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.