Since my last post a lot has change and is still rapidly changing.
I re-designed my character because he was quite unappealing. My main challenge was that I was attached to the idea of him being an egghead (literally) which got in the way of creating an appealing character. This is him as of now:
After some feedback it seems he still needs some work. He’s more appealing than previously however he could still be improved. I think it involves mostly the face, I think the nose could be more round and the eyes should be larger to avoid the beady look, I implemented this look to begin with to make him look more shy and timid, but this can be done with facial expressions easily with larger eyes and such. I’m still unsure about the body, it goes out almost in an hour glass shape with wide(ish) hips which is what female characters usually have so I’m going to experiment with proportions.
This is the current state of my project:
I received some feedback recently that opened my eyes to the state of my project. Its simple to mundane and boring. I’ve been given a blank slate to work from and I come up with a partially unappealing scientist who mixing test tube fluids and runs from a wasp.
I think my problem was that I had an exciting mess of ideas and themes at the start and was focused on stripping it down to be more concise but the fun element was taking out in the process. Now that I look at it, it just seems like its missing that factor.
I realized something a mistake I made that seems stupidly obvious now. I wanted to have a mad evil scientist doing a mad experiment that is scared of wasp but I changed it because hard to feel sympathy or be related to a character with evil intentions. So I went for a mundane scientist when I could had just went for a mad scientist (simply take out the evil part…).
In summary I need to add some spice to the mix, as I’m writing this i’m thinking all sorts of things he could be doing: building a bomb, genetically modifying a wasp, making a forcefield so the wasp cannot get to him or trying to ressurect a dead braing. I think with this new directions i’m going to have a lot more fun animating it. The only problem is that I can do a complete 180 on my project and change it drastically because I no longer have the time for that. My project has potential but i just have to find it.
CollieDog 