Designs for final presentation

Queen of Hearts

Aspects of the Queen of Hearts looked at:
- powerful, loud, extravagant



Bottom image referenced from




The Hatter

Aspects of The Hatter looked at:
- nonsensicle, eccentric, formal yet scruffily absent-minded



Top image referenced from

Duey Learns Ballet & artefact work

Kept forgetting to post over the past couple of weeks, but my client animation, Duey Learns Ballet, is on YouTube!



As for artefact work, here are some more finallised designs for Alice based off the feedback from the presentation.



And some designs for the Cheshire Cat.





Had a much tougher time with this. Trying to recreate the feeling of the Cheshire Cat while making him look as 'odd' as possible. I preferred the 'slinkier' look on the second set of designs, it makes him seem more sly like he can slip about here and here whenever he wants, which is what he does in the books. Whether this is agreed on remains to be seen.

Halfway through artefact 3

I've changed the theme of my artefacts. For the rest of them I'm going to choose characters from Alice in Wonderland and redesign them while keeping the feel of the characters the same. I think I'm going to make them in a more modern setting, but when designing their face and body shapes I'm going to use a simple version of their original design.

So here are my designs for Alice so far, along with the shapes used.

I'm going to pick the designs that work and develop the other aspects of their design such as hair, clothes and body language, then colour comes afterwards. By the end of it, I should be able to draw conclusions about which shapes, colour and other such character aspects work best for each character.

I'm going to post comparison pics between other renditions of Alice soon so I can further my ideas.

Background 2 - the dance studio exterior

Next up, the studio interior then the stage.

Backdrop 1 - the street

Need to sort the lighting in the final render when I animate with it, but at least the 2D textures look a little 3D with some shading added.

Will post some PRP artefact work this weekend.

Duey mouth morphs

Just a quick example of how his mouth moves. Will rig him and the ballerina later this week.

Artefact 3 - the Child revisited

Quotes about the Jungian Child archetype:
"The mature personality of the Child archetype nurtures that part of us that yearns to be lighthearted and innocent, expecting the wonders of tomorrow, regardless of age." [source]

"Within each of us, the Innocent is the spontaneous, trusting child that, while a bit dependent, has the optimism to take the journey." [source]


The Designs
I'm branching off into two time periods from now on. Renaissance and modern day. So I'll start with the two designs I had based around those time periods.


(Click for larger versions)


The Question
Take a look at the two designs. Do these two characters look like how you would associate a Child archetype? If not, what would you suggest to alter their designs?
- colours?
- build?
- age?
- body language/expression?
- clothing?


Keep in mind that you can suggest anything you want for these designs. This way I can build up a variety of designs and with feedback and analysis, it will be much easier to figure out what works for these designs and why. Please bear in mind the general time periods when leaving feedback.

I thank everyone in advance for their feedback.

Monster and Ballerina models

Both still need rigging, but Duey's (my monster got a name!) got his mouth movements sorted. The ballerina went strange while I tried to sot her hair out, but I don't think I did too badly overall.

Artefact 1 - The Hero

Based from Jungian archetypes

"The hero, who pursues a great quest to realize his destiny" [source]

"The Savior is a hero who suffers for the benefit of his people. Oftentimes,
the archetypal hero makes a sacrifice for the betterment of theories. That
single quality will make him a savior." [source]


Design 1

The idea

• a kind of generic seeming character who also looked strong
• a cape to show travel and a journey for him to go on
• royal colours

Feedback

• 'knight in shining armour'
• seems like he's in a stand off
• colours are too dark
• he seems more like he's trying to atone for past mistakes, a hero who changes with the story

Design 2

The idea

• all over armour, a knight
• a red cape, associated with heroes such as Superman

Feedback

• try removing some of the armour, full armour not always needed in a hero
• give him a distant look, to his homeland or goal
• give him a caring smile, he's there for the people
• try a bigger build and let some of that build be visable through less armour
• cleanshaven? even mythological heroes were

Design 3

Idea

• add red tinge to armour to keep with the red cape
• armour not all over, the shoulderplate on his swordweilding arm is larger for better protection
• made some of the armour more practical
• has a softer, more caring face, will do what it takes to protect people

Feedback

• [added] chestplate seems bare, maybe add insignia of some kind?

Overall, most prefer the final design, but there are exceptions for design 2, as well.

Maybe a change to the question

As I'm getting further into the PRP, I think I need to change my question a bit, otherwise I think I'm gonna miss the goal completely. So, to be able to keep myself on the right topic, I want to change my question from

Have character archetypes affected the development of characters through various forms of media?

to

How are different character archetypes used throughout various forms of media?

I think with this question, I can more easily give the examples I was hoping to give in the first place while still being able to identify what archetypes are used more than others and expanding on how current archetypes can be used to create new experiences for readers/viewers/gamers.

Simulated client project feedback

Bit late writing this, but this PRP is a pain in the neck. So, we showed our animation's to the class and got feedback. Mine was as follows:

- excellent character designs, nice and simple
- could draw people back to watch it again due it's oddness
- 2D and 3D worked very well together
- needed simpler messages so they could be read better (possibly voice over)
- speed up the animation

That's pretty much it, so I was really pleased ^^ I figured the pacing'd be a problem, along with the messages, so there wasn't anything said that I didn't already expect. I might go back and make those changes then reupload it to comparel later.

It is done!

About 10-12 hours rendering time, and it's all done! :D Wish I could somehow put more emphasis on the computer, but ah well, people'll just have to watch it twice to see it properly :)

WIP shot of my animation

I know I haven't been posting much, I've been busy trying to sort this animation out. Here's a pic of it in the meanwhile, while I try and get the second half of it sorted.

The tecture's not on the conveyer belt at this point, but the lighting's all sorted and I'm loving how soft and almost model-like it looks.

Pirate Model

Finished my pirate model, and I think I did a pretty good job of modelling him.

If I'm honest, this is about as good as I can model on my own without needing help or having strange problems pop up that I can't solve. So I think making it simple's worked to my advantage.

Kitten 3D model

I finished the li'l guy a couple of days ago, and I'm really pleased with the result :)

It's got my username on it because it was posted to deviantART and it seems silly to resave it without my name. A lot of people like this so far, so hopefully that's a positive sign that the rest of the designs should go okay too.

Simulated Client Project Animatic

Gotta tweak a couple of the sound effects, but I like the pacing and the number of loops :)

Anti-piracy warnings

And now for a mass of videos, which for some reason I havent' got around to posting yet. Ah well.


I really hate this advert. It's put on all legally bought DVDs, punishing us for buying them through the proper methods, yet those who download and pirate it don't see them. Idiotic, much? It feels like it's trying too hard to sound 'trendy' with the music, but to me it just seems like more people laugh at it than listen to it.


As I posted before, this is my favourite opinion on it. Ed Byrne points out how black and white the advert acts over it.


Of course, searching for it found me more parodies than anything else. Not that this helps with the argument, but it just shows how some people don't listen to it when they're morally grey like people are generally supposed to be.


And I found this little cruel anti-piracy measure from bootlegged versions of Earthbound (a game unreleased in Europe, so it's understandable why people bootlegged it). It waits until you're at the final boss, then freezes the game and deletes your saves! So very, very cruel.


A bit better way around it, they point out how it affects you rather than just saying it's illegal. I think the potential glitches'd make me wanna buy the full game. Then again, I've had more than my fair share of glitches from the real versions! Although according to another video, it cuts the game part way through the final boss battle and erases everything you've collected (very much like Earthbound)

SO, there's some videos I've found, mainly about how piracy affects the person rather than the companies, because, to be honest, that's what I'm more interested in.

Encouraging file sharing

Here's an interesting piracy related story, very much backing my theory of encouraging people to file share then buying what they enjoy.


'Trials Dev Pirated Its Own Game to Drive Interest'. [Kotaku]

Giving a lesser version of the full game rather than a demo seems like a much better way to drive interest, and to get the full experience, you can buy it and support the developers. And if you don't buy it? Well, you keep the watered down copy. Seems fair to me.

Definately using this in my presentation, it's perfect!

Simluated client brief, designs and storyboards

First of all, a copy of my proposal (I had issues with the dropbox, and I know this is late, sorry).

Download (password is 'uni', so people don't randomly download it)

So, for my project proposal, I've decided to focus on the more lenient (and hopefully more popular) message of saying that it's alright to file share and download as long as you support the artists you like. That way the file sharing is no different to hearing something on the radio and TV and the artists you want to support can keep going. This is hard to pull off in 20 seconds, so I had to simplify the message a lot.

Instead, I'm going to use the example of 'when you X, God kills a kitten' (with X being something bad/sinful/something a person wants someone else to see). However, I'm going to have a pirate squishing the kittens with a mallet with a squeaking sound from them, making it seem more comical. I've found the 'God kills a kitten' fad on the internet to have more of a sense of humour about it, so people hopefully won't think it's trying to see you as a criminal for whatever you do like most adverts.

Here are the charater designs:
Simplified to make it easier to model, texture and animate. Also simple because 20 seconds isn't long enough to justify a details character design when it will appear for such a short time.

The Storyboards:

Pretty self-explainatory, really. If you don't pay for music you like to support artists, kitten go squish, if you do, kitten gets petted, which means happy kitten ^^

Simulated client project

Mission: To create a 20 second animation about the consequences of file sharing and when it's illegal.

How I'll tackle it: First, by looking into cases of file sharing and think of an interesting way to create the animation.

At a glance, I think Ed Byrne sums the piracy warnings before DVDs up brillianty.



I found an editorial about American anime licensor FUNimation telling people to remove their dubbed content from the site.



While I agree that from an American standpoint, this argument makes sense, but from a UK standpoint, the legal content mentioned is unavailable and not released until at least half a year later. Those who wish to buy the titles when they're out can at least get a 'sneak peek' at what they will get eventually along with getting rid of the long delay.

So, my idea for the animation is something with little movement (as I've said before, 3D animation is NOT something I get along with) with split second imagery and effects that would hopefully mean the viewer would want to see the animation more than once. I find that videos where I've missed something and need to go and watch it again make it stick in my head a lot more.

Sketches will be posted later.