Friday 17 January 2014

From Script to Screen - Rocket Scientist Character Idea Lineup

These character designs are the first ideas for my rocket scientist created using Sketchbook Pro. Even though some of these may not match the emotional tone of my story, with him being a remorseful scientist, I wanted to draw a broad range of emotions to experiment with the rocket scientist's personality. Is he a constantly depressed guy or is he jolly and loud but covering up his dark thoughts and feelings? I feel the latter may be the better persona, with 3 and 5 suiting this.
Any feedback on these will be appreciated.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Kyle, I really like your designs. For me, I like number 4's head with 5's body! :D

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  2. Hey Kyle - I like 5 too - but I don't think these very comedic. stereotypical designs are quite the right fit in terms of your story - for two reasons; the first is simply an issue of tone; your animation is actually rather sombre and reflective, and these designs feel 'toony' to me. Also, the fact that your characters look just like we'd expect a rocket scientist to look, means you're actually working against your own reveal in Act 3. We just need to think of him as a kindly grandfather in the first instance - gentle, benign, the opposite really of how he and others might see him.


    Re. your story - I don't think necessarily that the cemetary needs to be a place he walks past, but rather a chilling element of his flashbacks - as in war graves - the graves relating directly to the war dead. The thing that triggers the flashback might be some kind of match cut - which is technical term for when different shots are associated by a key shape; for example, that famous match cut in 2001 when the bone thrown by the ape becomes the space craft. Maybe, it's the shape of lots of ice-lollies at the party that match-cuts to the spectacle of lots of graves - or some similar juxtaposition of jolly/horrible.

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