For the hand in of my preproduction module I submitted some very very very basic character designs. As a result of my running around in circles trying to refine the story (or more like recreate a better story) I didn't get very far and I personally find the designs very weak :(
Here's some rough initial design ideas for the two characters - yes I know, some of them are rather bizarre-looking! At least it shows I'm open to try something really new and different.
I think these designs are more suited for a different animation style (clean, thin lines and cel-style colouring?) so here's some more simplified designs with smooth, flowing lines better suited for animating with brush lines:
I love how the hair moves in the drawing on the far right - I can imagine it looking very expressive when fully rendered out as a mock still. However, I'm still not entirely convinced with the designs so next I tried merging the more complex sketchy designs with the simply smooth designs to create this:
Accidentally, I drew something which I'm somewhat happy about...I think it was the heavier hand on the pencil giving a stronger and more expressive line to the drawings. I took the bottom, middle design and drew them out again, this time being more passionate with my pencil:
I think the stronger and more expressive line really helps to bring the character to life - I may invest in some brush pens to try more sketch designs with a closer aesthetic to what I'm aiming for in the final film. After all, I'm not looking to do a pencil animation! I'm settling for this design for the woman character for now...onto the male character design!
I enjoy drawing females a lot more than males so I noticed I put more effort in designing the woman...which isn't very good since I always had the idea that the male character is the starring role...I think I might change that around since I find it more fun and easy to draw females! I prefer the design for the male character on the right and obviously it has a more suitable style for my animation but I think he needs a little extra spice!
