Character design posts - Laura Syme

Sorry this took so long. I got a bit confused and thought I had to find examples for everything and was getting angry over it.

I haven't had internet access for a while so I wasn't able to post this up once I'd found out I didn't have to.

My bad!


Squash and Stretch:
This usually involves the changing of the form of an object or objects for either a more or less realistic effect depending on the structure, resistance and texture of the object involved.
A realistic example would be the bending of an arm until the hand or wrist is level with the shoulder.
The bicep contracts as the forearm moves upwards and as that part of the arm pushes up against the upper arm, the skin squashes a bit and also the fat underneath whether it is a thin layer or

not.
And when you lower the forearm again the bicep stretches out and the skin and fat go back to their original shapes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa72bUZ1YFg
A less realistic example would be in the following clip from The Brave Little Toaster. Since the majority of the main characters are inanimate objects, the animators used squash and stretch on

their "faces and bodies" to make them appear more alive. Some were more anthropomorphised than others. And in order to make the not as human-looking characters appear less stiff they

were squashed and stretched when they talked.
The best representation of this would be the clock radio. As he is the only one of the main group without an animated face. And so he was given a personality through squash and stretch and the

use of his antenna occasionally like an arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCWmLoOElqM


Exaggeration:
Realistic expressions, movements and behaviours can appear boring or unclear to an audience. So a level of exaggeration is used in order to stop making everything static. Care has to be taken

to use the best amount to convey what is happening without it being too unrealistic. However, it all depends on the preference and style of the animator and the level of the target audience's

suspension of disbelief.
An example of exaggeration would be this scene from Haruhi Suzamiya. The dancing of the characters is mostly realistic. In fact enough to have started a craze in imitating it and filming the

results to post int he internet. However, the expressions on their simplified faces are the complete opposite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6iZKNfDuh4


Secondary Action:
This principle involves the secondary movement of objects. Because one object doing an action is impossible. If someone turns their head even in zero gravity their hair and skin will move too.

Depending on the speed it will move more noticeably. But it will move. This is not what the original action is, but it happens because of it.


Staging:
This is making an idea more visible to the audience.Be it an action, personality, atmosphere, emotion or expression. This is used to attract attention to where it is needed to get the point of the

scene across. Like a view from across a canyon in which you can see two ramps on either side and in the distance a man wearing safety gear on a motorcycle examining the distance. This

clearly shows that the biker is intending to jump between the ramps and over the canyon.


Anticipation:
This is the preparation for an action. Like bending one or both legs before a leap. Or reaching to grab an object before actually touching it or using it.
An example would be in "Shoo Fly" where a woman spots a fly trying to land on the roast she has prepared. As it gets closer and closer she reaches for a fly swatter and we expect her to start

trying to kill the insect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmLwih2ULCg


Still have to scan the character designs and walk cycle progress and I've made an animated gif of the mechanics of the bottom half of the walk cycle that I can post... But I dunno whether ot post it now or once I've actually got the character designs up. I need a bit of guidance on that. Especially since I'm still tweaking it. I found a few problems with getting both feet on the ground at once.

I'd take it in tomorrow if I'm well enough (Hopefully yeah) but I'm not sure if my external hard drive is working. And if it does it still requires being plugged in to a power supply. So I need to know if I'm allowed to do that.

Goodnight America! And all the ships at sea...

I've no done eight yet, but I've done four poses which I've made animations out of. I'll add to these as I draw more poses.

THese aren't in my sketchbook since I've been using paper from my dad's printer and my lightbox to make them.






Here's the walk in action:


Hopefully I'll have all 8 poses by the end of the week as well as work on animating the upper body and adding in detail and posting up the character designs during half term.

VERY cool! Your skills impress me...

Maybe if you added a few more frames, and some extra body movement, it'd look EPIC.

And the tail... make it SWAY!

Looks cool, like the character designs, definately needs more frames though xDD

I agree to the making the tail sway that would be pretty cool. Now I just wanna see all 8 frames ;D

good character design, would like to see added detail to it

I actually think that it would probably be better if I made the tail feathers bounce a bit rather than sway.
Of course they don't really look like feathers right now. I've still got to draw a full detail cycle after I've completed the more detailed version of the character design.
I got to iron out the kinks.

Looks great, definitly needs more upper body movement, realy looking forward to seeing this full finished!

Should be good to see a colour version

Looking like a pretty good idea laura! especially the way the legs bend backwards (:

Should look good when its done!

This will look pretty good
You just need to add more frames to it.

cant waito see it fully completed!!

looks good, but the legs move to staticly the ankle joint does not move at all, like when the leg is coming back the foot should come up at the ankle then the foot sud go forward like this \ the walk looks ok just need to fix the ankle and foot movement to make it flow instead of set static movments

I've inserted more frames in the leg animations. I'll have to add more in the final detailed sequence but it hopefully won't take long.

They aren't in order of appearance but the order I scanned them in.









Here's the cycle with the added frames. The framerate has been upped to 8ps.

its looks better legs look like they are moving better, but u sud make the tail bounce or show some weight transfer because at the moment it is very static

In the more detailed version I'm considering maybe putting more into the appearance of the muscular tension and structure of the legs. Maybe making them shake a little bit more, too with the force of the feet hitting the ground.

This is still just the broken down version. I'll be adding in stuff like feathers and other textures and objects including clothing once I have everything like the movements in the upper body sorted. Which is a breeze in comparison since that's the human half.

Your animation has to be 25fps as specified by the brief best way of doing it is by making each image 3 frames long
But it looks good anyway

This also has to be finished and handed in on a disk in both .fla and also in .avi or .mov format ASAP, as it's already late, read claires post about submissions

need to move her upper body alot more but otherwise a good effort

Here are the three characters I made and had to choose between for the walk cycle.

SWISS ARMY ARM GIRL:

This was supposed to be a character with a half strut, half skulking walk because she would use the tools in her arm to her advantage in espionage. However I decided not to pick this one because it would be difficult to show the swiss army knife-like function of her arm during the walk cycle.

LYDIA ABERCROMBIE:

This was supposed to be a character with a plastercast arm in a sling and would kind of have a skip to her walk but only a small one. This was the only character I coloured with marker pens.

This was almost going to be the character I would use for my walk cycle and it was a close choice but I finally went for the last character.

BAKUL MANOHARA:
This character is my take on a creature from Hindu/Buddhist folklore called a Kinnara. A half man, half bird liminal being. I used different parts from different birds both modern and extinct. Including the legs of an Asiatic ostrich, the tail of a wild chicken, the feet of a cassowary and the body of a moa and the feathers of a kiwi.

Since most of the birds used to make up the birds half of the body are ratites I watched videos of ostriches, emus and cassowaries walking and running to get the idea of how the parts would move. The upper human body woud move similarly to the long neck of the animals.
Originally the appearance of the human half was going to be like the first image, but I changed by mind and decided to shorten the hair and change the facial features.


I've had to adjust them since and I'm pleased with the end result. However I am adding the clothing, objects and tattoos intot eh animation itself possibly including a variation of the swastika (Which existed before the Nazis. The word swastika even comes from sanskrit.)

As for the walk cycle I also changed from my original ideas for the upper body as it looked too odd and I decided to go for a more human movement with slightly swinging arms.

Here is an updated frame with arms added. I've added more things to the animation in flash like colours, clothes and I'm adding a tattoo or two among other things.

I've changed the hair style since it was a bit annoying slicked back like in the original designs.