End of Unit 2 - The Making of Renatus

Unit 2 Character Design project has come to a close. I can present to you the character design bible for Renatus.

Renatus Character Design Bible

Its been a fun project in developing a range of character archetypes, yet it has also been an enlightening one with much constructive criticism and feedback to take on board. It seems my arrow strayed from its mark, as my hero and villain appeared somewhat lacking, where my sidekick character was well received.

In hindsight, perhaps this is due to the fact that I may have stayed within the confines of the theme soldier/cyborgs too much, which in itself is a very generic topic. With the hero, I focused on the details of his technology while giving him a straightforward silhouette as a soldier for the audience to be able to relate to his humanity. Consequently, this may have led to his somewhat lacking overall design. Where, with the villain, I moved away from the typical villain that overwhelms himself with power and technology, to a sly, cunning manipulative villain as a female to contrast the male dominated genre of soldiers. Admittedly, I may not have captured this quite so well in my final design, where the action poses begin to capture a glimpse of this. My sidekick became successful as it strayed from the generic forms that I conceived in my hero and villain, as a small quirky robot.

Additionally, I focused on using paper rather than digital mediums as not only was this stated at the beginning of the project, but I also wanted to focus on the basics of character design.

Essentially, I guess I made some poor design choices along the way that have had a significant impact on the outcome of my designs. Its something I will definitely take on board which will serve to refine my creative designs. In the mean time, its onwards and upwards for the Retro-Fest project that is still hot in production.

Character Development - Colour

Colour versions of the final character designs.

Character Silhouette

Silhouette of each character - Servo, Hero and the Empress.


This was the initial silhouette at the earlier stages of the character design process.

Character Development - Empress

More developments to the Empress' design, which has been the most challenging for me throughout the project. Hopefully, I've managed to capture the sense of power and awe of a villain with an intriguing design. The Empress wields cybernetic implants which enhances her perceptual abilities to an almost supernatural level, where she is also able to generate energy surges through her hands for an electric/shock type of attack. Her technology is powered by a more rudimentary form of the energy core that pumps raw energy throughout her body.




Final design




The last two sketches help capture her in action, with the first showing her seated on a throne-like chair while she is connected to further cybernetic systems through her crown headpiece.


The later captures her intimidating presence towering over Hero and Servo in a sort of poster format for the cartoon show.

Character Development - Servo

Made some refinements to the overall design of Servo (sidekick), hopefully I've managed to capture his quirky personality with his relatively simple design. With a mechanical limb with a variety of tools housed within himself, Servo is more than useful to Hero in his battle against the Empress' forces.

Character Development - Hero

Some additional refinements to Hero with a closer look at his mounted weapon as well as a turnaround sheet. I've also sketched out some poses with Hero in action, with one or two also featuring his trusty sidekick Servo.

Character Design Development #2

Some developments with the character design project. Refer to character profiles/narrative and previous character designs.

'Hero'



Following my previous designs of Hero, the main emphasis was to keep his cybernetic parts visible rather than hidden, as this is his defining characteristic. As such, two main designs have developed including a casual appearance with a simple tank top and trousers, to a battle attire where Hero would suit up for battle with a chest and back armour piece. I've also designed the expression sheet for Hero displaying his range of emotions. However, I made the mistake of covering a broad range of emotions rather than the particular ones he would express, so the bottom row of expressions are 'extreme' exceptions.

References




Sidekick - 'Servo'


I decided to use a spherical form for the sidekick to contrast the two humanoid characters. As such, it is necessary to capture some extra details that would help add to his round silhouette.
The centre/energy core of Servo will act as his 'eye', twitching and refocusing similarly to a camera lens for added expression and personality. The exterior panels will also animate to further emphasise his expression. Another concept I'm beginning to explore includes a small mechanical limb that retracts from the bottom, allowing Servo to interact with the environment in assisting Hero.

References




Villain - 'Empress'




Defining the villain as a cold, calculating and regal Empress, I've tried to capture this in her design with her cybernetic implants. I've struggled with this character so far, with the designs being too busy and quite simply not intriguing enough to capture the power and awe of a villain. Needless to say, the character needs some work, where Justin has further suggested going back to the basic shape of the character to capture the weight and intent, while also considering some of the lore and meaning behind her character to better influence the design as a whole. Hopefully, I will be able to achieve this.

References

Character Design Workshop #09

In our last character workshop, we took a brief look into environments and how their similarly reflect and share the same principles as a character design. The Lord of the Rings becomes a great example of this, with the dwarven culture and architecture running through their designs; from the strong square columns and grand architecture, to the functional and robust weapons and armour of the character of Gimli with his helm and axe. Notice that the intricate inscriptions are also consistent in both character and environment to further establish a coherent world between the two.



With this in mind, we were given a random environment to design with a specific flavour. The theme I was given was a tricky one, a Primitive Starship. The main idea I had in mind was to avoid elegant shapes by using square and irregular forms.



Justin further suggested adapting a pre-existing form of technology to imply the primitive nature of the starship, such as modern day shuttles requiring huge rocket engines to launch into space. This is something I will definitely keep in mind when faced with future design challenges.

Character Design Workshop #08

A slightly different setup in this weeks character design workshop, in small groups, we were to act as a studio and develop character designs for a client's proposed animated TV show, Jetpack Jones. Together, we had to produce 6 final characters designs in 2 hours, fitting the required elements of the brief and synopsis of the show. My group was formed by Ruben, Godwin and myself, where the three of us decided to work on 2 characters each whilst providing regular feedback to each others' designs to ensure they would fit together in the same world.

The two characters I focused on were:

Boltz - A Medical droid who has developed personality quirks from several datacore meltdowns. A later client change included an extra mechanical arm (which unfortunately did not get time to add). Final design is the smaller design on the right.


Ariana - A beautiful, mysterious, secretive, deadly and seductive woman who is secretly working with the villain Dr. Zantius Kromozone. A later client change included an aquatic, underwater background. Final design is also the furthest on the right.


You can find a better look on the other characters; tomboy mechanic Tessa Brainstorm and hulking genetic dinosaur henchman Grok over at Ruben's blog, as well as the hero Jetpack Jones and villain Dr. Zantius Kromozone at Godwin's blog (soon to come).

With all our characters designed, we drew up each side by side for a scale comparison.

Left to right: Boltz, Tessa, Jones, Dr Kromozone, Ariana and Gork who would be the largest (not pictured here).

Finally, we had to pitch our designs to our client (Justin Wyatt), where we received some positive feedback along with some suggested tweaks to the designs that perhaps a client would find necessary.

In all, it was fun change to the usual character design workshops, requiring us to work as a group quickly and efficiently to form character designs with a client/studio scenario, where I can give my thumbs up to Ruben and Godwin for a job well done.

Character Design Workshop #07

We looked into Creatures and Monsters in this workshop, seeing how old and contemporary examples of imaginary creatures draw their influences from real animals. Greek mythological creatures such as the Centaur combine man and horse together, fantasy dragons draw influence from lizards and bat wings, to contemporary examples such as Avatar with three legged horse/zebra mammals.



As such, we had a go designing our own creatures based on a habitat. The theme in my designs was Forest, where I designed a feral hedgehog/rodent, an crocodile/iguana, a rather comical owl with a huge mouth to devour its victims, a beaver with deer antlers and a horned bear type creature.



I'm not sure if I quite got the right idea, but it was a fun exercise to do.

Character Profiles + Narrative

Been meaning to get this up sooner. Here is a refined synopsis of the cartoon for the character design project, along with initial write-ups of the character profiles of the Hero, Villain and Sidekick. Some details are perhaps a little superfluous but I had fun creating this little world in my head, hopefully this will help me when designing my characters.

The profiles will most likely be tweaked as I continue to develop the characters.

Hero must fight to save the world against the forces of the Empress, ruler of the Regnum Nation. Their terror and oppression has reigned supreme over the lands and has scattered the neighbouring nations into chaos and disarray. As the last surviving subject of the Renatus Project, Hero must unite the lands before it is too late and stop the Empress and her forces once and for all.

Regnum = Royal power, control, kingdom
Renatus = Rebirth


Hero
Male human, Solider. Early 20s.
Athletic, driven, determined.
Friendly and emotional demeanour.

Strengths and Abilities: Cybernetic Arm can be used for great strength (smashing, lifting), has an in-built energy weapon. Cybernetic Legs enhances speed and agility, able to jump/land at great heights.
Weaknesses: Cybernetic technology reliant on Energy Cores. Ill-informed of the cybernetic technology invested in him. Mentally scarred from his ordeal, having lost his friends and loved ones.

Character Arc:
Initially confused, unwilling to accept what he has become and daunted of the task ahead of him.
Accepts who is he, learns how to wield his abilities and accept the responsibility that has been placed upon him.

Motivation:
Unite and save the world from the Empress's forces.

Hero was the sole survivor of his unit after the attack of Empress's forces on his home town. Having suffered grievous injuries, Hero was taken into the Renatus Project (a programme designed to refit and augment soldiers with cybernetic technology) where he was healed and experimented on with new advanced forms of cybernetics that were designed with the sole purpose to stop the Empress. However, the facility came under attack and was destroyed by the Empress's forces. Hero barely escaped with his life. Confused and ill-informed of the cybernetic technology invested in him, Hero soon becomes the last hope capable of stopping the Empress, being the last surviving subject of the Renatus Project.


Empress (villain)
Female human. Ruler of the Regni, the people of Regnum.
High/regal, cold and calculating demeanour

Strengths and Abilities: Telepathic, Psychic abilities through cybernetic devices. Can read/influence minds and manipulate objects.

Character Arc:
Becomes obsessed in trying to capture Hero to the point which affects her ability to rule effectively.

Motivation:
Lust for power and control, to rule the world.
Capture Hero to steal/assimilate his technology

Powerful and cunning, The Empress rules through fear, oppression and indoctrination. She rose to power through the forced abdication of her brother - and will now stop at nothing to establish Regni supremacy and be the supreme ruler of the world.


Servo (sidekick)
Robot. Last surviving intelligent service bot from the Rentaus Project facility.
Chirpy, lively demeanour with animated expression. Frequently exhibits 'blips and beeps' tones as a voice.

Strengths and Abilities: Can repair/hack electronic terminals and devices. Can also be used to communicate long distances.
Weakness: EMP (Electro magnetic pulse) charge.

Character Arc: Contains information stored on the Renatus project. Forms unshakable bond with Hero.

Motivation:
To accompany, aid and assist Hero whenever possible.
Protect self contained files on the Renatus Project.

Servo awakened Hero when the facility came under attack and helped lead him to safety. With the facility destroyed, Servo now follows Hero assisting him in his mission.

Character Design Workshop #06

In our latest workshop, we looked at how stereotypes can help define and add further dimension to a given character. This can immediately communicate the demeanour of the character and strengthen the believability of a character as a whole. While characters don't necessarily have to follow a stereotype, it is certainly something to be aware of in order to avoid misinterpretations. As such, reference imagery becomes vital in capturing stereotypes as well as designing different and unique designs.

With a random given theme, we had to create characters that matched a stereotype while being unique from each other as possible. In this case, I had the theme of Knights where I tried to create different characters as distinct and different from each other as possible, while capturing the design of a knight, from height, shape and details in clothing.



We also covered the importance of character silhouettes, where characters that are instantly recognisable from silhouette form alone prove to be the strongest designs that are both iconic and interesting. This is something that must always be taken into consideration when designing characters.