Making of Intergrated Practice-

Weeks 5 - 6

Once we decided upon delegating all of our team roles within Creative Collaboration, I then proceeded to make a start on one of my agreed roles, co-character designer.

As lead character designer for the dog, Chloe began on designing the central character for our project. At first, we were planning on basing the design on a dog which we had access to, therefore we could use the same dog in the live action footage at the end, but we decided to scrap this idea as we wanted to be more free in terms of character design, giving the dog our own quirks and characteristics. This meant that the opening and closing scenes would have to be adapted from live action to animation, as in order for the payoff at the end to work, the same dog would have to appear in the happy home. Due to her love of pugs, Chloe based the initial design on that breed of dog. Our intention was to give Chloe the role of lead character designer, but then as I am in charge of animation, I will interpret her design in my own style, simplifying it so that it would work better in an animation. However, we still plan to use her illustrations for the opening and closing pages of the the book, as it would make for a more effective morphing when transitioning to the animation aspect.

Chloe's initial sketches

Chloe's near finalised digital sketch

We wanted the audience to sympathise with this character, so we gave him certain characteristics that would help evoke empathy and fuel connection. This was done by giving him a lazy eye and a missing ear, as not only does this provide a more distinct silhouette, but it puts him in an understandably difficult situation, as only the cutest and perfect dogs are sought after, meaning that this asymmetrical one would typically be left behind. This trait was inspired by Nemo's design in Pixar's film 'Finding Nemo', as whilst not being revolutionary, it still manages to provide a sympathetic disability without the character becoming grotesque and hard to watch. 

As I previously mentioned, I intended to translate Chloe's design into my own simpler, digital design. Before drawing straight, I assembled the proportions of the dog using simple shapes in my software, the reasoning behind this was to create a base which I can manipulate and then draw around for each individual pose in the animation, thus keeping accurate proportions and making it easier to draw from different angles. There were a couple of alterations that I made to Chloe's design which are as follows;

- Instead of having the left pupil drop lower than the right, I had the left eyelid drop down, and the whole eye position lower than the right eye, this would hopefully make it appear as though the lazy eye causes more of a struggle for the dog as he is fighting it.

- I made the colour scheme lighter and more accurate to an average pug, this was so that details would be more visible universally across screens, as if its too dark, the lines would blend in with the form, and therefore becoming unrecognisable.

These changes were discussed with Chloe and approved by her.

The structure of the dog using simple geometric shapes

Original colour scheme

My final digital drawing of our main character

Now that we had the character design finalised, I proceeded to create a 180 turnaround for the character. This is not something that I am new to, as I have ensured that it is a regular practice with all my animations, in order to get a better sense of the characters form, and thus preventing me from guessing how a character would look at a certain angle midway through the animation process. This time however, I am interpreting a design which is of a much higher level of detail that I normally use in my animations, meaning that assembling the form of the character from simple geometric shapes was vital, as I could align them all accordingly, adjusting them accurately for the angle, and then re-drawing the dog digitally over that base.

The structures using simple geometric shapes

Final 180 turnaround, with some lower angles added

I was pleased with how the turnaround has turned out, and I feel that the lack of an ear really helps to define the character and give him an interesting look from each angle. Regardless, I do have one criticism with the final result, and that is to do with the body. In a typical turnaround, it is essential that all the features of a character align up horizontally with their rotated counterparts, which I have done well with the facial features, but due to the neutral body pose that I decided to draw the dog in, in order to create a sense of depth and therefore look natural in a scene, I had to have the back legs situated above the front legs when they're positioned behind them, meaning that the heights of the legs and other body features had to be altered as the body shifts in direction. This may have resulted in a less than accurate result, but due to the depth that I have provided, these assets wouldn't look out of place and flat in a scene, meaning I could re-use them in the final animation. Though I still understand the importance of a highly accurate turnaround and is something I will consider in future projects, I feel that this has still been an effective method of visualising the character fully, and will help me a lot in the animation process.

Thankfully, we had a rough idea on how the story within the book will play out, meaning that I knew that I was required to go through the same process of designing the character again, but at different stages of his life. We decided to produce two more designs, one of him as a young pup, and another of him as he becomes old and weak. Chloe once again drew the initial sketches of how she visioned the dog to look at these stages, which I then went to adapt and turnaround in my style. It was also at this time that we decided upon a gender and name for the character, Talulah.

Chloe's designs for the three separate stages of the dog 

There were certain separate characteristics that we wanted to maintain in each design, which are as follows;
Young 
- Symmetry increased to indicate perfection
- Eyes larger to increase cuteness
- Shorter and chubbier to show that she's younger
- Whilst still being cute, prevent her from becoming too perfect that she looses sympathy
Old
- Scruffier hair to indicate lack of grooming
- Duller colour pallet to indicate age
- Head sunk down, front legs more open to show that she's struggling to support herself
- Lazy eye made more evident
- Skinnier to show her deteriorating health
- Ensure that she is not too grotesque and tragic that she becomes uneasy to watch

With these features in mind, I proceeded to draw them both in my style, again using the shape structure. In order to morph each design into the next more naturally in the animation and ensuring that the audience recognise that it's the same dog, I toned down certain exaggerated features in Chloe's sketches, particularly in terms of proportions.

The structures using simple geometric shapes

Final character designs

How the geometric shapes are utilised

Turnaround of young Talulah

Turnaround of young Talulah

What I thought would be a simple task of altering proportions slightly for each age turned out to be a very time consuming task, as hardly any assets from each design were translated unaltered, meaning that each design had to be remade from the ground up. I am very happy with how both alterations turned out though, and through the postures and key features of each design, I have managed to create a character with a complex and eventful backstory waiting to be explored for the narrative when it comes to form. However, I don't think I would have been able to produce the same quality of work if it weren't for Chloe's initial visions, showing me how effective combining skill-sets can be, as it has never been something that I have fully embraced until recently. The next step to fleshing out this character would be to draw out key poses for each of the designs.

What I, personally have left to accomplish in the following weeks is as follows;
- Expression sheet
- Development of secondary characters
- Pose sheet
- Animation tests
- Start the final animation