Character Design

I began illustrating an initial design for the reoccuring character in my motion series. I wanted the character to embody burnout and communicate the effects it can have on us. This led to the idea of shaping the character as a battery as I could symbolise them being burnt out through them low on battery. The character alternatively could be conveyed as refreshed through them being fully charged.

I carried out further character design to explore other directions as to what the character in my animation shorts would look like. I again explored the battery concept but also looked at creating others. I wanted to create a simplistic character but one that has enough features to show particular facial expressions and emotions. I looked at making my character a piece of toast - this idea attempted to communicate burnout through the toast being burnt when it was burnt out and normally cooked when it's fine. I also tried putting a tie on the character to link it back to the workplace. I feel my character needs a bit of colour to convey an engaging and intriguing look.

After receiving feedback for the previous two lots of character design iterations, it was discussed that I need to pull back during this generative process. It was realised that my character development so far is already quite finished and carefully considers colour. It was recommonded that I instead take a step back and just quickly sketch out character ideas, making it more a focus on the form and concept of each character rather than worrying about how neat and refined they are. With this in mind and further discussion not to be so literal when symbolising burnout (e.g. low battery character), I looked elsewhere. The idea eventually arose to utilise workplace related items for characters and make them more worn out when representing burnout. I also realised that the same character doesn't need to be in every motion short, therefore I plan to adapt my storyboard ideas to these different characters built around the workplace environment.

Having laid the foundations of the character design through the previous sketches, the final versions of the characters appearing in each animation were produced. As I desired to create a visual that was simplistic in communication but also punchy and engaging, they were created in vector form on Adobe Illustrator. I aimed to generate this engagement through the playful use of office objects as the characters. Furthermore, a vibrancy of colour was used to achieve this punchiness. During the creation of these final characters, the different moods and mental states were considered when designing their facial expressions and body language.