Specialist Subject: Character

Animation
Introduction
I am basing my documentary on Character Design in animation since I have always had a
passion for creating characters and using them in stories, art and animation. I have made
quite a few characters during my experience in the art and animation industry and I would
like to take that with me during this project and into my career. The plan for my interview is
to ask my Sister’s Boyfriend “Ben Emmitt” who is a progressing animation student currently
doing a Masters at University. If it is not quite possible that he can get interviewed then my
backup plan would be interviewing my animation lecturer ‘Trevor McCready’ I would ask
questions based on the idea of character design, what makes a good character, artstyles etc.
I am hoping to make this documentary about 9 or 10 minutes with excellent production
quality and voice overs and background music.

Examples of other character designers.

I am planning to use ‘Wendy Lian (Creator of Webcomic Castle Swimmer)’ and Riyokaii_ as
my main inspiration for character designing. I will also be using ‘Finn’ from the cartoon
‘Adventure Time’ as one of my examples to show that a simple designed character can do a
lot in a story and different environments. I will be going through his first stages of character
design and how he changed over time. I am planning to roughly animate the interview as
well in the style of how some YouTube animators make videos using voice overs. I will also
take “Gokushufudou (The way of the Household Husband)” animation style as another one
of my inspirations to create the sequence. It mainly consists of different short, small frames
and simple stop mo though it is still effective and it depends on strong voice overs and
music. I will have a mix of animation and screen recordings of me drawing in the final result.

Materials needed and planning

I am planning to use a mix of different animation programs to animate:
 I will be using Adobe Animate, Procreate, Flipaclip (or another animation program I
can get on the iPad), Krita (to draw symbols to use in adobe animate).
 I will also be using the drawing and graphics tablets at college to animate in classes.
 I will be using my Graphics Tablet and iPad at home.
 I will be editing in college using Premiere Pro and perhaps Adobe After-effects.
I will also need a few research documents on character designers and animators imbedded
into my script. I will probably use a microphone of some sort for my voice overs either from
my phone or my dad’s recording tools at home.

Piecing the project together

When gathering my materials, notes and scripts, it is important I am clear with my work and
how I word things on my script. It must make sense and sound informative by using some
facts and references scattered around. When planning what to do, I will make sure that after
writing the proposal and treatment and getting it approved, I will start writing my script and
practising talking through a microphone. I will then make some questions for my interview
and either record a phone call with Ben or have him record himself answering the questions
and I can edit and tweak it later on.

Treatment/topics covered
 Short introduction to animation in general – Talk about animation in media and the
history of it with traditional animation. Talk about 1908 “Fantasmagorie” by Émile
Cohl. Talk briefly about materials they used back then. Talk about why animation is
relevant and briefly add on some example films. Talk about ‘Gertie the dinosaur’

 Introduction to character art and animation (History of character design) – Talk

about how character art is important to animation and how to keep it simple but
effective. I will use Finn as an example.

 Breaking down simple shapes of cartoon characters and what they mean – Talk
about simple shapes of a character and use a screen record video to break down the
shapes by drawing over them. Different shapes can determine some of their
personality as well as appearance. For example, an inverted Triangle body shape can
mean the character holds some power and is intimidating. Briefly mention Wendy
Lian and Riyokaii_

 Why not to over accessorise your character and draw the use body language
instead – Talk about how it is important to keep the character art relatively simple in
animation and how you can use unique elements to make a character look original.
Talk about Luso Clemens for over accessorising. Talk about some Pokémon
characters that have lazy designs and good designs. Briefly talk about Mang from
BT21.

 Redrawing a character (Haku) with different colours and concept art (practical)
(use examples) – Talk about how you can draw a character in a certain pose in which
you can see a bit of their personality. Talk about keeping the colour pallet the same
but changing parts that feel unnecessary since it would be easier to animate.

 Interview with Person – Interview with Ben through a phone call or recordings. I will
prepare the questions before hand and let Ben prep for it and talk about it naturally
and casually. I will be briefly animating this section.

 Conclusion – Conclude about how far media and animation has gone through the
years and how you can make a simple but effective character in animation. Main
focus of character design.