For this second brief we were tasked with creating the design for a character based on a written text, and were given freedom as to which text we chose. After research and careful thought I decided that I would like my character to be based on the Mountain Troll described in J.K. Rowling’s book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
For this first brief, we were given the task of creating, from scratch, an animal character design for an existing commercial product and its packaging. Following extensive research and design work I decided to go with the tea brand Typhoo, and arrived at an owl for the final character.
We were given the task of creating a small, hand sculpted model (maquette) based on one of our own characters developed for the module thus far. I chose to use my design of The Doctor of Marshalsea Prison as the basis for my model as I felt it was a character with a particularly interesting posture- one that would lend itself nicely to recreation in 3D. Continue reading
As humans, we are typically drawn to those that we can empathise with, and this empathy can be sparked from similar personalities or looks. It is for this reason that illustrators and animators often depict their own characters in ways that can be immediately recognised as human, whether they are so or not- it creates a more appealing figure that viewers can fundamentally associate with and see themselves in. This technique is called anthropomorphism, and is defined as the projection of human features or emotions onto living beings such as pets, meteorological states such as the weather, or simply inanimate objects such as vehicles.
For this project we were tasked with developing designs for 2 characters found in an extract of the book Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake. These characters were named Rottcodd and Mr. Flay.
For this first project we were given the task of creating a standalone character design based on a description present within Chapters 6 & 7 in the book Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens.
Character and Characterisation 