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In order to get a better idea of what I would like to do for my project on an artistic level, I created this moodboard using images I found on Pinterest to illustrate the kind of aesthetic I am looking to emulate.
I mentioned briefly in my music subpage that I have a vision for this music video that is, essentially, a stylized depiction of mental health issues and abuse, all masked behind the idea of childhood and innocence. Because of this, I want the colour theory to be very dark, menacing, and bleak in order to match the themes of the song and music video; however, I also want the characters and animation itself to be very sketchy and messy, as if drawn by a child. Black and white caricatures drawn in biro, with large eyes and features, all appeal to this kind of style. After looking across the internet for different colour schemes, character ideas, and themes, I began to get a clearer idea of what I wanted my own music video to look like.
Main Character
Main Character
I decided to start off by designing my main character. I brainstormed different character concepts in my sketchbook, creating this mind map for what potential features and attributes this character could have. As you can see, I immediately wanted to include horns into my design. Some say that since the song is named "Devil Town," using demonic imagery is an obvious choice; however, I had some other ideas as well. Some of these concepts lean more fantasy than others; with some of them, you can definitely see where I took influence from some characters on my moodboard, while some of them look more like normal children.
Some aspects of these concepts that stood out to me were things surrounding contrast; colouring my animation would be a lot of extra work, so a purely grayscale design is going to be ideal. This means I will have to play around with contrast and such, so I wanted to keep that in mind. One of my peers, while I was sketching, pointed out that having my character be more animalistic could help lean into the themes of abuse; for example, making the main character a mouse would help make them seem like victims. They also gave me the idea of giving my character a scarf, which I absolutely loved and will definitely be using, since not only is it cute and would help give the character a distinct silhouette and more dynamic movement, but it might look a bit like a tail, which would lean into the "prey" theme I mentioned.
After exploring all of these different potential concepts, I narrowed it down to three that I really liked and did more detailed concepts of each of them. The two things that I wanted to keep consistent throughout all of my concepts were the idea of devil horns and a scarf. The first concept leans more towards the idea of a little boy with scruffy clothes and hair. I like how the horns look a bit like cat ears, as it gives them a look of innocence and makes them look more round. This concept was based more on the more humanoid ideas I had. The second concept is a bit more abstract; I wanted this character to, shape language-wise, look very round in order to show that they are young and innocent. It is a little far removed from the other ideas that I had, and I'm not a huge fan; however, I think that the bulkier look and long, rounded ears definitely have potential. The third concept is my absolute favourite of the three; it leans very animalistic, giving the character a rat-like appearance with a sort of long dress-cloak-looking thing (perhaps a dressing gown?). This idea that the main character is a rat is very thematically appropriate, as the lyrics show how the character feels unimportant and hated and relate them to vermin. I also like how the scarf can now look like a tail, which gives the character more dimension.
I decided that I liked my third concept so much that I would use it as a direct reference for my final character reference sheet. Using skills I learned during my character design research, I constructed this reference sheet with all of the necessary information and references needed to be able to animate this character. I decided that, both for thematic and speed reasons, I would make all the characters in this animation grayscale.
There were, of course, several changes made to this character's concept. For example, I gave them these pupils that are meant to look like a goat's pupils; this is to allude to satanic imagery, along with the horns. I decided I would not give them a mouth, which is quite useful as it means that I will not need to worry about lip-syncing my final animation, and I also gave them this cool gradient in their hair, both to allow the top of their hair to blend in with their head and horns and also to make the character design more interesting.
Finally, with the help of my friend (who is very good at naming original characters), we named them Klause, a German name that is simple but a little alternative and gothic-sounding.
Sibling
Sibling
Since the lyrics are pretty clear that there is some kind of sibling involved in this song, and it seems like this is the older sibling, I of course need to design them as well.
Since Klause is a rat, it seems only fair to make the rest of the family look like animals as well. I wanted the older sibling to still be a prey animal, but potentially a bit further up the food chain as well, to demonstrate how they are willing to stand up to their abusive parents but are still victims. I also wanted to keep in line with the whole death imagery theme, so horns will be included for certain.
I played around with a whole bunch of ideas; foxes I thought looked a little too predatory, while I liked how rounded the ram was (and the fact that it had death/satanic connotations), it looked a little weak and now very teenager-y. I also wanted this character to look like it was related to Klause in shape and character while still looking distinct. After all of this consideration, I found that the idea I liked the most was to make this character into some kind of bird—an owl, a crow, or just some kind of avian-looking shape were all good options.
Here are the three concepts that I created after brainstorming: The first concept follows on from that bird idea that I had, looking something like a crow or a stork. I felt like it looked a little angry, where the song implies that this sibling character is meant to be a source of comfort. I do like the look of his hoodie, however, since it looks kind of torn but also a little bit like feathers. Overall, the design is a little strange from a shape language perspective; it's not quite sure if it wants to be triangular or square, but the concept is there. The second concept I actually like quite a lot; it's simultaneously cute and a bit edgy, with long sleeves and a hood. I do, however, think that this design is too different from Klause to look like their older sibling, and while I love the death symbolism with the ram, this will probably not influence my final character. The third concept, I think, is really cute. It's got both circular and triangular elements, but is a lot more simple than Klause. For me, none of these concepts really hit the spot, and so instead of taking any of them as a direct reference, I will instead use them as influences to create my final character sheet.
This is what the final version of the character ended up looking like; it contains elements of both the first and the third concepts (though not much of the second one) and attempts to use and smooth out my favourite elements of all my concepts.
I would say that this character is still a crow, but because of the drooping beak and horns, he looks a lot more depressed than either of his inspirations; he takes the hoodie from concept 1, but a lot more of the roundness and triangular body shape from concept 3. I gave him fewer facial references than I gave to Klause since he will not be as prominent in the music video; however, it is still enough, I think, to be able to effectively reference him.
Finally, again with the help of my friend, we gave him the name Uko, which simply means "crow" or "hook" in Igbo (which is a native language from southern Nigeria).
Parents
Parents
Now it was time to design the abusive parents; of course, designing these characters is going to involve a lot of difficult decisions since depicting abusers from the perspective of a child could potentially tread into dangerous territory. This child is very young, as is clear when you analyse the lyrics, and so it makes the most sense to turn the parents into something that a child would relate to being evil. Also, to relate the whole concept to the idea of humanoid animals, making the parents look like some kind of predatory animal definitely makes the most sense.
All of this considered, it makes the most sense to create the parents in the form of wolves. Wolves are often considered one of the more stereotypically scary predators, as they are in a lot of children's fairytales as the bad guys. I also wanted to make it so that the parents' eyes are never visible on screen, as many children with abusive parents cope with their trauma by blocking out their memories of their abusers, and this can be visually represented by not ever showing their eyes (as I discussed in my character design subpage, the eyes are the most important aspect in giving a character personality, and so by stripping them away you are able to dehumanise an abuser and make them more terrifying and allusive).
Taking all this into account, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted these characters to look like. I specifically, after concepting basic designs, wanted to try and lean into the idea of this being a nuclear family dynamic. I almost wanted their outfits to look like dolls, a basic "providing father" and "housewife mother", in order to emphasise two important things: number one, to reiterate the idea that this is coming from the mind of a child, and number two, to emphasise how common abuse households are in more traditional nuclear families. The strain of societal expectations and norms can easily put pressure on a relationship, and parents who are in an unhappy marriage are often pushed by society to stay together "for the kids". These are all subtle messages that I would like to deliver with these character designs.
In addition, one of the main things I was undecided on in the last few stages of these two characters' designs was how their teeth should look. I knew I wanted to give them an unnaturally large amount of teeth to represent their hostility and stereotypical "evilness", but I wasn't sure if I wanted to make their teeth part of their jaw or separate. After some feedback from one of my peers, I eventually decided on the latter.
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