Little thing and a huge difference
Introduction
I have been working on the pre-production of my Studio practice project.
The prompt given us was a Character interacting with an inanimate object. The animation requirement was having a bipedal character (2-legs).
I wanted to explore as much as I could with my ideas.
Synopsis
“A big angry wolf in an alleyway finds a flower and turns into a puppy”
Inspirations
There are a couple of concepts that inspired my idea. One of them being a contrast between big and small.
Big and small ship dynamic
I really loved the concept of a big, intimidating thing being controlled or changed into a sweet thing by a smaller softer thing. I loved the concept of the sweet bringing about a change in the bitter and turning scary to cute.
The Grinch and Cindy Lou
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/now-casting-play-cindy-lou-who-tour-how-grinch-stole-christmas-68338/
The main plot line in my idea was how the tiniest of things, even in the storm of life, have a positive impact. When found and focused on, the tiny positive aspect of life can turn that huge raging storm into a pleasant drizzle of rain.
Initial Sketches
I thought about having a balloon man as my character. I could use his head as a balloon to represent the change of emotions. A deflated balloon means sad or depressed. When interacting with the object he becomes happy thus inflating the balloon
I did recognize that this portrayal of emotions does not leave enough room for expression and character personality. It was too basic for my liking.
I came up with a regular old but buff man. Then it struck me, what looked very small and sweet in the hands of a big intimidating person? A flower!
I loved the idea of the flower so decided to use it as my in-animate object.
I didn’t really enjoy the idea of having a normal looking old bulky man as my character. I wanted to do something more expressive.
I really loved the idea of a wolf mask so decided to draw a character wearing one.
I loved it, Although The body did not match up with my big, scary character idea.
So I decided to research more on wolves (specifically werewolves)
Finalized idea
A Wolf smelling a flower and turning into a puppy.
Reference/ Experimenting
Character Research
References
I collected the references and decided to just note down the characteristics I wanted in my character.
I noted down what I liked about my references and how I can portray the feelings. I made some random sketches around my artsheet to test the watts and see whether I was sure about this idea. I also wanted to beautify my work in order to let myself enjoy what I was drawing. By the end of not even 1/4th of my research I was feeling very excited about my idea and was sure that this is what I wanted to do.
Now that I had a clear idea that my character was a werewolf and a scary one at that, I needed to start making him.
I started off with the top: His head.
There were a lot of wolves to reference from but I mainly focused on three. All three of the wolves had triangular faces and pointed semi-triangular snouts. No snout was a perfect rectangle. I decided that would be a good way to portray the “danger” in my character according to the traditional Shape language method used by character designers.
I looked at the brows of the wolves, they were arched most of the time. I thought this makes them look very angry and unapproachable.The eye’s, I decided, would make round as it looks big and would give a contrast to my character’s face.
The teeth were obviously going to be triangular and sharp.
I decided to leave it at that and move on. My rough sketch could be improved one the rest of the body was reached too.
The body
The rectangular shape of the body appealed to me at that time. I also decided that I would have limpy legs just to add striking qualities to my character. I still wanted him to be big and scary.
The Arm
Big, buff, furry are the words that came to mind when thinking about my character’s arms.
I drew two versions.
One with fur and one without.
The hand
I assumed that rigid would be a more scary hand description for a werewolf’s hand than just big and long nails. So I added sharp angles to his finger joints and exaggerated his nails as well.
The combination
I copy and pasted my body parts into one creature and then refined it.
The anatomy was very symmetrical, it looked more robotic and unnatural.
I thought about refining it a bit, but then how could I make him look more interesting?
I didn’t really prefer this design so in order to refine it and finalize the anatomy and body I drew different poses and expressions.
Further experimentation with poses to get my hand to draw my character the way I want it to turnout.
Poses
This exercise really helped me fix my character and give it form.
The Expressions
Helped me just the same way the poses helped me, except this finalised my face anatomy.
I pondered over the main expressions for my storyline. Which expressions are going to be used?
The wolf can be tired or in pain, falls forward above the flower, smells the flower, gets surprised, smells it deeply and then gets very happy.So the three main expressions would be: pain, surprise and then happy. I decided to sketch them out with references.
Now I was confident with my character..
The Colours
I tried to use colour to match its personality so that it could aid to his design.
Unfortunately I did not like how the colours turned out.
Try two
I did like the grey but the face looked unsettling and that’s not what I wanted.
I also decided to not have the tail white with gradient.
Try three
I liked his scheme. It pleased me.
I also thought the grey suited him as it looks very much like a wolf.
Final
Model Sheet and Turnaround
I contracted a basic how to draw my character and the important parts of my character I highlighted within this model sheet. I didn’t want anyone to get him wrong. Even though he has the outline of a traditional werewolf he is a new character and as someone who created him I would like him to be unique to the way I drew him.
The Turnaround
Character transformation character ( The puppy)
The character at the end of my story turns into a puppy.
I need to design a character that looks like my character but it needed to be cute
Study
Noting down what makes these puppies cute helped me form a character of my own.
First draft of puppy:
It was cute but unfortunately it did not look like my character. It looked completely different.
That looked more like my wolf.
Colours
I designed a couple of colour schemes for my puppy.
Final
Background
Someplace dark and devoid of people but still very much part of a busy city?
An Alleyway.
The alleyway was a place where anything can happen. It’s creepy but perfect to hide and be alone. It would be perfect to hide a big hulk of wolf who is looking to get away from the hustle and bustle of the street just so that he could calm his head and not hurt anybody.
As usual references needed to be collected.
After the references I made note of what I wanted in my background based on the images I had.
All left to do was have a rough sketch.
Artstyle and colour references
https://www.skillshare.com/en/classes/Drawing-a-Comic-Book-Background-with-One-Point-Perspective/1594075904
I liked this style of artwork. It suits the aesthetic I was going for. The play with linework and depth was something that appealed to me.
https://free4kwallpapers.com/warm-wallpapers
The colour scheme suited my tone too.
The draft
1:
Perspective needed to be fixed, size to big
Colour scheme too boring
2:
Perspective could still be stretched. Flower needed to be centre of attraction
3:
Experimenting with light did not make sense with the background.
Final BG
Storyboard/Story Beats
A quick sketch down of what I wanted my animation to look like. The main points being the wolf walking in really not feeling great or having an air of anger and pain. Falling over the flower is probably the most important scene as it portrays my idea very well and kind of reminds me of Natasha and the Hulk. Particularly this image.
https://www.looper.com/177345/deleted-infinity-war-scene-brings-hulk-and-black-widow-back-together/
This was the dynamic in my story I was looking for.
Animatic: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bozcA8zdffFuhs0ScenQdo7RmLRarWcF/view?usp=share_link
Reflection
I had a fun experience with my character. There were tricky parts and I certainly learnt a lot. Thanks to my teacher’s input and suggestions I managed to come up with good references which helped me give more personality to my character.
Overall I learnt a lot of technical skills as well as enhanced my creative library to be able to design more characters in the future.