Doug's Character Sheet

Greetings.

In CG, in order to model a character you need decent Character Sheets. You can model without them, or with poor ones, but I've found that this takes a lot more time to get the character correct. Last night I have been mostly working on....character sheets. Doug's specifically. James drew me a Character Sheet that had certain elements that I liked, and others I didn't. I decided to rectify this in the wee hours of the morning using Photoshop.

Here is the original sketch:



Although construction lines were used, there are elements that were way off being symmetrical. I took Doug's right hand side of his face (on the left), duplicated and mirrored then blended over the top to his right, keeping his hair. The same was applied to his body and legs. His ears were then moved up and rotated, similar to his nose. His waist and shirt were altered to be the correct length, and his eye-brows were shrunk and rotated to match. His shoes were also slightly altered.

Here is the updated sketch after being photoshopped:



This character sheet can now be used for modeling in a CG program. It will make my life easier to model the character how the drawings line up in the 2 views.

If only modeling was so easy...

Feedback and Friends. A good combination.

After showing my current character sheet and animatic to people, I felt that a few things needed changed. My good friend Peder Kallin (who owns his own CG animation company) told me that in it's current form, he would see me next year. The character and story were still too complicated to produce on time. Seeing as he has full proper production experience, I tend to agree with him.

Doug, was far too human and realistic. So, after going over a large number of designs of the character with James Cox, we eventually decided on this:



As you can see, the character has been greatly simplified. Using simple but great animation rigs as inspiration (Animation Mentor's Stu and Andrew Silkes Generi) the new 'Doug' should be a hell of a lot easier to animate and much more fun to use. Plus, his limbs are longer and more useful - great for character animation. Also of note are the eye-brows and forehead which will be great for expressing the character when he has no lines to deliver.

Here is a version of my animatic that is undergoing some changes. Enjoy.

Story is King...and Doug.

So, I've been working on story now for quite a while. Which is a good thing, as the great minds say, "Story is King". However there comes a point where you're so wrapped up in story that you need other's opinions. I reached a 6th draft of the screenplay and showed it to many lecturers. It seemed strange, as I have received completely opposite feedback from nearly all of them, which contradicts many points they all make.

Thus, I decided to listen to all criticisms and take on board the ones that seemed to fit the main theme and story while disguarding the ones that distracted. This proved beneficial as I now seem to have a film that does actually have a meaning and yet has the potential to be quite humorous.

It's about time I started posting up some artwork and videos, so I'll start with the central main character of 'Doug'.



In a surreal and subconscious way, I seem to have created and named the main character of my film 'Doug' after my Dad Douglas, and even stranger seem to have developed him to look very very similar. I assume my Dad must have issues with going into Public toilets, and that is the reason I have decided to put him in this situation.

I have been developing my animatic recently. I am currently on my 4th revision and as soon as I have put sound in it I will upload for people to see. The first version was very basic and simply filmed storyboards, but the latest version includes some basic cutout animation to help with the feel and timing of shots. The feedback so far has been good - the story can easily be read. Which is nice.