Seeking some advice

#1

First, I hope this isnt out of context with this forum. SInce I am using Messiah as my app, I would like to here from the Animators from this forum.

I have a set of Characters I am creating called the Redvesters. The name will be more understandable when I show their progress pics soon.

Anyway, this project grew out of one Character I created., a simple Dummy like model wearing a Redvest to represent the Youth of our Church which wear what are called VLB vest… VLB = Vitory Leaders Band.

Dont want to bore you with to much info, but I felt a little background was needed in order to better understand what I am doing and the advice I need.

Ok, to the point… Finally :slight_smile:

My first Redvester, as a Dummy character, you know the classic round head no face kind of guy :) Was simply going to do simple animations for the websites of the youth. Like walk cycles, various praying poses, a marching pose and such like.

After modeling Him I descided to do a rework of Redvester… which is where Redvesters was born, in doing so I got out my sketch pad and before I knew it I not only drew a New main character, but several supporting characters.

The main characters name is Blake, and here is my delima. I have created Blake with normal human body and features, with one acception.

 He has no eyes, Nose or Mouth.  He does however have Sun Glasses, eyebrows, and Hair.

Anyway, my delima is, do I want to deviate completely away from the original idea and put full features of the face, nose, eyes, mouth?

 Truth is, I sort of like the idea of the generic characters, [u][b]but my delima is How can I get a character with out a mouth to tell a story? and to communicate with each other?[/b][/u]

What a challenge, but interesting I think!!!

There Finally after all of that I was able to get to the point.

If you made it this far, any sugestions would be appreciated!!!

MBStudios

#2

Hmmm…
I think you have to answer this question yourself.
What do you want to do with the characters? Will it work without the facial features? Can you get your point across with gestures etc.?
Look at the carpet in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”, it shows a lot of character for just a carpet without face or any features. :slight_smile:
But if your character is thought to talk a lot, the design may be in the way of the purpose.

Character development is very much about defining some kind of “Environment” for your actor. I wrote an article about this topic together with Christophe Desse for a german CG magazine and basically we had 7 stages of detail to fill in, depending on how important a character is. It is a very broad approach and you will only need some of them, but it can be very helpful:
1.) Starting with what kind of character you talk about (Human, Dog, Alien…)
2.) go on with Size, Age, Weight, Gender, Specific Features…
3.) Next define the environment: Where is the character thought to live (Dessert, City, Underwater) what kind of Temperature/Weather he will live in. Where does he live? A cave or an apartment? What other Environmental Influences are there?
You will find that this already defines a lot of the features…
4.) Then you can go further: Hunter or Hunted? Flight/Camouflage or Attack? Enemies/Allies? Weapons/Armour? Food and how does he get it?
5.) Social Environment: Financial Status/Estate? Believe/Rites/Religion? Family/Relations? Single or Tribe? Boss/Slave/Underdog? Clothes/Accessories/Jewelry? Hygienics?
6.) Psychics: What does he like/don’t like? Character? Life-Goals? Childhood Fears?..
7.) This last point is the Synthesis. Certain things lead to certain behavior. If you hunt your food in the dessert, you will act/look different from getting it in a shopping mall on Alpha Prime…
While in your case a lot of the above may seem obvious, it helps a lot in defining what you need to give characters that kind of background.

And sure - what kind of animation/movie/whatever you want to do is the first answer to give to yourself :wink:

Happy developing :thumbsup:

#3

As long as you’re not using dialogue you’re alright :), although the characters could always hold up cards with text written on them if they really had to ‘say’ something - whip them out from behind their back ? Might add a certain ’ charm ’ to it too, as long as the text was short and to the point, not some rambling story :slight_smile: One character could be standing tappng his toes impatiently, waiting on the other character scribbling his response on a card. Could work as long as it wasn’t used too often ?

I’d also suggest watching Luxo Jr by Pixar ( if you haven’t already seen it ). Absolutely fantastic / classic piece of animation, which also tells a story, despite the characters being angle lamps with one 2 props, the beach ball. Does it through prefect timing and applying recognised human actions/poses to the lamps - drooped head when sad, jumping up / wiggling when happy, etc…

#4

Wow,
Fantastic responses! Great points to consider Thomas in the developing of the Characters.

Moody, I remember the animation you speak of, and it was agreat example of how this could be done. But it also opened my eyes a bit to the limitations of communications my characters would have.

Thus, I can see the importance of when we tell the story how they will most definately need mouths to better communicate the idea of the story.

But befoe I jump into ading these features to the models, I think I will give a go and see if I can communcate an idea or scene without them just to say I gave it a go and to see the result.

Thank you so much for the advice!

MBStudios

#5

Also check out the Wallace and Grommit collection of short films. (Nick Park, Aardman Animations)

Grommit is one of the most expressive characters you’ll ever see, but has no mouth. (watching him eat is particularly fun) He does, however, have eyes. And eyebrows. Conveying emotion without those things would be pretty difficult, so perhaps a compromise is in order.

The question, really, is “what does this say?”

You make a decision as conscious as omitting body parts, the viewer is going to start looking for symbolism. If these characters see and hear, but are forbidden from sharing their observations, having no mouth would compliment this nicely.

Were I making a film about religion, my characters would probably have no eyes or ears, but never stop preaching at each other (so they’d need oversized mouths and long pointing fingers). That’s just me, though. (it’s not that my views are so bleak, but I do look for strong messages that come across visually…) :shrug:

Bleak is a good word to consider, though – blanking out body parts, beyond being very symbolic, is usually very critical. If the symbolism doesn’t fit, the viewer will consider the next logical assumtion: that you’ve eliminated those parts you’re not skilled enough to animate properly. That trap is avoidable, but you do have to be aware of it…

#6

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