During our discussion about the second-year project and what my interests are, Hannah suggested that I could assist with the character design process. I was responsible for creating an expression sheet and pose sheet for the two main characters – a little girl and a granny. Hannah gave me a detailed Excel chart that included the number of expressions and the severity (from 1 to 5) of each expression. Initially, I misunderstood the severity section to mean the quantity and not the quality. As a result, I designed three different levels of curiosity for the character instead of level 3 of curiosity. Although it was a lot of work, it turned out that the expanded chart I created was quite useful as they could choose between the emotions for those specific scenes.
I spent a lot of time researching each emotion reference because they were not typical emotions and the ones I was familiar with. It was the most challenging part of the project, and I couldn’t manage to have more time for the pose list. I suggested to the team that we work on the pose list after the 6th of March because it can be quite challenging and interesting for me to experience.
Another challenge I faced was that the characters were made of basic shapes, and they wanted to have as little alteration as possible. For example, when the character is happy, the jaw will open, and the shape of the head will slightly change. Initially, I drew them that way, but after chatting with the team about their preferences, I found out that to stick with the base form of the character’s face. After watching the recommended reference animations, I got the idea and I challenged myself to design to the best of my ability. It was a valuable experience as I learned how to design characters for animation from their character design, color, hand, body, face, turnaround, and other essential sheets, which will definitely help me in the future.
