psychiatrists, psychologists, educators and parents as some kind of "agent" and "troubleshooter" between child and adult.
Today, worry dolls are sold in huge quantity in Guatemala and Mexico. Nuns and poor children sell them to tourists as souvenirs. The dolls are quite popular since they are so small and thus easy to carry around.

 Voodoo Dolls

The term Voodoo doll is commonly employed to describe an effigy into which pins are inserted. Although it comes in various different forms, such practices are found in the magical traditions of many cultures across the world. Although the use of the term "Voodoo" implies that the practice has links to either the religion of Haitian Vodou or Louisiana Voodoo, in reality it does not have a prominent place in either.










After looking into all these different variations on dolls I decided that I didn't necessarily want Gus to be a voodoo doll. His personality (which I talk about below) doesn't fit within the concept and meaning behind a voodoo doll.

I definitely want to design a fabric based doll rather than wood, however it was interesting to see w colour and shape were used in the designs of the wooden dolls. The Japanese dolls often represent warriors and you can see that in the solid, simple design and the use of the colour red. The Russian dolls on the other hand are much more rounded and almost friendlier looking.

I really love the look and meaning behind worry dolls and although I won't be using there design in this project, I would love to experiment with a Worry Doll type character in the future.

Puppets

As I do normally prefer to work in Stop Motion, I thought it would be interesting to try experimenting with this character by making a couple of dolls and trying out different ideas on them.
I made these from different materials I had a home and some sponge I got from the market (for free- yay!)

First Puppet:

The first puppet I made was based on the slightly more rounded, plumper design above.

 I wanted to do a mix of experiments with these puppets so I did something a little bit different with each puppet.

With this puppet I tried using a mix of eyes, using one small bead and one button, I didn't mid how this looked but wasn't too excited about it either.

 I worked with a highly patterned material which I quite like but  it would be difficult to recreate in 2D animation.

I wanted to experiment with the colour of the stitching around the edges of the puppet and although I like this light purple colour, I didn't think it fit Gus' character as well.

I also made the back of this character a different patterned fabric to the front just so I could see what it looked like.

Positive:

• I like the black button for a eye
• Belly button is cute
• Liked the fabric (potentially would have used if making a stopmotion)

Negative:

• Didn't like the smaller eye
• Stitching too light
• Puppet almost looks too neat

Second Puppet:

This puppet is based on the skinnier, more triangular character design. I was right about my initial opinion that this type of design would be less effective for a protagonist character.

I chose to make this puppet with a stripy material which I really like a may put into a drawn character experiment later.

Positive:

I liked his little bow tie, may consider clothing puppet(?)
I also liked that both eyes were buttons
Liked the stripy fabric

Negative:

Body too triangular/harsh looking
Eyes wrong colour (would prefer black)
Stitching too light.

Third Puppet:

With this puppet I tried to change the length of the legs to be smaller as well as playing with the gender of the character. I wanted to make the different parts of the puppet match to see how it looked.

I can now definitely say that I want Gus to be a male character, although this character would be cool for a different role in the piece (if it was actually made into a show) this could be a friendly side character.

Positive:

• Matching stitching and eyes are cute
• I like the colour scheme
• I like that the eyes are further apart

Negative:

• Don't like the horizontal stripes as much.
• I like the design but not for Gus

Fourth Puppet

This is this puppet I experimented the most with. I wanted to take an entirely different approach to the character and think of him with more human looking features. I decided to sew in string for hair and clothes him as well as giving him a more human looking skin tone. Although I do not want to go down this route with the actual character, it has made me consider the puppet what look like clothed rather than being completely nude.

LITTLE BIG PLANET & TIM BURTON'S 9



Although this is not the shape I want Gus to be, I really like the sack like effect in both 9 and in Little Big Planet and may use the same idea for my own design of Gus.







































NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS - TIM BURTON-
SALLY

 Although I have already decided that I don't want my character to have human features, looking into this character made me consider making my design more interesting by adding colourful,
patterned patches.

This will definitely be something I try out in one of my next character design.

Zero, Zealous Creative.

The movement and puppets are really interesting in the piece, i would consider making Gus in a similar style if I was working in Stop motion.

Character Design

Here's a basic design of the character based on the drawing above and on Sally, I decided that the stripes were too much for his design so I simplified him, still keeping the patches.

Basic Character design sketches.

Here is a rough first turn around of Gus. I wanted his stitching to seem quite harsh, almost painful  looking to emphasise to trauma he has to go through every time he falls. His semiotics are very round as I wanted to make it clear that he is a good and friendly character, despite the fact he has some aggressive stitching ( other people find him a bit intimidating before they get to know him)

I chose to make his patches almost look like clothes, technically is naked but he appears to be wearing a seater vest. I found that this made the character more interesting to look at and also gave him a more humanistic element to his design.

His mouth is stitched together so he is silent and communicates through expression and hand gesture. (Expressions below are very important for his character)



Character Story


Gus awakes on the road one day completely alone, he has no recollection of who he is or where he came from, he finds that when he finds his stuffing, it helps him retrieve his memories. He starts his journey to find out who he is and where he came from.

Colour Studies

Tried some more colourful designs but didn't like them as much, will probably keep it more simple.

These are the final colours I decided on, I wanted to keep it simple by only using two colours while using a 'sack like' material for the main body, similar to little big planet's character.
character story

Expressions

Body Turn around

Only realised after that when I flipped the character over, his patches flipped too (oops)

Head Turn around

Character Sheet

Character Description:

Gus is shy by nature but enjoys meeting and talking to new people. 

While on his journey to find his memories he comes across many challenges

but always manages to solve any problem standing in his way. 

People find him quite unapproachable because of his raggedy exterior and

his awkwardness around strangers.  However, when people get to know him

they find him very loveable and loyal.

Gus can get lonely quite quickly which is one of things that drives him in his journey, 

he wants to find his family and his home. Gus can be quite gullible and trusts people very easily as he tries to see the best in everyone. He is very vocal about his loss of memory as he wants to get as much help as he can get however he is also quite independent, sewing himself up every time he falls .

Character Expressions

As you can see above, because Gus lacks eyebrows I have decided to show expression through creases in his fabric. I think this works quite effectively and gets around the lack of facial features problem.

Character Poses

Movement study

Gus '8 Animation Rules

Gus has a couple of do's and don'ts when it comes to his movement:

1. His head is far too heavy for his body to support it properly, so when he walks, his head moves backwards and forwards. (see example above)
2. When his facial expressions change, the whole top of his head moves to fold into eyebrows.
3. He doesn't actually have elbows or knees so his arms and legs can bend at any point.
4. When he takes a step, all the weight from his body goes through that area, so bearing in mind he is made of fabric and fuzz, the bottoms of his feet squishes into the ground.(see below)
5. His arms are stitched to his body so when he raises them, he has to move his whole body into that motion (see above)
6. Remember to add stitching along the sides of his body when he is at an angle
7. He always stands with his legs slightly apart (that's the way he is stitched) never directly together.
8. His arms shouldn't sit against his arms in a relaxed position (again, the way he's stitched)

Animation rules Example: PowerPuff Girls

Adventure Time:

These were really helpful when I was trying to come up with do's and don'ts for Gus.

Test Video, Me acting out animation. 1st shot

Test 1st Shot- unedited.

Final Animation shot 1

Video Edit 12.5 fps

There are parts that I like about this animation, I tried to do a more dynamic walk cycle for this character and although it doesn't loop quite perfectly, I am glad I tried a more interesting way of animating this character.

I wanted him to appear floppy, almost boneless and emphasise the squish of his feet when weight goes through his legs. I think I achieved that in this animation.

I would have loved to edit it further but just didn't have enough time however, this is still one of my favourite walk cycles to date.





Edited on Premiere Pro

Me acting out shot 2

Edit shot 2

I had a lot of help from the reference video for this animation, I wasn't sure how I would create the movement I was trying to achieve but this video helped me get as close to that as possible.

Final shot 2

This is a cleaner version of the video before.

For this video I wanted to show the scenario where Gus has to stitch himself back up after either finding a memory or falling over (which he does regularly) I thought this was an important part of him to show as he is very self sufficient and is able to sort himself out when he falls to pieces.

Me acting out shot 3

Edit shot 3

This last video is showing Gus' reaction to retrieving a memory, it's a little bit disorientating and makes him dizzy but the he always remembers something in the end.

I only realised afterwards that I actually forgot to colour one of head flaps on one of the frames (see if you can find which one) I need to be vigilant next time I animate in 2D.

Final Shot 3

This version is edited in premiere pro and although it is not exactly how I wanted it to look, it turns out ok in the end. There are definitely parts I would want to change and improve but this was the best I could produce with the time constraints.

I think that altogether I still much prefer working in stop motion and there were several times throughout this project that I wish I had.  I think that my work is a better standard when I work in that medium, however, I am quite happy with how my shots of Gus turned out. They are a little bit rough around the edges but I think that considering it is not my style of choice, I did an ok job.