Freedom & Liberty: Final Storyboard

Reworked storyboard

Authors own

I reworked my initial storyboard so the idea's explored are much clearer and flow better. In this new narrative the character is walking to the park and is constantly bothered by the giant hand, getting poked around, tripped and dragged across the floor. They are then picked up and placed at the gates of the park. Relieved that they have been left alone and are at their intended destination, they enter the park. Suddenly, the hand reappears and crushes them into the floor, they are left a squashed and dizzy mess. This story works better because the character is put through a more brutal sequence of events and we are taken on an emotional roller coaster of tension, empathy, hope, relief and shock. 

Freedom & Liberty: Character Design and Development

                 

  

Character design

Authors own

I feel that the most successful part of my character design is its detachment of gender and race, as humans comprehend it. I kept everything simple, which works well in portraying a lack of identity. The process of designing the facial features of the character was interesting, as I had to consider avoiding any racial stereotypes, so I tried to keep the features simplistic, choosing to give the character brown eyes as brown eyes can be found within most races. I chose orange as the skin tone as it further detaches human ideas of an existing race. Initially I was going to give my character hair, but it quickly became apparent that different styles/textures of hair were developing an identity for the character, no matter how androgynous the styles were. Therefore, I decided to stick with the one curled hair atop the characters head. I tried to design an outfit that was in keeping with the idea of non-gender, non-race, non-ideanty. I found the red jumper and genes to work best as both men and women these garments and they are quite simplistic designs, saying very little about the personal taste of the character. 

Metamorphosis: Initial Idea (decided concept)

Initial storyboard (left), initial character design and research into concept (right) 

Final character design 

Layout/setting design

Photos are authors own

I decided to work with a slightly obvious idea, which is the metamorphosis of a butterfly, but including the idea of death and afterlife. My initial working story was that a caterpillar awakens from sleeping in the form of a butterfly and is first confused, but the fearful as the shadow of the former caterpillar tells him the he has died and entered the spirit. I left the story as a cliff hanger. However, after attending a critic it was brought up that the story requires the viewer to erase what they already knew about the natural life cycle of a butterfly and it was clear they I needed to include some representation of death into the story. 

Before going on to make a final storyboard I proceeded to create my final character and layout designs. I decided due to time keeping that I would create the animation using grey scale (no colour). However, this seemed to work well with my concept with black representing death and white life. The colour choice will also create a more obscure, eery mood. My final storyboard will therefore be made in black and white, using the polished character and layout design.

Metamorphosis: Initial Idea

Photos are author own

My initial idea was based on metamorphosis as a super power, looking at examples like, The Hulk, Ben 10 and Megamind. I made a storyboard (first image) that included a boy who was teasing his sister and in order to avoid the consequences he turns into a rock. However, whilst he is still in rock form a man walks by and kicks him across the ground. When the boy turns back into his rightful form he has a huge dent in his head. This worked as a good starting point, but the story needed to be developed more. Most people felt as though the struggles the boy is put through should be elaborated and more extreme. So I expanded the story to include him getting kicked into a river and having to battle through numerous obstacles, whilst getting pushes down the current. I found the process of developing my story challenging because I had to make sure the audience was able to empathise with the character, but still find his experience comical. This is a hard thing to master. 

I then went on to designing the character using illustrator (second image), which was a very fun experience. I was able to create a character that before only existed in my mind and visually express the temperament of the boy. I think my initial character design was successful, but I found myself loosing interest in the concept I had chosen for the project. I want to create a more metaphorical, in-depth representation of metamorphosis. 

Graphic Design: Project 1

This is an informative piece of graphics work, designed to explain visually (in the large square image) and using text what it is that I aspire to achieve when studying Graphic Design and in the further future. I found this project to be quite straight forward because I am fairly sure of the path I wish to take in Graphics. However, it was hard to decide what to include in my image and in the end I opted for a more simple design that reflected my interest in illustration and animation. The image was supposed to relate to character design and breathing life into a character. I conveyed this message by using the pun, "I'm Alive.", which is said by an obviously dead/lifeless character. Although, the character is dead it is my job to animate it.

When designing this piece, my attention was brought to font size/choice, lay out and effective visual communication, which I will find really helpful in designing future graphic pieces.