PR02: Setting Influences 2

The music videos for My Chemical Romance's album Danger Days features a setting and story that could help me find ways to combine modern and western designs. Though the videos don't quite have a Western feel, they are set in a desert with the same kind of landscapes that may be seen in my story, and their use of bright colours with the designs is something I would like to experiment with for my character designs. The outfits and clothes also have shapes and details that wouldn't look too intrusive when added to a cowboy style of clothing, so these designs are something to keep in mind.

Danger Days

This series of music videos has also spawned a comic book series, penciled by Becky Cloonan. This could also be worth looking into, seeing what translates well into still images and the kind of angles and landscapes used in this setting.

Cloonan's Killjoys

PR02: Setting Influences

 With my story pretty much decided, I want to get my idea of the setting decided. The western cowboy influence has been getting bigger the more and more I plan out my story, but I don't want it to be 100% cowboy. I think that adding a bit more of a modern feel to it will give me the opportunity to do much more interesting designs, and avoid any ideas too cliché. I do however want the setting to be cowboy enough that viewers can recognise it and not feel too confused about where this is set, especially considering I do not intend to add any dialogue in the film.

Star Wars

Though a little too futuristic, Star Wars, Firefly and Cowboy Bebop are things that I want to look at when it comes to mixing styles together. All are set in space, or at least involve space travel but with western influences. Star Wars is more subtle about it than the other two, but Han Solo has a lot of typical cowboy mannerisms, and his outfit is much less futuristic than many other designs in the film, and some locations in the films are reminiscent of those is cowboy films, such as Tatooine and Jakku.

Cowboy Bebop

Cowboy Bebop involves plenty of bounty hunting, which is was traditionally associated with Western genres (even if it is now present in many space/futuristic genres). The pacing and the types of plots encountered episode by episode is what gives it it's biggest Western feeling; most designs are relatively modern to futuristic, but many of the planets have a kind of abandoned, isolated western feeling. Thought not native to the western genre, Cowboy Bebop has a lot of old, worse for wear looking technology to dial down the futurism a little bit and pull parts of it back to feeling 'old-fashioned', which helps to make the western vibes stronger.

Firefly

One of the biggest mashups of the genre though, is Firefly. Again, set in space as bounty hunters and a group of people trying just to get by, the Firefly crew encounter many stories and situations common within Westerns, with extra music and costume to help. The outfits of the main crew are a lot less futuristic than those in Star Wars, and even feel less modern than in Cowboy Bebop. The colouring especially takes a lot of influence from cowboy films, using warmer earthy colours which also makes the main crew feel more inviting and friendly. Firefly feels more like a Western that just so happens to take place in space rather than a story about space, and this helps to give it an organic, believable feeling.

I like the different ways of incorporating the Western genre into others and vice versa, so I want to take this into consideration when writing the script, designing the characters, locations and for music, if I do choose to create an animatic or further that may need this.

PR02: The Monk & The Monkey Animated Short

The Monk & The Monkey from Brendan Carroll on Vimeo.

In The Monk and the Monkey, a young boy is sent off on a quest receiving a sacred item to help him become a monk. The boy, Ragu, goes after the fruit before a monkey reveals itself and snatches it away. Ragu chases the monkey through different places with different obstacles and narrowly avoids catching the monkey. The monkey retreats, dropping the fruit and nearly falling from the edge of the cliff. Ragu has to make the choice between saving the monkey's life, or keeping the prize to bring back in his quest to become a monk. He returns empty handed, believing that he has failed the mission, until the monk reveals that the money was his friend all along and it was saving the monkey that allowed Ragu to become a monk.

This short uses a reversal of identity to make the audience and Ragu to think that the monkey is simply an adversary in Ragu's quest, before it is revealed that he is actually an ally, and was extremely important in Ragu achieving his role of monk. This switch of perception from bad to good makes the ending sweeter, and leaves the viewer with something more positive for the ending. This is hinted at in the beginning, when the monkey is lurking in the shadows during Ragu's conversation with the monk. If the audience is paying attention to it, they may be able to guess that the monkey could be on the monk's side, or could be spying on the two, perhaps in an attempt to find out the location of the item. Though reveals like this can easily be cheesy, I think that it works very nicely to change the tone of the ending, which could have resulted in Ragu not becoming a monk, and leaving the audience with something happier and satisfying to remember.

PR02: The Egyptian Pyramids Short

The Egyptian Pyramids is a comedic short about an archaeologist and his camel at a dig site in Egypt. The archaeologist discovers a remote which controls the pyramid in front of him; the pyramid rises up, revealing a new structure of a Pharoah's head, and another button creates stairs into the mouth of the head. Leaving the remote behind, the archaeologist goes to investigate. This turns out the be a bad decision, as the camel begins chewing on the remote and pressing buttons, which changes the configuration of the head and ultimately buries it in the sand to the state it was in originally when it swallows the remote. The archaeologist is trapped in there until he is forcibly ejected from the pyramid, landing back with his camel.

There are aspects of 'reversal of perception'; in here as the audience and the archaeologist takes the pyramid at face value, until the camel reveals that there is much more to these structures than we previously assumed. 'Reversal of fortunes' is possibly more applicable here, as the archaeologist discovers something amazing, that could change history, and most likely his life forever before having it all taken away from him by the camel and the story returning to where it was at the beginning. I feel like this creates an effective film, as both the discovery of the artefact/structure and the camel's destruction of the dream do not feel out of place or forced, and lead quite nicely towards each other.

PR02: La Luna Animated Short

In the Pixar short 'La Luna', the twist actually comes part way through the film. The type of twist used here is the 'reversal of perception' as we are told that our (and possibly the boy's) perception of this fictional world was wrong; it is revealed that the moon is actually a lot closer than it looks, and it is the boy's companions that usually change the shape of the moon with lit stars rather than the moon appearing different because of the rules and physics of the world that the audience lives in. Despite the bickering of the boy's two companions throughout the film, it shows that they can work together for this cause, which makes it a very sweet, endearing short. This is the sort of thing that I wouldn't usually think of when hearing about 'twists' in media since they usually come with shocking or weird revelations, but this twist is much more subtle compared to that,keeping the atmosphere calm and positive.

Twist Endings

Since a lot of the advice from articles about short films talk about needing to have a twist ending at the end to make it an interesting film, I thought I should look into the types of twist endings there are out there. I don't usually use twist endings, so this is something I'm still unsure about at the moment.

As writer Alec Worley says, "A twist is a moment of revelation within a story that throws into question all that’s gone before." Twists are usually found at the end of stories, but can feature at any part of one. Twists use the audience's knowledge of a character, a setting or some other clear aspect of the story before revealing something to suggest the opposite, something completely different or unexpected. According to Worley, "The run-up to the twist itself must be in plain sight throughout and yet disguised so that the reader never suspects they are being duped!" Many viewers complain if something in a story comes out of nowhere and makes no sense, but if there was set up all the way through, then it becomes something much more interesting.

The five types of twist endings according to Worley are:

1. Reversal of Identity - Someone is revealed to be someone else or something else - another character, family to an unexpected character, a different gender or a different species (i.e vampire). Star Wars is famous for it's revelatory scene of Darth Vader revealing that he is in fact Luke's father, and the revelation of Luke and Leia being siblings. Though this is done over multiple films, this sort of twist can be done easily enough in short films as long as the hints or set up is there.

2. Reversal of Motive - often seen in crime stories. This one is fairly straight forwards - a character who may be thought to be a criminal could be a good guy, and good guy could be a bad guy, or you may find that a character is actually doing something because of a selfish reason, rather than 'the greater good' or whatever it is that they have lead the audience to believe.

3. Reversal of Perception - The hero (and by extension, the audience) release that the world is not what they thought it was. An example of this is in the game Dangan Ronpa, when a group of students find themselves trapped in a school, having to kill another student to leave and yearning for the outside world, when in reality the outside world has already gone to hell and the school they are trapped in is in fact one of the only safe places in the country or world. The Maze Runner has a similar twist, in that they are trapped in The Glades, a place devout of civilisation that keeps them safe but is actually one big psychological experiment to find ways of fixing the broken world outside.

4. Reversal of Fortune - often hard to pull off with and without the use of a deus ex machina. The character drives the story much less with this technique, with accidents or luck often changing the course of the story to take it somewhere unexpected. Emma Coats, Pixar story artist says that "Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating".

5. Reversal of Fulfilment - A character will reach their goal before suddenly losing what they gained by some other force/character. This can also involve goals of opposing characters to be cancelled out, or two characters both failing to achieve or achieving their goals.

"What DIDN’T you know the whole time?
When identifying a twist, consider the vessel of the twist itself. What is the thing that is reversed?
· A character’s BODY? (‘I thought you were a woman, but really you’re a man!’)
· A character’s OBJECTIVE? (‘I thought you loved me, but really you’re out to kill me!’)
· A character’s LOCATION? (‘I thought this was Heaven, but really it’s Hell!’)
· A glitch in a sequence of EVENTS? (‘Back off. I’ve had a gun in my pocket this whole time. Oh no, it’s really the banana I forgot to eat for lunch!’)
· The OBJECTIVES OF TWO OPPOSING CHARACTERS. (‘And so I’ve proved that age will always triumph over youth.’ ‘That’s what you think, gramps!’)"

PR02: Lifted Animated Short

Lifted is most definitely character driven; the small alien continuously messes up as he attempts to abduct the sleeping human through a window as he just can't find the right buttons. It looks like he is a beginner and is being judged by his other alien companion from their interactions, which just adds to the humor as the small alien has moments of trying to show off and then failing completely. This continues throughout the whole animation even through to the end; there is a heartwarming moment where the bigger alien takes pity on the smaller one and allows him to drive the space ship - before promptly dropping it onto the human's house and destroying all but a small circle of land around the human's bed. This failed attempt at abduction is very simple as it is a case of trying, messing up, trying again until the task is finished or given up on.

Despite being one of the longer shorts I've looked at, I think this is a little too simple compared to what I want to design/write for; the problem here is never resolved, and the story moves on with a laugh and reinforcement of what a failure the small alien is after doing the same activity. I would like to involve a little bit more plot in my story, although I have seen from the shorts I have looked at that simple is very effective, so I need to keep that in mind while writing.

PR02: Clearance Animated Short

Clearance - Animated Short from Lee Daniels on Vimeo.

Clearance is an entertaining short at 4 minutes long. The main theme of this short is communication; the main character (presumably someone with little common sense) repeatedly tries to enter a high security facility with his library card, racking up the number on the 'intruder alert'. Most of the comedy comes about because of a lack of communication; the other agents fail to realise that it is the main character trying to get in, and as he enters the main room, it looks to them like he is the intruder. Upon entering the room himself, the man character sees the intruder alert, not realising that it means him, and assumes that the other agents shooting at him are the intruders instead. It is the main character's actions that set off this story and continue it; he continues not to have the best common sense throughout the video as the whole building collapses because of him, which could be considered a twist ending it it didn't seem like anything quite so dramatic would happen throughout this, especially massive damage to his own workplace. The story is fairly simple - everything happens because of the character's mistakes and consequences, which though unexpected does make sense rather than throwing in random new plot points, especially with elements being hinted at from the start, like the missiles.

PR02: Road Hogs Animated Short

Road Hogs is a Disney animated short involving Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and their adventure as they get mixed up with a biker gang. The style, from the thick lines and bright colours, is what interested me first, but as it kept my interest with the story too, I would like to have a look at what this story is made up of, and what makes it effective.

This is definitely a character driven short, as it is Mickey's actions and decisions that take us through the film. He takes Minnie to a 'biker hangout' where they meet a lot of stereotypical bikers. As Minnie leaves, Mickey makes conversation with the bikers, before is own scooter knocks over the other motorbikes and earns the bikers' anger. Mickey flees the scene which is when Minnie enters and gets kidnapped by the bikers. Mickey decides to go after her in his own little scooter. Minnie stays blissfully oblivious, despite being kidnapped, keeping her personality consistent. She cleans the biker's bike, along with removing his tattoos - something unexpected from someone held captive. Mickey pulls her towards him, not realising the possible consequences of his actions again, before they begin to fall off the cliff. Being the good guy he is, Mickey saves the biker as well as Minnie, and in the end Mickey rides off as the head of a biker gang.

This story relies heavily on character interaction with both action and dialogue, but this story would have worked even without the dialogue; the biker's intentions are clear, as is Mickey's fear and Minnie's ignorance. It is a simple plot which works as every has clear motives and everything makes sense. It kind of cycles back to the beginning as it shows Mickey and Minnie riding off towards their destination again, with only a slight change at the end with the addition/creating of their 'biker gang'. The characters stay the same, and all of heir problems are solved within the 3:46 of the short. It was entertaining and understandable, which I think makes it an effective short.

Visual Novel/Motion Comics

I've always liked the idea of telling stories in different ways, rather than sticking only to fully animated pieces or sequential still images. Motion comics sounds like a good balance between the two, but I've found most motion graphics to be boring, or distracting with the bits of animation they have (which often looks awkward and forced, since it is usually parts of a still image manipulated with After Effects rather than creating a comic to be animated). I've noticed a few 'motion comics' recently that have kept my interest, however.

 These are from visual novel games, which already use a mix of still images and animation, along with a lot of text to tell a story. Often they are more immersive than motion comics because they are interactive, often allowing the player choices, even if the story may still only follow on single story.



Above is a collection of the comics in the game Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, revealing how the murders in the game takes place. This relies on the narration of Naegi, the main character, to walk us through the comic as there are no text boxes involved or any kind or word-based narration in the comic. The animation in the panels do help to tell the story though, and I think that with a button or something to manually move the the next panel/page, someone could watch this story lay out quite easily without narration. This actually reminds me a little bit of an animatic, except that it uses panels moving next to each other rather than moving to the next frame. The panels moving along with the sound effects add a lot to the story, as well as the timing and placement of how the panels move. This seems like it could be simpler than making an animation or animatic than something, but with the sound effects being put to not only the animation but the panels, the panel placement, and the choice of what to animate inside each panel, this could possibly be harder than it looks to pull off.



The World Ends with You is another visual novel type game, but it involves real time combat and less decision making, with the comic cut scenes at certain parts of the story. The layout of panels are much more loose and creative as it tries to show the images as if they are thoughts and scenes that the main character is seeing and thinking about, rather than to illustrate to the viewer what is going on. There is a little bit more animation in parts of this than in Dangan Ronpa, but it isn't too fluid or concentrated on. This almost jerky animation goes with the design of the characters and music, and possibly works better than if it was fully animated, in my opinion. I've chosen a video with the Japanese dub to examine to see how well the scenes can be understood without narration in English over it. I think that the narration definitely works, but you can definitely understand the feel and atmosphere of each of the scenes from the colouring, panel speed/shape and content as it plays out. I feel like this would be easier to pull off than complete Dangan Ronpa style comic pages, but I think audio is much more important with this style of storytelling.

Visual Novel Research

Visual novels are an interesting way of telling a story, including the possibilities of different endings and stories based on the player's input. This kind of interactivity makes visual novels a very immersive medium, which could be very interesting to explore. Something I enjoy the most, however, is that the (often) lack of animation and re-use of images means that a great deal of time can be spent designing and creating some of the imagery in these games. They are usually highly detailed, often to a higher standard of many animations or short films, which is definitely something I would like to think about considering that my main concern is filling up my portfolio with design work.

One thing I enjoy about Persona 4's design is the use of shapes and colours with the dialogue boxes, and getting around issues such as a character on the phone talking. I feel that it is quite clear in the image above who is talking, but also the fact that they are not present. The colours and shapes used show that the game is very bright, upbeat, and not that serious/gloomy, which adds to the atmosphere as you are playing.

Fire Emblem: Awakening is much more toned down, and earthy colours to go with the fantasy setting of the game, with the box colour almost that of old parchment. The name box is a little more fancy and decorative, which also tells us a little bit more of the setting of the game.

Virtue's Last Reward and Professor Layton Vs Phoenix Wright both use the game's 3D characters and backgrounds rather than still art as you talk to characters. Though this may not look as nice, it allows the use of animation which can add a lot to the scene; you may find out more about a character's thoughts, feelings and reactions through how they move and what they do, as opposed to still images. Some still image visual novels use limited 2D animation for expressions etc, but it isn't always effective as seeing a character move and react in real time.

Most visual novel games come from the East (primarily Japan), despite their growing popularity in the West. The reasons for this may be a lack of knowledge of the market for this genre, and a lack of funding and interest from publishers who have earned success from CGI games. There are many indie games out there that create for this genre in the West, but with a lack of funding for marketing/advertising, art of and voice acting (where applicable), they don't often get that big.

Writing Short Stories

Short Film Design

Key Elements

- Character Driven

- Flawed Character

- Urgent Goal

- Interaction with other characters/Props

- Twist in Character's surprising (yet coherent) reaction

Storytelling Tools

- Introduce Main Char and Urgent Goal immediately

- Play on conventions (character, relationships, filmic, genre)

- Props and setting

- Sound and Design

- Simplicity

- Story Loop, Twist or Gag

Do all successful short films incorporate all of these elements, or only some? Which films do? Before I start thinking about the story for my second project, I need to look into some other short films to think about what are the most necessary elements to make my story work, even if it is only the pre-production stage that I concentrate on. I also intend to incorporate some elements of theories that I studied in Context of Practice. I do think that most stories adhere to one of Booker's seven plots, so I might have a look at which my story fits into and what elements within that usually make it feel like a resolved story, or if I'm having trouble I may choose to follow one of these loosely. As I am designing/writing for a short film, there is less space for so many stages and in depth character development (especially when the film would be planned to be no longer than 3 minutes if that) which means that is would be harder to incorporate many stages of the other theories I looked at. I learned in CoP that following a structure too closely could be dangerous anyway, so I might just look at the stages and try to explore stages that would work best in the story that I am trying to tell.

Richard Raskin - Story Design in the Short Fiction Film (2/2)

Character <---> Object
- Voice over/Inner monologue = successful less often
- Dramatic context to suggest what must be happening w/in a character when camera is on char's face is one of the most effective strategies for getting us inside a char's mind
- Evoke thought/feelings through the char's relation to some physical object that is charged with meaning for them

Simplicity <---> Depth
- Short film telling a simple story is more likely to be experienced as an inviting space for viewer (explore and construct possible meanings) + be memorable than full of twists
- Too many details/confusing = hold the viewer at a distance
"Past a certain point, the more effort you put into wealth of detail, the more you encourage the audience to become spectators rather than participants" - Walter Murch, editor/sound designer
- Too complex can draw viewer away from characters, simpler gives time/space to enter char's life

Economy <--->. Wholeness
- Less is more - keep it lean and concentrated
- Shots kept as trim as possible, camera shouldn't be rushed on character i.e pausing on face to show thoughts etc.
- Get rid of stuff that isn't necessary to move the story forwards or bond over the characters
- Viewer should feel that the film is complete and that they would watch it again
- If the film ends by returning to it's point of departure, only with some element changed as a marker that something irreversible has occurred then it has come a full circle and is complete
- Placing symbolic gesture or event, maybe most significant part of the film - gives viewer something meaningful to think about through credits

Richard Raskin - Story Design in the Short Fiction Film (1/2)

Short film theorist

Character Focus <---> Character Interaction
- The best short films make it clear from the start who's story it is, helping audience know the relative important of anything happening
- Usually one character's story, sometime two which can mean greater challenges and lower chance of success
- Char focus takes on full value with character interaction - doesn't have to involve conflict
- Balance involves interplay of character focus with interaction


Causality <---> Choice
- Causality flows from the choice characters make and this is what drives the story forward, while at the same time making those characters more interesting in our eyes

Consistency <---> Surprise
- Once a character is defined, they must stay consistent with their initial definition
- May have learned something meaningful by the end but must stay the same character, only their situation has changed ----- as opposed to long film with character development.
- Viewer shouldn't be able to guess what will happen next - chars should exhibit the same attributes from start to end but still behave unpredictably

Sound <---> Image
- Many possibilities in sound incl chars making sound or responding to sound
- Becomes the action at key points, not just backdrop

PR02: Ideas

A project I would be interested in doing is one involving cars, even if it does not revolve around cars. I can't say that cars are a particular interest of mine however I do think it would be good for me to learn how to drawn and design cars for my portfolio. I am considering using the ideas of street racing however it could be seen as promoting illegal activity, and I am not entirely too sure how accurately I could portray it considering the time I have with which to research and design it, and I'd rather not create something like that inaccurately.

I could have cars just be a thing that the characters own and for in the background, but what else could be involved if I do want to make sure that I have cars in this project?

- Car shop/repair shop
- Drag Racing/Motorsport   ----> even with more of a Mariokart or Wreck it Ralph feel
- Car show
- Futuristic cars/hover cars are the only way to travel (not sure I want to go for a futuristic thing)
- Important for getting around somewhere hard to walk around i.e desert area, mountainous area.
      -----> I did have an idea a while ago about bounty hunters/collective of people who take on miscellaneous jobs to get by in a sand/desert kind of area which added to a desert type setting could give it a bit of a Borderlands/Fallout New Vegas kind of feel which could be interesting. This could also be the setting for the visual novel type project that I would like to do.

PR01: Visual Research - Older Characters

The get ideas of how to draw some of the older characters, I'm looking at some older characters from eastern animations to think about their proportions and how the style is kept consistent with different styles of characters.

In Kiki's Delivery Service above, the woman is an adult, though not necessarily a middle aged, and her face isn't in that much different proportions than Kiki. I think, if you put her head on a much smaller body, she would look a similar to Kiki.

The older male characters in Porco Rosso all have much more defined noses. Their eyes aren't drastically different from the usual Ghibli style of eyes, although are obviously smaller compared to  child's. Some don't actually have that much more space in between the nose and the eyes compared to Kiki which is interest; it seems that a lot of the age on their faces comes more from the finer details like laugh lines, jaw/chin shape and facial hair.

In Spirited Away, the characters seem to have very similar sized eyes as well, although the difference here is a lot more obvious when it comes to the distance between the eye and the nose. I think this is in part because of how small the noses are; they definitely would look more childish if the eyes were closer to the nose. The focus here is definitely on the face shape.

One Piece uses narrower eyes and again lots of definition to make characters seem older, but the distance between the eyes and nose is not that drastic.

The Wind Rises does the same, but manages to make the character not look as drastically old, like the character from Fairy Tail below. This is possibly in part because of the lack of facial hair, but also the cheek definition. Though it is obvious that he has at least semi-defined cheekbones, they don't affect his facial structure quite as much, and this makes his face a bit less extreme.

PR01: Visual Research

Cara has already shared with me some of her research and Pinterest for the project to give me a good idea of what she wants out of this project, The plot revolves around a young boy of around 12 - 14 which is a travelling merchant with a rather strange apparition following him around. Cara is designing these two characters herself along with some other aspects of the animation, but I am needed for some specific characters like an older woman running a stall in the market, a child running around that market, a gruff older man who is a dealer in antiquities and strange objects as well as companions for the main character. I have to make sure not to make any of the other characters overshadow the main character or stand out too much but I need to make sure that I keep them interesting.

Style-wise, Cara knows what she wants but hasn't yet pinned down an exact style yet which gives me a little bit more freedom in what I design for the time being. I know that one of her biggest influences on this project is Ni No Kuni, which is where I need to start when thinking about designing for the characters.

This is more of an eastern style which will be interesting to draw, and the body shapes seem to all be fairly simple. This first thing his made me think of though is Studio Ghibi-esque styles, which may be good for me to look into for this project. This sort of style does give me a little bit more trouble in drawing older characters, since the large eyes are on of the more important aspects of the style, so some of my research needs to involve looking at older characters in this kind of style that do not look out of place alongside the younger characters.

Possible Projects

As my aim this brief is to create multiple projects, I need to think about what concepts I will use, and what format each individual project will be in.

The first project I intend to do is for Cara's Extended project, designing characters and possibly backgrounds/props for her pseudo-world. This will to be create an episode of an animation aimed towards children of around 12 years old, taking inspiration from styles such as Ni No Kuni and Studio Ghibli. I intend to work on this project for approximately two weeks before moving on to the next one.

Other projects/concepts I am considering;

- Design for a visual novel (taking influence from Persona, Dangan Ronpa, Ace Attorney, Fire Emblem, BlazBlue, TWEWY)
- Design for a game completely 'pixel' style i.e 8-bit sprites
- Book/fairy tail re-imagining
- Art Book (although this would be nice to do for each project anyway)
- A guide to character designing
- Interactive comic (or something Xamag-esque)
- Characters designed from voice clips
- Personify weapons
- Redesgin something live-action to be animated
- Personify other things;
          - Desserts    - Animals     -Power (i.e geothermal)     - Landmarks
          - constellations     - Planets     -Stationary
- Design for mobile/DS based on what is popular
- Twist a cliché -> an animal based zombie apocalypse (i.e Winne the Pooh), design fro Pride  Prejudice & Zombies
- Something to do with Musketeers
- Something to do with food/cooking
- Animated film posters
- Genre mash-up
- Mecha stuff

I want to think about these as I design for Cara's project; what will look best in my portfolio, what will I learn the most from, what will I have fun with?

Extended Rationale

Blog Address: a-picariello251887-sp.blogspot.com

Subjects and themes: Design and Visual development
During this module, I want to undertake multiple briefs, designing backgrounds, props and characters. I intend to undertake around 4 - 5 projects and explore aesthetic style, lighting and colour throughout them.

This will be developing my specialist practice by helping me learn more design techniques and concepts and to apply them to projects with different audiences and formats. This will also help me to fill up my portfolio for visual development. I also intend to incorporate movement and examine body language by creating character animation for some of my designs which will help to show my characters and designs how they would look in a game/animation, moving in front of a background and interacting with props.

Some of my briefs will involve working with other people, however I do intend to create some of he stories and concepts myself.

Books and websites:
Character Design From the Ground Up, K. Crossley
Creative Charcter Design, B. Tillman
Force; Character Design from Life Drawing, M.D. Mattesi
Force; Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators,  M.D. Mattesi
Anatomy For The Artist, T. Flint, P. Stanyer

ImagineFX magazine, Art books including but not limited to Mass Effect, Assassins Creed, Frozen, Phoenix Wright, DOTA 2 Character Art Guide