So the first entry ever for me!!! Ha ha ha.
Okay I may want to explain some things like the
purpose of this. I am an Advance Diploma Animation student at the Central Institute
of Technology. This blog is to show the processes that I go through from the
start (research and design) to the end (final production).
So what am I exactly doing? Well as part of our final
year we are to make a short animation. Yes, it’s exciting. At the moment I am
only in the research process though. I have being currently looking into animation.
Stuff like how it looks and made, what makes one good to the other, character
development, and the story of how something is told. It’s all part of my first
process of figuring out what I want to do and what I want it to look like.
Character Research: The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
Characters are a really big element in any kind of
animation and that is what I have being looking at recently. I want to start
developing an idea for a character first. This always gives me an idea of what
kind of story I will tell. Characters have an effect on their environment so it’s
a good way for me to figure out where they live and what kind of back story
they have (yes I love back stories).
First I have looked at a bunch of different
animation shorts and movies (research only *cough* *cough*). Looking at how
they develop the character, show the expression and how the appearance of the character
reflects their personality (mainly looking at 3d).
I recently
watched the movie The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole. It was a
very pretty movie visually with owls as characters (very pretty owls). Soren is the main character a young barn owl that gets
kidnapped along with his brother by evil owls that are trying to defeat the guardians.
A good comparison is between the brothers Soren and Kludd, since in the movie
they both go separate ways, a good Vs evil scenario.
Soren is the hero he flies over great distances
with his group to find the guardians. While Kludd hands over their sister
to the evil group (the Pure Ones) in a bid to get acceptance from the group.
You can see the obvious differences in them and they way they look. Now it’s
not because of genetics it’s because of design.
Soren is happy a lot more open eyed. he
looks friendly and his feather soft and clean. He looks approachable
while Kludd on the other hand is the opposite. His eyes are very harsh
looking. He has a punk like mohawk and dirty and unmanaged feathers. He also
has dye on his face that looks like scaring, making him looked disfigured.
 |
| Kludd |
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| Soren |
The differences in these characters make you have
different feelings toward them. Opening the eyes of a character makes you feel
more attached to them. They look cute and cuddly. While having character
that have smaller eyes makes you feel detached from them. Expression through
they eyes are going to be the key to making my character so I have
to focus on what the eyes are doing along with what their actions
are.
The movie itself is inkling me into doing a
animal animation since I am a big animal lover. But what kind of
animal do I want and how will it look?? I will need to start looking into some
more animation films, maybe Rio. To get the idea of an animal character and how
they describe them, what is the correct amount of exaggeration, look at their
animated and real life counter parts. Creativity juices are following.
Over and out
Animatornerd
