Character Development - Final Submission

Initial Character Design:

Above was my initial design and everyone seemed to like it. The feedback i got was to see her as the different characters so people could get a feel for more of her personality which I have done in an earlier post.

Different Styles:

I enjoyed seeing my character in the different styles because i became aware of the features i liked and disliked about her. For example i liked how big her eyes were but the shape in the drawing above were like triangles and so I changed them to what they are now.

After getting feedback from the class the last style was the one I liked best out of all of the others. I think it showed how innocent she was with the big eyes, but she was over sexualised and so I had to change it slightly for my final design. I made her legs shorter and her face less defined and more rounder.

Molly is a shy young woman who uses her books to escape from the reality of the real world and go on adventures. 

Maquettes:

I found it very difficult to sculpt my character, I wasn't used to sculpting the human form and it was difficult for me to get the right proportions and shapes and so once I had finished these I used them slightly to help with the turn around sheets but i should of gone back and worked on them more. I just found it frustrating i couldn't get the perfect shape.

Turn around sheets:

Expression and Pose sheet:

I drew poses that I thought suited my character. She likes to read her books and so a normal pose for her would be sat down. With the expressions I tried to draw ones that I thought she would have and since she prefers her books over people a lot of the expression were relative to what was happening in the book. Fox example: confusion and shock.

Character Scene:

https://vimeo.com/151540618

Overall i am pleased with my animation and I feel it shows her personality well, that she is a shy anxious person around people and uses books as an escape from the real world. I am disappointed with the end section,that i did not have time to fix it up to look like my character properly because of losing some of my work.

At the beginning I was more confident with this module as I found creating and designing my character can easier to me but once I had my character and had to draw her in more than one pose and try and keep her looking the same I found it extremely challenging. I feel this is because I am not confident with drawing the human form and getting the right proportions. Which is something i need to work on in my own time.

If i could change anything it would the ending and making sure I time things out properly and my workflow is timed out properly so that i leave myself time in case I do lose work in the future. I also need to work on my animation timings and adding more in between so the animation is more smoother.

Character Development - Colour, the Full Scene and Sound

Below are some process videos.

The first one if the animation all the way through with no sound added. This will be the final look. I am not happy with the ending as I had to rush it and it is not to the quality i wanted to to be but i lost work and so had to catch up with it quickly. If i had, had more time i would of neatened it but unfortunately i didn't and I myself that it does not look great. 

https://vimeo.com/151391925

Next coloured 5 seconds of my animation.
https://vimeo.com/151496957

I am pleased with how it turned out and i think it looks good. I used these colours as i feel they go with my character and have done throughout this process. Although she is shy i did not want her to be in dark colours or nudes colours and i also did not want her to stand out to much with bright colours, so i though a balance between the two would be good. She is a normal girl that is shy but still can be seen.

Next I looked for sound. i wanted my character to be sat in a library and the as the crowd was so loud she kept losing track of where she was in the book and was becoming annoyed, until she is sucked into the book and then is thankful and relieved.

I got Bethany to voice my character as i did not know anyone else who could do the voice for me and i feel she did it well. When she is becoming frustrated Molly is talking in her head and is going over the same section in the book. She is reading lord of the rings and the line she quotes is 'The One Ring' and then at the end she is relieved to be out of the crowded area and says ' Thank God, I'm gad that's over'.

I wanted there to be a slurping noise when she is being sucked into the book but when i tried it, it sounded weird and did not fit with the rest of the animation so i found a whooshing sound which fit a lot better. For the score i thought it would be best not to have it throughout the animation as the crowd sound in the beginning was quite loud because it needed to be and if there was a score in the background it would be too may noises going on at one time. I came across the song on youtube. I was looking for adventures music and tried a couple of different songs but this one fit the best and worked with the other sounds.

These are what i looked at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xr-5jDo77A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBE5osHladA

This is the one i went with:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frmFhq0-CBk
"Heart Of Courage" - Two Steps From Hell

Character Development - Rough Animations

These videos are some of the final scene in it's rough stages.

This is a rough version of the beginning scene where she is looking around the library and becoming more and more anxious with amount of people there are. The she is sucked into the book.

https://vimeo.com/151384916



This next scene is when she fall into the books pages. gain it is rough and i wanted to see how it would look and work on timings.

https://vimeo.com/151385145



This is a rough lip sync where i wanted to focus on getting the mouth movement right to what is being said.
https://vimeo.com/151385153


I feel the scene at this point shows more the personality of Molly and i am glad I did not go with one of the other scenes.

Character Development - Redo of Final Look

With help from my tutor Emily I realised that the face proportions from the last finalised style post were not what my character really looked like and were much pointier, where she actually has a rounder face. 

I found it very hard to get these proportions as I had first only drawn her looking away and that was easy but drawing her face on was difficult and hard, it was difficult to picture where her cheek bones and eyes should be. 

Below are the new finalised style drawings: 

Testing whether to have a pupil or not and getting her features in the right place - 

With pupils - 

outline - 

Fully coloured

Fully coloured standing up

The initial pose i started with but with pupils.

I feel she definitely looks likes my character and the way I pictured her. She is an average girl that looks sweet and isn't too attractive or too ugly but a good in between.  

Character Development - The Book Scene

The videos below are of me testing different ways Molly could enter the book.On a separate post I have done some research on different ways that movies and music videos have done it. 

The first way I thought of and is in the new storyboard is for the book to start glowing and then as it gets brighter and brighter she disappears into the book.

https://vimeo.com/149023821

I then added this scene into the animatic.

https://vimeo.com/149026609

I realised while watching it that it didn't look as good as i thought it would and i know it wasn't animated properly this was just a test but it still looked weird and so i decided to look at a different way she could get into the book.

This next video is her almost being sucked into the book.

https://vimeo.com/149023269

I felt this worked much better as a way she would end up in the fall and once i had tried it in the animation it flowed a lot better.

https://vimeo.com/149026901

Character Development - Week 9 - Sound

This week we looked at sound. Sound can be very important in finding out a characters personality. It can either make or break a character. For example: James Bond and the Pink Panther have iconic scores that you can recognise. Musicals have a great advantage as characters can sing about themselves.

We listened and watched some films that had scores that went well and represented the character.

  'The Piano', Directed by Jane Campion and score by Michael Nyman, Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo9G9C6KvCE

from the film below

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKrDcUrSpF0 1.36 mins - when watching this clip you can clearly see that the music represent her talking and becomes more dramatic and intense as it get closer to him cutting off her hand.

Musicals- Miss Hannigan from Annie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDkEXszYtdo

Body sound/World sound/ Folio sound: What sound does the character body make, audio ticks like rustling, banging (wooden leg), sniffing, sighing… mechanical sounds.

Narration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjBfm3Jgbjs
Narrators are a good way of having the character talk and show their personality, without them having to talk on screen. I will into this for my character as she is very shy.

After this lesson i have a better understanding of using sound to enhance my character. Since she doesn't like talking in person i could use other forms of sound to help with this.

Character Development - Week 8 - Tutorials and New Scene Idea

In the last post I mentoned how me and Emily had discussd the last scene and i realise while shooting the reference video for it that it fel like i was making an addand it felt awkward and not like my character's personality. I thought about it and this is the new scene idea  have come up with.

Molly is sat in the library ready a book and as the library gets louder with more and more people she becomes more and more anxious and starts to mess up reading the lines in the book. Then all of a sudden she is drawn into the book and she is relieved to see that she is in the book she was just reading and not with all the people in the library still.


New reference video:
https://vimeo.com/147599725


Storyboards:

Animatic without sound:
https://vimeo.com/149024906

Character Development - My Scene Idea and Reference Video

After the lesson on creating the scene and acting it out in front of the class and getting feedback i completely changed my idea. 

Research - 

Pagemaster -A cowardly boy who buries himself in accident statistics enters a library to escape a storm only to be transformed into an animated illustration by the Pagemaster. He has to work through obstacles from classic books to return to real life.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110763/

Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-gJr7iU6kI

I looked at the this movie as it was about a boy going into the world of books and i wanted my character to also do this. 

I also looked at the song Take on me as in part of the music video the woman gets pulled into the book and i wanted to see how they had done that, although i don't think a hand reaching out will work for my animation. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914

In the lesson Emily suggested listening to the song 'What have they done to my song ma' by Melanie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx_WQGp7YJg

I don't think the song goes with the scene i am going for but it was good research.

Lyrics -

Look what they done to my song ma
Look what they done to my song
Well, it's the only thing that I could do half right
And it's turning out all wrong ma

Look what they done to my song

Look what they done to my brain ma
Look what they done to my brain
Well, they picked it like a chicken bone
And I think I'm half insane ma
Look what they done to my song

Wish I could find a good book to live in
Wish I could find a good book
Well, if I could find a real good book
I'd never have to come out and look at
What they done to my song

Look what they done to my song
But maybe it'll all be alright ma, maybe it'll all be okay
Well, if the people are buying tears
I'll be rich someday ma
Look what they done to my song

Ils ont change ma chanson, ma
Ils ont change ma chanson

Look what they done to my song ma
Look what they done to my song ma
Well, they tied it up in a plastic bag
And turned it upside down ma
Look what they done to my song

C'est la seule chose que je peux faire
Et ce n'est pas bon, ma
Ils ont change ma chanson

Look what they done to my song ma
Look what they done to my song
It's the only thing I could do alright
And they turned it upside down
Oh ma, look what they done to my song

Scene Idea - 

 You would see Molly's hands put the book down onto the table (from her point of view). Then she would start to open the book like she is going to read it.

The book would then suddenly start to flip it's pages.

Molly would be taken into the book and stumble onto the page. She would look around and at herself, as she would be dressed in a hobbit costume. 

As she is looking around in amazement she would say 'and people say books are boring' while smiling. 

Reference Video:

https://vimeo.com/147592321

Animatic -

https://vimeo.com/147619844

After discussing this idea and when I was filming my reference video, I realised it felt more like a advert or public service appeal. Emily also said that the scene did not show my characters personality well and i understand what she means. My character needs to show more that she escapes into books to get away from people and real life because she finds it hard to cope and this does not show this.  

Character Development - Week 7 - Creating a Scene

In this weeks lesson we looked at how to write a scene for our character and then perform the scene to the class.

Good acting is being believable and interesting enough that the audience is engaged with whatever you are doing. You can achieve this with a decent script and a good scene.

We looked at Charlie Chaplin's film 'The Kid' - Charlie Chaplin is forced into an extreme situation and it is funny to see how he handles having to raise a kid. You realise after watching the scene that you pick up some of the personality of his character without even realising. For example he is good at making contraptions that help him look after the baby and so is intelligent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgnEJgvb7fM

Another clip we looked at was the Lift scene from the film 'You've got Mail' Again set in extreme situation each one of the characters personalities start to appear and you get to see the real them and how they would handle things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7eMH8QoMZk

 We also looked at the show 'Who's line is it anyway?' which is an improvisation show where comedians act as different characters.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNV8_lVmSyw

We looked at this show to help us with our next task which was to create a scene for our own character and then act it out in front of the class. If we struggled to act out our own character then it would be a struggle to animate it.

 There is a famous saying: ‘Animators are actors with pencils.' 

Classwork:

Bethany and I help each other with our scenes. I struggled with this task as my character becomes characters in the books to get over her anxiety and because of this it was hard to see what her real personality was.

My first scene was that Molly could be in a library struggling to carry a massive pile of books and collecting more as she went and becoming more and more excited. When she reached the desk to check them all out she was told that she could check out 3 at a time and you see how disappointed she is.

My next scene was she would be reading a book and be getting really into it, as she gets to a good bit she suddenly turns into the main character and starts to act out the scene.


After the class seeing both of these scenes they chose the second one but I also got feedback about maybe he being sucked into a book or diving/ jumping into a book and seeing what she does once she is actually in the pages. I will take this forward and work on another scene for next week.


 

 IDEA IN CLASS AND VIDEO OFF BETHANY 

Character Development - Character Sheets

Below are my character sheets and turn around sheets:

In the drawing above i used my maquette to help with proportions and drawing her from different angles.



For the expression and pose sheet below i tried to draw expressions and poses that i felt Molly would use and have. She reads a lot of books and so i thought she would sat down in different positions most of the time. Since she doesn't like to interact with people often her expressions would normal show something she has read in a book: like shock/surprise and confusion.

I found it hard to do the facial features for my character as i am not great at drawing human faces and although i could draw her in certain position i found it hard to make them all look the same especially when she was looking to the side. This is something i need to work on in my own time and become more confident with.

Character Development - Finalised Character Style

After showing the different styles of my character and everyone agreeing on this style

I went and changed some parts of her to look less confident and sexy. 

 

I made the legs shorter and made the body proportions bigger. I also made the face rounder and the massive cheeks smaller along with he mouth. I think this made my character more like her personality of shy and people don't notice her a lot because of this. She is supposed to be a 'normal' looking woman and so i think these changes have definitely de-sexualised her.

I then sketched her as a front view. I started off with her head.

I brought the nose back down as the nose looked weird between the eyes, so I brought it back down to the original design.

I then drew her full body.

Character Development - My Maquette Head, Full figure and Process

These images are of the process of my Maquette head during the lesson. I started with the basic shape and tried to see where all the feature would go. The first picture of the eyes i had to redo as the eyes where not big enough or angled enough. Once the eyes where on my character looked mean because of the shape and the way the eyelashes and eyelid line were. I tried to make the eye shape more curvy so that she would look less mean./

The above images are of the head maquette when i finished it off at home. I added more shape to the top of the head and the hair as it was quite flat at the beginning.

I feel for a first attempt this is okay but i need to look at the jaw shape of my character and make sure i know where it is, this will help me when doing the lips because from the face looks quite flat and weird.


Fully Body Maquette:

For homework we had to make a maquette body, because i had done the head so big i chose to do the body smaller as i had never done a whole body before.

I chose to use a wire to support my maquette and it was easier to see where the head, shoulders and hips were.

 

This is my final maquette:

I feel for my first attempt she looks good, although as I was making the body i had trouble with certain proportions and where the crotch should be. I am pleased with the overall shape and i feel you can tell that she is wearing a jumper.