Thursday 12 January 2012

Design in Animation

(A brief summary of notes I took during the Design in Animation Presentation)
Design comes before animation. To create a decent and well structured animation character/props/environments/colours and story must be considered in Pre-Production (in things like Storyboards), this allows detail to baie laid out and any problems to be resolved before any time or cost has been used in actually animating. It is important to have some form of traditional drawing skills to create these initial designs.


These were some of the Character Design Tips we were given:


Research and Evaluate - By looking at what makes existing characters unique and universally recognisable we can see what 'works' when designing a character and what doesn't work. 
Target Audience - Simpler shapes are used for younger audiences, such as circles and shapes, causing the character to be immediately recognisable. The shapes are simple, fun and easily recognisable and as I am modelling and animating a toy, simple shapes would not only be (hopefully) less complex to create and animate in an interesting way, but also be visually impacting.
Visual Impact - Visuals should be strong and interesting, taking into account silhouette. Also by taking into account Line qualities and Style the character can take on personality traits scruffy rough lines could illustrate a more 'spiky' character. Colours communicate characters personality, for example an 'evil' character will usually have darker colours, such as blacks, purples and greens, where as 'good' characters may have lighter colours. There can also  be subtler uses of this - for example a woman wearing a green dress could be 'jealous'.
Exaggerated Characteristics - This idenitfys key qualities. And expresses the personality of the character. 


An example of a character who seems to possess some of these qualities is Kirby - it's a successful character as it is easily recognisable from it's simple shape and design. It has key traits too that allow it to be a recognisable distinctive character, such as sucking up enemies etc. It shows that things don't have to be intricately detailed to be impacting.






Other tips to takes into account were: Adding Accessories, Third Dimensions, Conveying Personality. Expressions, Building back stories, Experiment, Hone,Plan and Polish, Draw anywhere, 'Real World Drawing', Show People Work, Environment, and to Fine Tune

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