Character Ideas

Ok, work has been a major pain. They have decided to have the busiest winter I have ever experienced in my time there which is great for the most important year!!. Oh well with all the set backs I am still staying focused. My aim is PMA Positive Mental Attitude. I shout that to myself everyday...very loudly so I hear it. Find that helps. So when I am not working I am at home eating peanut butter sandwiches and working on my character project. My friends will call and say are you coming out...before they finish the sentance I say NO NOT TILL JUNE!. Although I did venture to Mark Little Talent Contest a while ago and after my friends getting over the star struck thing (god knows why!) proceded to drink too much wine and heckled my way through the performances. Was quite good to see how performing arts students do their stuff.

Anyway how does that relate to character animation well as Micheal put it isn't Mark Little a character!!, that and all the other character's that performed. I actually got some inspiration from there. That being my character will daydream off into the moonlight thinking of himself playing the clarinet on stage.

I know what I want my character to look like. He will have a huge nose, grey hair, will wear, vest and shorts be very pasty white and a grumpy old sod. As he is going to be a pub landlord he will smoke and drink obviously. Although he is a grumpy old git he will be a sensitive soul too. Inspiration comes from these characters and especially Al Murray. Although mainly my experiences with landlords.

D & AD

Reading through the lots and lots of brief ideas I am torn between choosing one for illustration and advertising or one for animation. Animation would mean I can use flash again and I am just getting into that since my last project. The briefs that currently interest me are Nando's as I like the style of the current website. It comes across as very cosmopolitan. I was also thinking of keeping things simple and choosing a travel brief such as lastminute.com and Virgin, although neither mention that an airport or travel stuff need to be included.

My mind is going more and more towards the animation brief though. It is for a character animation of your choice of not more that 20 to 60 seconds. It explains that you should concentrate on animating it's personality as opposed to just focusing on the look of the character. It can be based on yourself or someone you know or simply fictional. I did a few mind bubbles and came up with various characters I have met over the years. Thinking of people I work with past and present. What traits do they possess, what annoys me about them or what do I like about them. Thinking of all these things I came up with an idea of a grumpy bloke. There was once a pub I worked in, I only lasted one night mainly because of the man who ran the place. He was obnoxious, rude and very loud when talking to his staff, to the customers it was a different matter. I have been back since and being a customer ( he doesn't recognise me anymore), it was a totally different story, I saw a totally different side to him, noticed how much the pub meant to him, it was his life and he put all his energy into that, quite humbling.



I'd like to maybe bring two sides of a character out. One side to be grumpy, fed up with his job, getting old and a more day dreamer side. I spoke with Linzi who came second in the D & AD awards last year. I showed her three storyboard ideas one based on the evolution of dance (above). Really like this clip very funny. I was thinking of animating my own character to different music. The other clip was based on a idea whilst I was out in a bar a few weeks ago, the camera basically acts as the character's eye and the only time you see the character is when she looks in a mirror or through a reflection in the window, problem with this was it didn't fully answer the brief. My final idea was the landlord slob and he smokes, drinks, fed up but wishes he had done something else with his life.

Week without the Others!!!

Well I thought it would be a great time to catch up on any outstanding work and although my progress was not as good as it should have been I did go up to London to the Victoria and Albert Museum to see some exhibitions. The reason I went was because I saw and advert for an exhibition of Illustrator Awards. I did however find some other interesting stuff here I will show you.

This exhibition demonstrated many different pieces from the 16th to 18th century, the image here was the most expensive and important item in the dinner service. It had become an essential element of the very grandest English dining tables by the 1730's and remained a focus for inventive design throughout the 18th century.

I also looked at some old paintings that included alot of people, landscape and movement. There were not many paintings of objects as there are today.

Next exhibition was from 19th and 20th centuries. Firstly the 19th century; Ideas about design have been transmitted in many different ways, by word of mouth, on paper and by the objects themselves.

Official concern about the quality of design grew during the 19th century. Following the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851, exhibitions and exhibits from many different nations were increasingly seen as a means of informing designers, manufacturers and the buying public on matters of design as well as being seen as a way of stimulating production.

Some posters were included here but unfortunately did not come out very well some were held in Paris in 1925. It gave special prominence to the decorative arts. It reasserted France of the definitive venue for the artist-decorators' style which combined elements of the historic and exotic with the bright colours and angular forms of contemporary painting. The style subsequently acquired from the title of this exhibition, the name Art Deco.


Exotism - a term applied to design implies an interest in appropriating the otherness (now labelled Art-Deco) of distant lands, including the unexplored territory of the designer;s sub-conscious. Present in the picture below was used between 1920 and 1940. These influences can be used in many ways including:

through form, that is through the shapes of objects as in the jar.

through subject matter, as in scenes or things associated with distant parts or in surreal combinations and settings.

through techniques and materials, that is through ways of making derived from other cultures.

Surrealism, an international movement of the 1920 and 30's involving all arts.



Furniture and radios from 1900's, funnily enough most of these are sold in high streets for a rather expensive price. Seems style is being recycled.





The exhibitions also gave information on inspiration for designers and how we extinguish art from craft and craft from product design.

For example the greater speed with which machines work can influence design in a direction compatible with machine production. Their relationship with craftsman has been complex. One hand machines can reduce the drudgery of production, on the other they can stifle individual self expression. While machines themselves do not cause the division of labour, their management has often encouraged it.


With the 1990's influence coming from the above it was interesting to see the transition. Many of the designs in this exhibition I related to, maybe that is because I remember them so vividly or because modernism is my thing. I remember in the 90's shrinking crisp bags under the fire and selling them at school as badges. Bizzare I know but the fascination with logo's becomes clear here.