Progressing with my studio work

Figuring out what I want to do 

So from my last studio work session I had finally come up with a starting point for what my project could be, the only trouble is, I still don't have a theme for my characters designs. As character concept art is such a broad area full of lots of different possibilities I am finding it very very difficult to narrow it down to something specific that I both have a personal interest in and have the motivation to want to work on. Although I am not dead set and certain on a theme, from the brain storm I had in my previous taught session I know that there are 2 things that I would like to try and focus on producing for my studio work project. These are: 

1. Create a neat mini version of an art book in PDF form 
2. Creating expressive character designs that focus on the use of colour and emotions/mood  

Baring these themes in mind I decided to start off with some very simple image research to try and get some creative ideas following and to see if it could spark a concept or a theme that I could work from. Like with nearly every other university project I have completed I started of my research by compiling a mood board of images that I could uses as inspiration and to try and help influence my work. The mood boards I started working on consisted of different character designs, both 3D and 2D  that are a combination of either fan art, 3D and 2D film characters, 3D and 2D game characters and anime. This was in order to get a broader range of design styles and inspiration so I wasn't limiting my ideas to just one genre. The mood boards I made can be seen in the images below. 

There are a lot of characters in these mood boards that I really love the designs for and I usually have a peak at when I am coming up with new ideas and sketches to get my creative concepts following but there are I couple of characters I have added into my mood boards that I loved as soon as I saw them and I think they relate nicely to one of the ideas I want to be focusing on for this project. 

The idea of colour coding a character a certain way in order to them portray a certain emotion has recently been focused on in the new movie by 'Pixar Animation Studios' called 'Inside Out'. Inside out is a 3D animated comedy adventure and drama movie that was released in 2015 that grossed $90.4 million in its first weekend. The film focuses around an eleven year old hockey loving girl called Riley and the little voices inside of her head. These little voices are Riley's emotions, Anger, Disgust, Joy, Sadness and Fear and they are in control of guiding her choices and keeping her well balanced. But when Riley's has to move to San Francisco from her home town in Minnesota due to her Dad's new job Riley starts to face the troubles and difficulties of living in a new town. This includes a new school, new friends, new home and leaving everything she new and loved behind and let's just say it's a hell of lot for her emotions to finally become comfortable with all this change. 

Riley's emotions all take a humanized form and, as well as the way they move and express themselves, they are each colour coded to what emotions they are meant to portray. So Joy is a light shade of yellow whilst Sadness is a dull shade of blue. It is fascinating just how many people, probably ever since they were very little, have linked different shades of colour to match different types of emotions. If you went up to someone on the street and asked them what the colour red would be if it was an emotion, I would grantee the majority of people would say anger and this is exactly what the creators at 'Pixar' conned onto. They know that people see red as rage and yellow as happiness, it is just a colour coding basic as it were that people seem to stick to when it comes to character design. 

I am a really big fan of the film Inside Out due to their use of expression and colour and I would love to try and incorporate something similar to this design premiss into my project work. But the tricky part now is trying to think of a theme that isn't too similar to that of Inside Out but still allows me to have characters with each have their own distinct personalities, based off of one core emotion and also having a colour palette to match.  

After thinking about it for a little while I did have a basic concept that could work with this theme of colour coding a character in order for them to portray a certain emotion, it was to have each character as a different type of weather. So for example rain could be miserable and sunny could be happy and hail could be grumpy. I thought this was quite a good premise but when it actually came of thinking about the colour scheme for these character I realised they would probably actually end up being quite dull when I really wanted to aim for something more bright and eye catching so I decided to keep this idea as a back up instead. As to try and get some design inspiration I had another look at my mood boards to see if they would be able to spark any ideas for me as to what my character design theme could be. There was one picture in particular, of a character design I have loved for years, that did actually help me think of a solid design idea I could use to help with portraying emotions and colour. 

One of my favourite artists 'Meago' (http://meago.deviantart.com/) for a few years now has been producing her own personal series of designs called 'Dollicious' which are of female characters that are based on different types of foods. Meago looks into a different variety of different food and drink to create her dollicious designs which usually consist of a mixture of both sweet and sour tastes. One of her original concepts and one of the most popular character designs she made is 'Ramen', a girl with noodles for her which is massively popular online. One of her pieces of concept art of Ramen, as well as chibi designs of the other dollicious girls, can be seen below. 

Looking at these cute and colourful designs put a smile on my face simply due to the fact that they are based around food and drink that I recognise or have eaten and so, in a odd way, they are personal too me which gives them a really nice touch. Having a look at these different designs lead me to think about the types of food that I personally enjoy to eat and a large amount of these were sweet, seeing as I have a huge sweet tooth and were mostly different types of candy or cake. Thinking about this is what sparked my idea for something that I could work on for my studio project that I actually really liked that sound of and felt pretty excited at the prospect of producing.  

My final studio work idea

My concept for my studio work is to create a set of characters who were all based around different types of sweets and each character will have their own distinct personality traits. So some examples of possible character designs could be: 

• Bubblegum - Bubbly, happy, friendly. 
• Sour apple - Grumpy, bitter, moody. 
• Popping candy - Hyperactive, energetic, crazy.

I already have a load of different ideas for types of candy that I could match with different emotions so I think I will be able to create around 4 - 8 final character designs which will hopefully allow me to get loads of good design iteration work into my mini art book. Focusing on this theme will also allow me to explore the idea of colour coding my different characters to try and help them portray their specific emotions although I might not stick to the traditional colour schemes of having red as anger and yellow as joy, it might be fun to switch it up a little bit and portray their personality through their body movements and facial expression instead of just relying on colour.

Since I thought of this idea I have been really excited to start working on it as I know I will be able to get some really nice character designs out of it that will fit my preferred art style. I am just pleased to have found an idea which I know I will be motivated to work on all year round. I even thought up a couple of names for the mini art book I want to produce whilst I was brainstorming character ideas which at the moment are 'Sweet Tooth' and 'Pick & Mix' but these may change obviously as my project progresses. 

  

Some reference images of Pick & Mix candies

Now that I have a clearer idea of what I want to be focusing on for my studio work I now will have to think about my what my idea is in a far more detail in order to try and finalise it a little more and plan out exactly what I am going to be doing and producing at the end of the year. I am actually really excited about starting to work on this idea now as I have chosen something that I have a personal interest in due to the art style I hope to be using, the use of colourful sweet candy and focusing on expressions. I just hope my confidence for this project shows through in the work I will produce.