Theme
Play and self
Context
Dove Real Beauty Sketches | You’re more beautiful than you think (6mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=litXW91UauE
This youtube video is about the portrait drawn by an FBI forensic artist according to the self-description and the description from a newly met stranger of that person. Usually the self-described portrait looks different from the one described by the others. This made me think maybe I could try to work on something related to “how the others think I am vs how I think I am”.
In semester 1, Kate and Max told me to try to work on the character to make the game more lively and vivid. When I was finding inspiration from the book “Creative Character Design 2e”, it mentioned that archetypes (personality and character traits) and story are important before we start creating characters. The theme of this week is about “self” which means the archetype and story are already “prepared” for me. Therefore, an idea of working on character design based on self-description and description from others popped up.
Method
Collecting information on “how the others think I am” through interviewing with my classmates. The information was summarized and then drawn out. The characters were then illustrated in Photoshop.
Response
I asked my classmates to give three points to describe me and one animal/object to represent me and I did the same thing as the reference material to create the characters. Then, the most-mentioned personality and traits (i.e. organized, playful, hardworking, unexpected & nice) were further summarized to get a more precise description on the character.
The first plan was to use the most-mentioned animal/ object to create the character, but nearly all the responses are different. Then, I started to think as they are describing the same person, all the animals and objects should be coherent to be put together. Also, it may help in presenting the concept of “playful and unexpected”. Hence, I put them all together for the “how the others think I am” character. That’s why a cat + Afghan hound + sugar glider creature with a friendly smile holding a pandora box and a Lily was born. A pair of glasses and a stack of books were added to present the personality of “hardworking” and “organized”.
Cat is chosen to represent me because unlike the dogs, the cats do whatever they want regardless of what the others opinion and comments on them. I appreciate their attitude of having clear goals and are not easily swayed. The phrases to describe myself are procrastinative, introverted/ nerdy(?) and rational. Since I always play games before I start to work/ wake up. In addition, I’m an introvert that sometimes I prefer working on my stuff to socializing which may also be regarded as “nerdy”(?). Last but not least, the scientific research training in the past led to my rational character.
Reflection
I felt like there was still something missing after creating the two characters and thus I did further research and reading.
It’s probably because the story of the characters are not clearly presented. In Lucas' tutorial on “how to design characters”, he suggested people capture a moment which presents the story and personality of the characters the most to impress the audiences. The importance of story was also emphasized in the book “Creative Character Design 2e” but more focus was put on personality when the characters were created in my work.
Shapes also play an important role in character design. The book said that the shapes can reveal many about the character and its story, yet I did not consider this while I work on the character design. Tom Bansroft, a Disney animator, discussed how the shapes of the characters related to the feeling they express. For example, happy and thick characters usually start with a circle while a thin, wimpy kind of character starts with a rectangular or oval shape.
There’s a lack of goal when I started creating the characters because I treated it as an experiment at that time. Tom has also mentioned that in order to make a better character design, a goal to design the character, eg the target audience, the cuteness or appearance or any special function of the character, does help.
References
How to DESIGN CHARACTERS - INSTANTLY improve your CHARACTER DESIGN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wj4ayeVem0
Tillman, Bryan. Creative Character Design. Second ed. Boca Raton, Florida ; London ; New York: CRC, 2019. Web. [Chapter 1 - What makes for good character design]
"Personality, Goals, Shapes, and Variance in Character Design: Tom Bancroft, Funnypages Productions, LLC." Ideas for the Animated Short. 125-28. Web.
