Deciding a brief

I will now be specifically looking into the processes behind character generation and development for display, cinema and the gaming industries. I will produce designs, a character history, a story board and a model to illustrate my concept. So far I have looked to Insomniac games and several animated films for inspiration. The character development in these fields work from a given concept, description or background story so I feel that I too should choose an existing work to interpret a character from.

The level of research into the concept and appearance of a film or game is often far more in-depth than what will appear in the final production. Depending on the scale of the concept, entire fictional worlds have to be developed in order for the modelling team to understand exactly what the director or author visualises. A good example of this process is the Jim Henson film, The Dark Crystal, taking five years in total to complete. The artwork and characters for the film were actually created before the plot, with their strong look and feel inspiring the puppet makers and director to bring these to life.

Project Mickey - Talk by Nick Rose

The author wanted to create a children's book around his Microlight Aircraft and his experiences traveling around Australia. He talked through the processes that helped him to reach the final look of his book which he hopes shows a unique house style, able to compete with existing children's characters around similar themes. To help him produce this he employed animators, computer designers and a key girl who initially designed the characters and ended up seeing them through the whole process as she learnt.

From the drawings he gave her, she worked in her preferred medium of watercolours to create initial sketches based on Nick's description of what Miro should be. Her style won her the contract as it characterised the plane in a way that would appeal to children and look distinctive. It had to be friendly and cute so the structure of the plane was softened with the front wheel appearing to be held in place by two arms to bring in a human element. Her style proved so populer that she then went on to sketch out the landscape and overall look of the book, experimenting with bringing in computer graphic elements into her drawings. The final look of the book uses her watercoulor images mapped onto digital elements. This softens the harsh block colours typical of computer generated imagery.

When submitting her final character layouts, they were all mapped out with the arms aloft to later allow the animators to see how the character should be digitally rigged. Moving turnarounds of the final CG characters were also submitted so you can gain a better understanding of how they would move. This is also very useful when it comes to 3D realisation, allowing an outsider to prduce 3D models to display and take to potential television producers and toy companys should the book prove successful.

Cracking Ideas - Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the Science Museum

This interactive exhibit aims to encourage children to look at the history of both good and bad design and invent for themselves. Also on display were some remaining sets and props used in the more recent Wallace and Gromit features, The Curse Of The Warerabbit and A Matter Of Loaf And Death. These animated characters are very simple in design, consisting of a wire armature with Plasticine over this so that they can be positioned for Stop Motion capture. Any imperfections such as finger prints in the Plasticine are later removed with a computer, along with the animation stills made to flow more smoothly.

For display purposes, the models in the exhibition appear to be covered in a glaze to look like porceline wich I presume protects them from the hot lighting. Larger scale replicas were also made for this event as they work well for kids to interact with.

Designing movie creatures and characters - Behind the scenes with the movie masters by Richard Rickitt

Related comapnies

The best insight into my chosen interest can only be gained through a company visit and possible work experience, wich I am trying to secure over or after the Christmas period. One comapany's site caught my particular attension as it clearly layed out all the projects they have been with and appears open to anyone aspiring to work in this field through

stating what they look for in their employees. They define themselves as:

"A curious mix of artists and engineers"

who mainly work freelance and are chosen for a particular specialist skill they have. In the careers section of the web site they look for a strong portfolio and suggest relevent University degrees. As a person, they warn that potential amployees must be willing to work unusual hours and are prepared to travel as they are an international company and are often required to visit and work alongside their clients.

So - lets write a brief

This is what I have gathered so far:

This project is heavily research based, drawing reference from how companies operate in a specific sector of the modelmaking industry. From this I will learn about processes, what employers look for and be able to self-evaluate my personal strengths and weaknesses.

This blog should cover what I have drawn from my research into the film and television companies who work with character creation and realisation. My learning agreement made with the tutors should support why I have taken interest in this aspect of modelmaking and the project should finalise in my mind whether or not I would like to take this up as my own profession. I will later present this information along with my own example of character development. The model should be kept simple to be completed within Thursday and Friday sessions across four weeks whilst effectively demonstrating the processes and techniques I have learnt.

The second aspect of the project requires an illustrated report on my commercial visit or work experience. As I have worked with Hothouse over the Summer, I would like to compare this with an insight into another company. I must justify if I feel this visit was successful or if I felt is wasn't for me.

Commercial exploration - the joys of the second year await

After reading an article from Imagine Magazine Sep/Oct issue 2009, I have picked out some common themes and issues within present stop frame animation techniques. The supervising modeller and director of photography are interviewed, both sharing experience at Aardman studios and Laika. The other members of their team consisted of silversmith sculpters, mold makers, armature makers, latex and silicone people, painters and illustrators all working at the "Puppet Hospital" in London. What interests me here is how these people can all relate to modelmaking, yet are divided up to work on a very specific section of the overall process. Team work and passion for the project are invaluable traits here as the team are discribed as:
"a big family of gypsies all getting together in a room and having a good time, communicating and cross-referencing with each other."

The director of Fantastic Mr Fox is Wes Anderson, who had previously only worked in live action film making. The main issue to production team seemed to have with him was that he was physically remouved from much of the process, communicating to his team via Email. His desire for attention to detail required much re-scaling of each character, depending on the camera shot. Most of the Modelmakers time was dedicated to producing around six different scale replicas of each puppet , meaning 500-600 models were completed in a relativly short amount of time.