Eye Wish - Specialism Project -Character Design (2D)

Specialism Project - Character Design

We were given four weeks of lectures and two weeks of project time totalling up to six weeks for this project.  We were taught animation basics, storyboarding, how to draw gestures, and character design for the first four weeks, during this time we also had to figure out what specialism we would like to spend the rest of the week two weeks on and I had decided to specialise in character design.

As this was an open project for self-improvement there was no solid brief given to each specialism, the goal was to simply learn more about your specialism and then later present your development at the end of this project. For the character Design specialism it was suggested by my tutor to at least have a minimum of three character turns, with this, I had to figure out what sort of characters I wanted to make and decided to give my self a brief of basing the designs off of these small Japanese lucky trinkets that are always on my desk.

Character Designs:

The first design I made was based on a Daruma. Daruma are these wooden red circular dolls with an angry-looking man face with bushy facial hair, these dolls are one of my favourite Japanese lucky items and were what inspired the brief for myself. They are used to make a wish by drawing in their left eye and once that wish has come true you draw in the other eye almost like a sign of gratitude to the doll for granting your wish you have now granted the doll sight, with this in mind I ended up making this character only have one eye. I knew when making this design that his main colour should be red, but I also had to think about how I could add small accent colours so he could stand side by side next to the other characters and look unified, hence the small hints of green which will be seen on the other two characters.

This whole design is inspired by Kabuki attire, which can be seen from his face paint with a stern expression to the droopy and long clothing, these were the main characteristics I noticed about Kabuki costumes. Kabuki are traditional Japanese theatre performers, and the reason for their costumes is so that the audience can see them from afar, the clothing material is also designed to make a sharp noise when they move for a dramatic effect. I originally was planning on basing my Daruma design on a Renjishi, which are also part of Kabuki, have long red hair that they use to swing around when performing, I decided against the long hair as it muddled his silhouette resulting in it being cut into a bob similar to Dora The Explorer.

The second design is based on the Maneki Neko/ Beckoning Cat. Beckoning cats are most commonly seen sitting in Asian stores to entice customers to come in, they are most commonly associated with fortune and wealth.  To translate this trinket into a design I knew I wanted this cat to be BIG, and when brainstorming ideas on what I should base this character on, I chose the obvious choice, which is a Sumo wrestler. 

The first concept design for this character had red cheeks as I wanted to make it look cute, and the only cute thing I could think to reference was Pikachu, however, this design turned out to be a little too red and since Daruman, the first character design, is very red so to contrast his colours more I added applied more green. The kanji symbol seen on his belly is also the same one that's on Daruman's back, it is written by my father as I had mistakenly written a different kanji that meant luck and after consulting my parents if it was the right kanji to use my father corrected me and wrote the proper one, which translates to "fuku" which means happiness and is commonly seen on many lucky items as.  

The final character design is based on the Akabeko. Akabeko are traditionally red which is said in the name "Aka" They are also supposed to look like a small cow and are from the Aizu region of Japan. The default red versions symbolise a charm in business while the green ones are associated with health and safety. When looking into what clothing I knew I wanted him to wear more traditional Japanese attire just like the other two characters have, so I researched different old professions and their clothing, the first I could think of was a doctor as this character is based on the health and safety trinket but when looking into old outfits of doctors they all appeared to look like normal montsuki, which is like the male versions of the kimono, so instead I decided to base this character's attire on farmers, as Akabeko are meant to be cows I thought it would only be fitting to reference a farm.  

Unlike the Beckoning Cat, which turned into just a massive cat with a human-like body, I chose not to make this character into a humanoid cow and instead decided to make it look like it's wearing a mask to keep the design original of the Akabeko head as it is very clearly different from a how normal typical cow is in real life. If this character were to further develop later on in a series, this mask idea could also serve as a plot point and be a mystery as to who really is under the mask.

In this character line-up I wanted their heights to be relative to how big they are in real life making Eki ( The Beckoning Cat) the biggest/ tallest, Daruman (The Daruma) the second tallest, and lastly Beko ( The green Akabeko) the shortest and smallest. Technically Beko would have been a lot smaller compared to the other two as seen in the image next to them,  but I felt that making him just slightly a bit shorter than the other two made for better character interactions to happen as I wanted them as a group to almost act like brothers/ very good friends with mutual respects for each other, and making Beko too small would have made him look like the baby or child of the group when he is supposed to be the one with first aid supplies and act like the doctor of this trio.

When thinking of a narrative for these character's I'd imagine them to be Yokai, which are basically like spirits in Japanese folklore, who are able to transform into just normal little lucky items in the real world, and similar to "Toy Story" when no one is home they change back into their humanoid selves to travel into the spirit realm where they really live.

In the spirit realm, I'd imagine they would have jobs there just as how their attire represents each profession such as Daruman being a Kabuki performer, Eki being a Sumo wrestler, and Beko being a humble farmer. The reason for them to have jobs can be to raise the fortune of the people who take care of them as trinkets in the real world. 

I imagined this scene of them all eating together, maybe after they've all done enough work to raise the fortune for their family for the day, and have them treat themselves to a small dinner. The whole idea of the different realms was inspired by Studio Ghibli's "Spirited away" I wanted to capture that sort of feeling with this piece.