Now, the brief asks us to use a familiar starting point for our designs. I decided that one way that could work would be by using existing characters that I have as my starting points for designing a set of new characters.
My first thought was Joey, from my work in the Design for Animation module.
My first thought was Joey, from my work in the Design for Animation module.
This led me to a concept I'd been toying with for a while, where one character dreamt of being a smooth upper class musician or something, but was living in a flat of bikers/punks/chavs or whatever.
So I doodled what some of the stuff in this concept might look like.
So I doodled what some of the stuff in this concept might look like.
But then I thought that everyone at uni would probably want to see something that seemed newer and different to last year, which led me to another of my characters which I had but that I hadn't really done anything with during the first year.
My inept supervillian; Doctor Chaotic.
My inept supervillian; Doctor Chaotic.
I've had this guy in mind for a pretty long time, and working with him as a base would help me flesh out the world that his story takes place in, even if I don't actually do anything involving him in particular.
BONUS MATERIAL HERE
So, yeh, working with him and the world he's in as inspiration opens the door for all kinds of possibilities, because a world where supervilliany/heroism is considered a legitimate career choice paves the way for messing with the tropes of the superhero genre and having all kinds of fun with design and narrative, cos you'd get to make up backstories for each of them, and work out what gadgets they'd have and how they'd work, and it just makes me happy ok.
I can design characters, but it does help when you feel excited about the characters you're working with. So I think I'm gonna go down this route.
BONUS MATERIAL HERE
So, yeh, working with him and the world he's in as inspiration opens the door for all kinds of possibilities, because a world where supervilliany/heroism is considered a legitimate career choice paves the way for messing with the tropes of the superhero genre and having all kinds of fun with design and narrative, cos you'd get to make up backstories for each of them, and work out what gadgets they'd have and how they'd work, and it just makes me happy ok.
I can design characters, but it does help when you feel excited about the characters you're working with. So I think I'm gonna go down this route.
These are just some super rough early doodles I did. You've got a bog-standard mech that's controlled by some guy in the head of the machine, an evil magician, and what is basically Mario with lightning plungers.
There's a long way to go before I get anything I can really work with here. Not as keen on the Mario parody as I was when I initially doodled this.
There's a long way to go before I get anything I can really work with here. Not as keen on the Mario parody as I was when I initially doodled this.