Tuesday 2 November 2010

Character Design - Week 7

Before I start this post I would like to post something which I thought I'd posted last week, but have actually forgot to do. Last week I showed Justin my Character Profile Shee. Anyway he was pleased with what I'd come up with as I'd gone into who these characters are, gave them back-story, and it somehow fitted nicely with the rest of the synopsis.

So here it is.
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THE SPACE SHIPS
The Origan - The name of the ship in which the good guys travel in space, protecting the universe from evil.

The MeduStar - The name of the ship in which the villain travels in space, trying to destroy the Origan and take over the universe.



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HERO
young adult human.

NAME
Ryan

AGE
23 years old.

WHAT ROLL DOES HE PLAY
He is just an average, ordinary person who finds a helmet.

He is initially not the hero sort, but will be trained and grow in strength on his journeys.

His overall goal is to defeat the villain Matrusair.

ABILITY
His helmet specifically and only works for him. (as he was the first wearer)
It blocks the villains power to control and freeze.

BACK STORY
He grew up on planet earth.

He is an orphan. He doesn't know what happened to his real parents.
Although for the benefit of the doubt, his parents were part of the crew on the Origan. They were killed when the Matrusair launched an attack on the Origan on a previous encounter. Their son (Ryan) was left to grow up on earth. Because of his connection with the Origan, he is semi trusted by the rest of the crew that he is the right person for the quest to kill Matrusair.

These connections are all no coincidence.


HABITS / MANNERISMS / PERSONA
He is not the strongest person, but has always wanted to go on an adventure.

He has a talent for finding trouble. (which is how he somehow found the helmet and put it on)

He fidgets and fiddles a lot.

Loves learning new things, and is interested in history.



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SIDEKICK
Very old, half man, half goat creature.

NAME
Tharlog - The Teacher

AGE
79 years old.

WHAT ROLL DOES HE PLAY
He is the teacher who guides the hero Ryan.

He knows when not to interfere with affairs that don't concern him. (such as a battle between the Ryan and some other creature as he is not here to fight the hero's battles, but to guide him.)


ABILITY

Although very old, he is still got some strength in him and is still agile. He just gets puffed out quicker. Kind of like how Yoda is very old with a walking stick, but he can still fight very well with a light sabre, jumping around moving quickly.

He has always been a problem solver.

BACK STORY
He is a crew member of the Origan. (until he is asked to be the heros trainer)

The reason that he was chosen to be the hero's sidekick and trainer was because he was friends with the Ryans parents. (but also because he is good at training potential hero's.)

HABITS / MANNERISMS / PERSONA
He is very wise and clever.

His hearing is very good, and just can't stand repetitive noises. (It's a shame then, that Ryan is always fidgeting and fiddling!)



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VILLAIN
She is alien. Not much is known about her race. She is extremely old. Ancient almost, but her race has an enormous lifespan.

NAME
Matrusair (Ma - troose - air)

AGE
Somewhere around 300 years old.

WHAT ROLL DOES SHE PLAY
She has a ship of her own. Her crew are all the people and creatures that she has enslaved by her power. She wants to destroy the Origan. (BACK STORY explains why.)

ABILITY
She has the ability to permanently freeze people. Not to ice or stone though. All it takes is one look into her eyes and she can control you. If you resist, you literally stop moving or freeze.

BACK STORY
She hasn't been loved by anyone, no parents, no one at all in fact. Sorry, but the rest of her race are dead. Non existent. Ka Put.

Unfortunately her home planet was not saved when a supernova destroyed her planet. That was a slight oversight on the Origans part. After all, it is the Origans job to keep the universe safe.

It is not known how she escaped a supernova. It is something that has been bothering the good guys from the very beginning. It is also worth noting that she didn't have the power to control or turn people to stone before the event. Of course I'm not revealing any of that until series 3!


HABITS / MANNERISMS / PERSONA
She is easily distracted if she is not in a bad mood.

She always dresses for the occasion.

She likes to think that she is clever and sneaky. Although most of the time it turns out to be very unoriginal, but is not stupid though.

She loves to be in control and be the centre of attention.


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I will at some point be posting the complete (slightly re-gigged) story. This will be the one that goes in the Character Bible, along with a shortened Synopsis and the Character Profiles.

Now on to the actual post!

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In today's character design class, the main focus was on animals and creatures. We were shown how all these animals different types of animals have the same basic skeleton structure.

Even when something like this deer appears to have the back legs in the reverse direction. What you night think is the knee is actually an ankle.


This is actually something that has been vital for my half goat half human character.

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The task we were to do today was to design different types of creatures based on a type of habitat and the animals that live there. (randomly selected)

So some people got forest, some people got the antarctic. Someone even got outer space, which would probably have been the most difficult as there are no creatures in space and would require some extra imagination.

So what do I get? Gaseous!

Great! So I've got to come up with creatures that live in Gas!!!

He said that was a very tricky one. He continued to say that it would be good to look at underwater creatures, like jelly fish, as they float about a lot and that they wouldn't need to have any arms hands feet etc.

I also looked at some birds also as they fly in the sky.

The drawings in red are what I drew.






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For our own three characters we had to present a size comparison.
Admittedly (being so behind with other things), I didn't spend much time on the project between this session and the last. Nevertheless I was able to spend a little bit of time before the lesson to catch up.

Basically (in the order they are drawn) the hero is your average tall human. The sidekick an average size, but compared to a human, he is slightly taller. The villain is actually shorter, but is made the tallest with the extra long hair. OK so this was just one idea, but I spent further time discussing some better ways to pose and size the characters.

E.g. the sidekick although he was strong, he is old, so he is now hunched over. He can still be this big creature, but is now not as tall as the hero. This also helps because the sidekick was looking to much like a hero in his old pose.



It was suggested that the villain should be the tallest to make her more imposing. She is thin and the hair volume increases the height to make her more menacing. Also the hair should act like part of her and not just wriggle about randomly. The hero remains a reasonably tall human. Not strong yet, so he will be posed in such a way that he is kind of nervous of the task ahead. Possibly his uniform could be too big and his sword could be just slightly too heavy for him at the moment.


Basically since I know my characters completely, it is now advised that I try to refine my characters. Bringing out some interesting shapes and drawing in the detail. I seem to have this thing of drawing a million lines until I get the general shape I want, but by that time the drawing is so blurry, I can't draw the details. I think I might start using an ordinary pencil to go over the red smudges, to draw the details in.

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