Character design and maquette model for
stop motion animation production
By Sharney McLaughlin
M2047110
Computer Animation Project
Overview
For this project I will be creating pre-production character
designs and concept art for 2 characters for a story idea I have.
The story is of a main female character living in the woods going
about her daily routine from cutting down trees to sculpting the wood to
finished sculpture with the help of her anthropomorphic sidekick. She needs the
occasional help of this other character as she is disabled from an accident
where she lost the lower half of right leg and has a prosthetic leg she calved
but she show she is still fairly capable of getting on with the 1 thing she
loves to do, wood sculpting.
The main female character, Mielikki is a chainsaw wood sculpture
and has sidekick anthropomorphic blow torch called Blaze.
After developing and finishing my character designs I will be then
taking the main character and creating a detailed maquette of her in a dynamic
pose that shows who she is and what she does.
Motivation
I am going to be doing this character design and maquette project
as it is both similar to a module that I studied in my 2nd year which I enjoyed
doing and it is the area of work that I am interested in doing as a career
after I graduate.
Creating characters from scratch or re-creating existing
characters with a twist is something I enjoy doing and especial when I can
create a model them physically with clay or Plasticine. While I was researching
for this project I previously have and will be looking more at the use of
maquettes for mostly stop motion and 2d animation. This being where they are
more commonly used and I am more interested in those types of animation over
3d, although I may looks a bit into how maquettes are made for 3d animation as
they have a nice simple shapes and style to them which is what I am going for.
A short animation film called ‘Out Of Sight’ (2010) became 1 of
many inspirations for this project as the story of a blind girls guide dog goes
off to retire her stolen bag she is left on her own with a stick to find her
way and the world around her changes through her imagination of what thing
sound like to her when she taps them with her stick.
Another inspiration I had for this project is the main character in ‘How
Train Your Dragon’ with his metal prosthetic leg.
Technical Overview
The work flow of this project will be similar to the workflow of
other projects I have done for character design which will be a building up how
the character looks from doing research, making mood boards and rough sketches
to full character turn around designs and final coloured concept designs.
This will then lead straight onto making the maquette as soon as I
have the character turn around designs drawn.
As for things such as software I will be only using Adobe
Photoshop as most of the work will be sketches on paper using traditional
materials such as pencil, watercolours and fine liners.
For the maquette I will be looking at using either polymer clay,
which I have not used before but have done some research on how it is a good
kind of clay to use for making maquettes. Alternatively I could use Plasticine
which I have used previously but have found a few problems with it being more
so can easily be marked, which is why I will be looking into use polymer clay
as it can be baked to harden some parts of the model that I may not want to
change.
Idea mood board that I have put together for the development main
character Mielikki.
Project deliverables
For my Artefact I intend to produce a project bible that will
contain:
·
The
character design development
·
Concept
art,
·
Final
character designs
·
Photos
of the development and the finished maquette
The physical finished maquette to be looked at
in detail.
Project Plan
This is basic schedule I will follow and adjust if necessary I
will keep a copy of this on the project blog to look at when creating weekly
updates to check as to see if I am keeping up with where I need to be. To
insure that I do keep up with the work I intend to set aside 2-3 days a week
for this project as that will be enough especially with also setting aside 2-3
days a week for the group Animation Project.
Task
Duration
Deadline
|
Project report to be written throughout whole of project
duration
Project Blog
|
Weekly updated
|
N/A
|
|
Mood boards &
Rough sketches
For both characters
Research
|
2 weeks
|
7th November
|
|
Further character development
Character Turn around
Create progress review power point
|
2 weeks
|
21st November
|
|
Character model sheet
Begin making maquette
|
1 week
|
28th November
|
|
Maquette basic body shape
Final coloured character design
Begin to add detail to maquette
|
3 weeks
|
19th December
|
|
Continue with maquette till fully finished
|
5 weeks
|
23rd January
|
|
Make final changes to maquette if any
Put together project bible
Go over and finished report
|
1-2 weeks
|
27th February
|
References and future references:
http://www.mackinnonandsaunders.com/
Books I will be looking at for research and reference:
-Stop motion: craft skills for model animation by Susannah Shaw
-Anatomical diagrams for art students by James M. Dunlop
-Lifelike figures in polymer clay by Katherine Dewey
-Figure drawing for all its worth by Andrew Loomis
(references above to be edited and properly referenced like the ones below)
Dunlop, J.M. 2007, Anatomical
diagrams for art students, Dover, Mineola, NY.The Alterative Limb Project (site date unknown) Available at: http://www.thealternativelimbproject.com/#/oriental-leg/4581905428 Accessed: 5 December 2014
Griffon Ramsey (2014)
Elsa Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRErQ8RAu2k
Accessed: 2 December 2014
Bard sculpture studios (2014) Traditional sculpture: Animation/Character > How to train your dragon
Available at: http://bardsculpturestudio.com/admin/thumbnails.php?album=19
Accessed: 2 December 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment