For this second lesson, the focus was mainly on aesthetics; designing the characters that would appear in our topsy turvy animatics, and an accompanying setting for said characters.
I had already come up with my character design for Arnika, and now was the time to refine it and flesh it out, so that it became more comfortable to draw and so that i had references for a range of her poses and expressions. (note; i wrote some of this before i decided to change Arnika from evil, so the word is still used in some of these sheets.)
I started off with a model sheet. I wanted to capture Arnika’s larger than life personality through a range of poses and expressions; i wanted it to be clear what she was like just from looking at her character sheet. I also needed references for some facial expressions other than her usual somewhat crazy looking smile, and this model sheet was a good chance for me to practice coming up with expressive poses and getting used to re drawing Arnika.Next, i did a turn around sheet for Arnika and Mitsuba. This sheet helped me to come up with some little rules that would make Arnika easier to draw, such as her right boot always overlapping the left one unless the’s facing backwards. It also gave me a rough idea of Arnika’s proportions; shes about 3 and a half/ 4 heads tall, and her hair reaches just above her waist.Next, i needed designs for some background characters. These characters will be used to indicate when the spell has taken effect; they’ll go from super nice to super weird. I wanted to exaggerate the unreal, cutesy and almost child like atmosphere of Arnika’s world, so i chose to go for two non human designs as i felt they brought the weird factor to the world well. I ended up going with designs for a turtle kid and a marshmallow boy. I didn’t go through as much of a drastic refinement process with these two, as it felt unneeded since they’ll only appear for about 2 frames. I decided to name them Turtle kidd and Marshy.
After i finished working on my character designs, i started working on my background. I didn’t really know where to start looking in terms of inspiration because the world was completely made up and i didn’t have any real world influences for it, but there were 2 places i did look at for inspiration;
the candy kingdom from adventure time,and the city of townsville from the PowerPuff girls.
These two fictional locations look very up beat and happy, which is what i was going for with my world. As an overview, the world is so happy that it’s almost unnatural; everything is colorful and eccentric, and there’s never a dull moment. The people’s willingness to be happy and polite and to work together is what keeps the world in balance; everyone is always in the best mood, leaving little room for much discourse. I decided to name the world ‘Allegroburg’, with ‘Allegro’ meaning ‘cheerful’ in Italian.
I painted allegroburg with watercolors, to give it a vibrant and somewhat childlike appearance (although the picture washed out the colours a bit). Everything, from the houses to the shops, is bursting with personality and character, apart from the mysterious and faceless woods, which lead out of allegroburg and into the unknown. I think giving everything in Allegroburg a face helped to communicate that it’s quite a whimsical and different world to our own to my viewers. I also positioned Arnika’s house away from most things, to represent her somewhat outcast and withdrawn nature.Next, i designed Arnika’s house. Similarly to her as a character, it comes across as a little uninviting and weird in comparison to the other things in Allegroburg, but it’s actually a somewhat normal living space. It reflects Arnika’s methodology and way of thinking well; the bathroom can only be accessed through magic, which is quite a badly executed idea that wasn’t really thought through well.This is the interior of Arnika’s house, and her room of operations. I tried to show balance between her life as a witch and her ordinary life; she has potions, trinkets and cauldrons, but she also has standard teenager stuff like snacks, video games, cute stickers and a poster of a band she likes. I included a framed photo of her and Mitsuba, because the room felt a little lonely without pictures of people. Lastly i added a window so that A) she could see what was going on outside and B) she’d have some natural light coming into the room. I mainly used a pink and purple colour palette because these colours can be seen as either mystical or traditionally feminine, and i was trying to balance magical items and normal items in her house, so it felt like it fit (that and the fact that these are some of Arnika’s favorite colours). i gave her lampshade a face to show possible evidence of some reckless magic usage.
I feel i’m now ready to start working on the practical stuff with this animation, as I’ve got the character and background designs sorted out. i’m a bit nervous about the coming stages, but still excited nonetheless to learn some new skills.
