Bonza

Just a quick update, I sketched out a rough idea for my final character's shape.

I tried to capture the hunchback bulk of a wolverine and although it looks a bit like an extremely chunky kangaroo I'm pretty happy with the overall shape. It'll definitely look better once I've designed some clothes, fur markings, weapons, accessories etc. I might try another version with shorter legs and bulkier arms.

Blotty Heck

In workshop today we experimented a bit with ink-blots, to develop some new characters. Having already worked up a background story and basic concept for my character, I decided to use the ink-blot sketches to expand on my idea rather than start again from scratch.

Here in the first blot I immediately saw the ears and facial shape of some sort of canine (there's something to be said for the psychological side of ink-blots, I was certainly seeing what was on my mind). I also saw this canine wearing a pair of goggles.

In the next picture, the only part I actually changed was adding ovals around the pupils. This was clearly a sinister and foreboding carnivore, with some very interesting markings and what I decided was a bear-skin hat (complete with bear ears), ideal for those chilly winters!

Lastly, I took a different direction with this sketch and with a few alterations turned it into a silouette of a soldier figure, standing over his reflection. I also blotted another sheet of paper but I couldn't see anything interesting in it.

We were then told to take our 3 characters and sketch them interacting. I made up a scenario where the big carnivore is a general, the soldier his henchman and the goggle-wearing canine a dingo doing some welding. I should note this was a quick sketch and the characters came out way more human-like in appearance than I would prefer. Still, quite interesting that with just tiny alterations to completely randomly generated shapes they still fit into my predetermined scheme.

I will likely develop something for my character from the second blot as I like the facial markings and how the outer shapes can be interpreted as interesting items of clothing.

*Snikt*

Here are some real life wolverine sketches, using the website http://www.naturesdesigntaxidermy.com as reference. I know you wouldn't think taxidermy and wildlife conservation go hand in hand but the site actually has some good quality galleries with plenty of poses from live animals.

In this first set of sketches, I tried to interpret the fur shading. One thing's for sure, this character is going to need a lot of fur texturing! I'll stick to bump mapped materials for simplicity. On the right is some close-ups of the facial structure from a couple of angles which will come in handy in the modelling phase.

For these sketches I did away with the fur shading to get a clearer idea of the animal's shape. Very bulky, but not fat. Also, once the shading is gone you can see just how similar a Wolverine looks to a miniature bear. At the bottom is the only detail of a wolverine paw underside I could find.

Two more unshaded sketches for shape and pose reference.

Main Blog Turn On

Alright, it's go time.

Module: Character Design

Assignment 1: Presentation & Design Portfolio of an original charcter
(due in week 6 - 17.03.09) mark weighting: 50%

Breakdown:

• Character Concept 20%
• Annotated Sketches (all angles, poses) 20%
• Character Biography 10%
• Character Interaction Diagram 10%
• Storyboard of Actions 10%
• Sample Dialogue / Sounds 10%
• Market Research 10%
• In-class Presentation (10 mins max) 10%

Assignment 2: Full 2D or 3D Design
(due in week 14 - 29.05.09) mark weighting: 50%

Breakdown:

• Digital Artefact of Character
• Show Reel (all angles, at least 3 action poses)
• Presentation of Show Reel (5 mins max)
• Creative Log / Blog

...which is where this comes in. Whilst we were running through the module study guide I was already concocting ideas for my character. Straight off the bat I decided against a basic human because it's next to impossible to think up a really original human design theme that hasn't been done a thousand times over. The presentation we watched had plenty of ideas for monsters and horror-themed characters and having just finished a 2D project with a cycloptic monster, I was also biased against that route.

So then I started thinking animals. I do fall back on badgers as a sort of go-to idea so I went against that and did some research on other types of animal that could fit into an interesting story. In order to pick one, I needed a story.

I decided I liked the idea of a distant future where roles are almost reversed and humans are on the verge of extinction, where animals have evolved so that they can utilise technology and communication on a level with... say 17th to 20th century humankind, for instance. This got me thinking of a scenario where natural adversaries had also taken their fight up to that level.

Reading through Animal - The Definitive Visual Guide to The World's Wildlife (Ted Smart, Dorling Kindersley 2001) I found a good rivalry and scene: Wolves versus Wolverines in a snowy forest. This immediately made me think of the Bastogne episodes from Band Of Brothers and so I pictured a battle between animal alliances in a cross between military and nature documentary, the sort of scenario that would work well as a dramatic series or game.

And so I picked my character: An evolved wolverine soldier.

"Wolverine" obviously makes you think of the famous Marvel character so any visual similarities need to be avoided. The battle of Bastogne is also very well documented and probably still quite fresh in people's minds from (the excellent) Band of Brothers, so I'm also going to try and avoid straight references to World War II if I can. Looking at natural habitats for the animals, they seemed to share territory around Scandinavia so this gave me the idea of referencing Norse mythology and Old Norse culture in general. Anyway that's a lot of boring text to kick off the blog, so here is some more in the form of the character biography I drafted.

Linky

Next up: sketches (I promise!)