Rough Character Design
I’m lucky enough to be working with Dr. Browne to possibly be publishing a set of animations to accompany a 1700 page book his wife is writing. I am going to be representing the choices involved in going between Federal and State court- all with squirrels.
I’m really excited for the project- I love the idea of taking dry academic material and making something engaging with it.
So here are some of my drawings of the squirrels. I tried to really break it down to shapes.
My rough squirrel concept:
Stern Squirrel:
Beaming Squirrel:
Eating an Acorn:
Walking:
Running:
Hope you like it,
-Tom
October 5th, 2007 at 1:50 am
When an idea or character is successful in film or other popular media, it is essentially impossible to use a similar idea or character without people thinking you are copying the mass media version to others. When the original character fades from popular memory, the use of a similar becomes fair game for usage again. So for instance, there was a very popular CG movie featuring ants (Antz) then Bugs Life came out then the Ant Bully. Most of the criticism about the later two films was that they were not original because of the major emphasis on or featuring of ants. So, with that said, Scrat is a very popular character that is still in the minds of the masses. Will your squirrel fall prey to the same criticism as the Ant Bully? Your squirrel does not look like Scrat so no problems there but just the fact he is a squirrel might be a problem.
Knowing that the audience for your squirrel is probably not the same as that which watched Ice Age, you might get away with it. But it is something that will be a problem in your portfolio.
How do the attributes of a squirrel epitomize the concepts in the animation? Is there another animal that might portray a personality or behaviors that would support your message?
Character design
The action poses are very dynamic and show personality and expression. As he became more curvilinear, I could relate to him more. The boxy first version seemed too robotic or static looking. His teeth seem like an important aspect of him - make them important in the concept - play with idioms like “biting into knowledge” or “Chew on that”, etc. How can you establish a relationship between those teeth and the law concepts?
Over all good job!