Character Design and Visual Development Portfolio
This is a collection of my character design projects, as well as other visual development works.
This project was developed as a short computer animated film and executed over the course of 1.5 years. As the senior thesis project for my Computer Animation degree at Ringling College of Art and Design, I was able to apply my skills in character design and visual development to the 3D pipeline, learning how to create characters that would best translate into 3D movement and story.
Project #1
"Bent Out of Shape"
Brief Synopsis
"Bent Out of Shape" follows the story of a dull, square woman and her child living in a dull, square world. However, when a bright, circular neighbor moves in next door, the square woman begins to feel that her lifestyle is being threatened. Even worse, she worries that her square child may be affected by the circular neighbor's influence...
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This story features heavily stylized characters, props, and environments that revolve around the aesthetic of exaggerated shape language, focusing on the contrast between round/circular and sharp/squared shapes, as well as warm versus cool color pallets.
Early Development
At the beginning of the project, I knew that the story would centralize around two main characters-- a circle-centric character, and a square--centric character. Originally, the round character was going to be an older man, and the square character an older woman. I started getting out some rough idea sketches for each character on both paper as well as digitally.
Finding the Characters - First Round
Addressing Notes
While my first refinement of each character seemed to be appealing and fit the story, I soon realized that despite the differences in their shape language, each characters' essence was entirely similar. Both had similar color pallets, and both characters appeared to be equally grumpy and old. To really push the idea of the characters clashing in personality as well as appearance, I decided to pull them even more in opposite directions.
Adapting to a Changing Story
Everyone knows that as soon as you think you're on the right track, everything completely blows up! During pre-production, I realized that the story side of "Bent Out of Shape," needed to change directions to make the final product even better. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I was also excited to heighten the story and push it to its highest potential!
These changes called for several new designs: round versions of my square characters, and an entirely new character-- the square woman's daughter!
But the changes didn't end there. Like any story, "Bent Out of Shape" had to evolve through many iterations to land on the perfect final product. Unfortunately, this also meant cutting out characters, so my round man had to go. But that's alright, because he was replaced with someone even better! This new character, "Olive," was briefly going to be a young girl to balance out my young square character. However, it ended up being the best thing for the story to have Olive be some where in between the ages of my two square characters.
Finally Tying everything down
Now that I finally had a clear direction for the story, I was able to dive into the world of "Bent Out of Shape." I asked myself-- where do these characters exist? How do they live? And how can I make them fit into the world around them?
On with the pipeline!
When designing characters, props, and environments for a 3D film, it's important to consider how the choices I make will translate into the 3D world. Something that looks great in a drawing may totally flop in 3D software. Sometimes, designs also need to be changed during production to accommodate what the film or project needs long term.
Marketing, and Merch Design!
Once the entire short film was near completion, I also realized that it may be beneficial to design other varieties of the characters for more stylized marketing and merchandise!
