(again, it should be noted that this email was sent nearly 2 weeks before this date I've blogged)
I decided that now would be a good time to update Tony on whats going on with the whole character development malarky so, here's what I sent him:
Hi tony,
how are you doing? Hope you had or are having a nice easter, the time off is different around the country so I'm not sure if you're still on your well deserved break ho ho :)
Here are some sketches of what I've come up with so far on the character; I've been showing them to different forums without giving away too much information just to see if they like the look and feel behind the different characters and the e-mails i've been getting back have been really good so far so, what do you think of it?
First, I should explain that I decided to split the Random Ronnie fellow into seperate characters, allowing a different facet of his 'randomness' to form in each of the personalities. I did this because when developing Ronnie and talking to alot of people about the character, I thought that a random character by default has little in the way of a discernable or reliable character or personailty so I'm trying this way of mainting audience interest.
The house that these characters exist within is also quite.. loose in the old 'reality' department but still looks and operates like a house most of the time, just bending to the context of the story (like rooms turning up for plotlines where there were no rooms before for example). The enviroment is something I'm working on currently so that I can do some storyboards with relationships between characters but, I'm thinking at the moment that the cartoon is set mostly in a house that Ron, 'Neil' and 'Pok' occupy, with their neighbour Benyamin in the house next door and the creepy little girl Lucy who watches from tree branches and shadows outside the house. Depending on the episode context though, the enviroment could change if we needed a townscape or a grave yard or a fun fair or something.
With each of the personalities then, we get another form for a new branch of the audience to indentify with. I had designed them more with the mind to contrast them with Ron, rather than just pander to the audience's tastes but hopefully this is a good side effect.
For example theres 'Ron' (all names are still working titles) who is the happy go lucky protagonist and is the main evolution of Random Ronnie, bearing a strong feel of the original concepts you provided me with his curly red hair and general feel. I've made him with the intention that he's the most.. amicable and maybe human character in there. I guess the way to think about my idea of 'Ron' is like Stimpy from 'Ren & Stimpy' in terms of his friendliness and general good nature; only Ron is more intelligent at this point. Ron will always want to help someone in need so we get plot hooks in that way and his personality clashes quite strongly with the overly aggressive and frustrated sock puppet called 'Neil' that he finds in his cellar.
'Neil' is an ancient demon god trapped in this poorly made puppet's form and this has made him very bitter over the centuries, giving him a resentment for anything happy or alive in general. He is the more malicious, angry character to contrast with Ron so, I guess they're a kind of 'Ren & Stimpy' coupling in that sense with a happy/angry clashing but instead of beating Ron senseless every episode, 'Neil' has very little physical power other than being able to use 'spooky ancient demon powers' (whatever the context of the paticular episode deems those to be) such as being able to throw his voice, move objects, summon demonic imps to perform tasks for him or being able to possess small animals. 'Neil' fantasizes often about being able to possess Ron someday when he is asleep or otherwise helpless and then using his body as a vessel, open a portal to an unknown dimension of pure terror. But, since he's usually quite helpless and Ron is aware of 'Neil's intentions, this outcome seems unlikely at the moment. 'Neil' moves about by either being on Ron's or another characters hand or, by being on top of a stick which ends off the bottom of the screen (looks a bit odd but, suspension of disbelief and all that).
I'll try to get through the other 3 characters a bit faster.
'Pok' is the dog of the household who has no eyes, just glowing white eye sockets. His origins are unknown of by the other characters but 'Neil' suspects that he is some government weapon gone wrong which escaped and turned up in the back garden. It would be more accurate to describe Pok as genderless rather than a male or female but the other characters find it humanizes 'him' a little to assign him a gender role. Pok spends his time following Ron around whereever he goes, literally sliding after him in a stood up or sat down position without moving his legs at all, as if he was a cel of animation that someone literally just slid across a scene. This is to emphasize the overwhelming ominous creepy factor that Pok exudes as he is a usually silent but still very intimidating character and even Ron and 'Neil' are typically weary of him. When not being horribly frightening, Pok looks for objects to fill his eye sockets with like bottles, lightbulbs or legs of ham which could be used as a good ice breaker in a scene or a punchline. This is also where Pok gets 'his' name from, from the 'POK!' noise when something is removed from a socket.
Benyamin is the foreign exhange student neighbour who lives next door to Ron and 'Neil'. He is a very stressful character who has as a result developed an over-eating disorder and understandably, an anxiety over how he feels about his body, which.. makes him nervous and eat more. In an attempt to 'deal' with his problems he often wears ridiculously large clothing or very odd eye catching clothing to avert attention from his frame. His fears include insects, dogs and 'Neil' and as such is quite a timid character, explaining why his best friend is his cat, Toasty.
And finally, Lucy or 'that creepy little girl' is a wannabe voyeur who spies on Ron from outside of the house, from tree tops or in the shadows when he's outside. She has a strong obsession with Ron and his friendly ways but prefers to communicate in her own way to him by dressing as different objects and animals she thinks he likes so that if he ever spots her, he might know that she knows something about him rather than ever actually speak to him . Which.. is a very stalker-ry in which to get to know someone. But she can serve as a kind of narrator to some episodes or a plot hook for investigation.
So, here's the link again if you missed it up on the top of the email.
Also, a second question. Can you please give me some pointers as to how you present a character for a client or similar audience? Would you include some possible storyboards/storylines as well? maybe some walk cycles/character sheets? I've made a bit of a pigs ear of that in this email so some advice on how to do it properly from someone who's got so much valuable experience on the subject would mean alot to me. :)
This would hopefully make it a bit easier to show more and more prospective viewers my ideas so I can get more valuble research on refining or completely changing what we've come up with so far.
Ok, so, once more, here is the link to the images of the characters I've talked about in case you didn't catch it cause this is a long mail, and, I hope to speak to you again soon!
Thank you so much for this opportunity again Tony!
Will
The e-mail is a bit of a fair old length, I need to trim these down in future to avoid confusing clients. Anyway, as of this post I'm still awaiting a response and have sent a follow up e-mail asking if Tony recieved the first so, I'm still waiting for his input.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
Some rough colour concepts
Here are some tatty concepts for the character ideas I was banging on about in the previous post.
This is 'Neil', an ancient demon condemned to existence trapped in the form of a poorly crafted sock puppet. He is an angry character who has a bitter but hilarious disliking for anything living or representative of happy life. He takes out his frustration for the freedom he lacks by possessing other people, objects or using his spooky ancient demon powers to try and make others lives a misery.
This is 'Ron' then the happy-go-lucky protagonist who is amicable but careless and naive to the ways in which this world works. He is the most 'human' of the characters in the sense that he's the kindest and most logical one and I'm assuming the character most people will identify with. His long body tends to be drawn a little warped to emphasize how ltall he is but also, his playfulness. You don't get how happy he is usually from the above and below images so I need to draw some very thourough character sheets up with a broad spectrum of emotions and movements but in these images you ARE seeing the relationship often shared between 'Ron' and 'Neil' the puppet as Ron is aware of 'Neil's' sinister intention to dominate and possess his mind someday.
Benyamin is the foreign exhange student neighbour who lives next door to Ron and 'Neil'. He is a very stressful character who has as a result developed an over-eating disorder and understandably, an anxiety over how he feels about his body, which.. makes him nervous and eat more. In an attempt to 'deal' with his problems he often wears ridiculously large clothing or very odd eye catching clothing to avert attention from his frame. His fears include insects, dogs and 'Neil' and as such is quite a timid character, explaining why his best friend is his cat, Toasty.
'Pok' is the dog of the household who has no eyes, just glowing white eye sockets. His origins are unknown of by the other characters but 'Neil' suspects that he is some government weapon gone wrong which escaped and turned up in the back garden. It would be more accurate to describe Pok as genderless rather than a male or female but the other characters find it humanizes 'him' a little to assign him a gender role. Pok spends his time following Ron around whereever he goes, literally sliding after him in a stood up or sat down position without moving his legs at all, as if he was a cel of animation that someone literally just slid across a scene. This is to emphasize the overwhelming ominous creepy factor that Pok exudes as he is a usually silent but still very intimidating character and even Ron and 'Neil' are typically weary of him. When not being horribly frightening, Pok looks for objects to fill his eye sockets with like bottles, lightbulbs or legs of ham which could be used as a good ice breaker in a scene or a punchline. This is also where Pok gets 'his' name from, from the 'POK!' noise when something is removed from a socket.
And finally, Lucy or 'that creepy little girl' is a wannabe voyeur who spies on Ron from outside of the house, from tree tops or in the shadows when he's outside. She has a strong obsession with Ron and his friendly ways but prefers to communicate in her own way to him by dressing as different objects and animals she thinks he likes so that if he ever spots her, he might know that she knows something about him rather than ever actually speak to him . Which.. is a very stalker-ry in which to get to know someone. But she can serve as a kind of narrator to some episodes or a plot hook for investigation.
I should show more people to garner impressions of these and alert Tony to my progress so far. Otherwise, I need to steam on and get this tidied and finished me thinks.
This is 'Neil', an ancient demon condemned to existence trapped in the form of a poorly crafted sock puppet. He is an angry character who has a bitter but hilarious disliking for anything living or representative of happy life. He takes out his frustration for the freedom he lacks by possessing other people, objects or using his spooky ancient demon powers to try and make others lives a misery.
This is 'Ron' then the happy-go-lucky protagonist who is amicable but careless and naive to the ways in which this world works. He is the most 'human' of the characters in the sense that he's the kindest and most logical one and I'm assuming the character most people will identify with. His long body tends to be drawn a little warped to emphasize how ltall he is but also, his playfulness. You don't get how happy he is usually from the above and below images so I need to draw some very thourough character sheets up with a broad spectrum of emotions and movements but in these images you ARE seeing the relationship often shared between 'Ron' and 'Neil' the puppet as Ron is aware of 'Neil's' sinister intention to dominate and possess his mind someday.
Benyamin is the foreign exhange student neighbour who lives next door to Ron and 'Neil'. He is a very stressful character who has as a result developed an over-eating disorder and understandably, an anxiety over how he feels about his body, which.. makes him nervous and eat more. In an attempt to 'deal' with his problems he often wears ridiculously large clothing or very odd eye catching clothing to avert attention from his frame. His fears include insects, dogs and 'Neil' and as such is quite a timid character, explaining why his best friend is his cat, Toasty.
'Pok' is the dog of the household who has no eyes, just glowing white eye sockets. His origins are unknown of by the other characters but 'Neil' suspects that he is some government weapon gone wrong which escaped and turned up in the back garden. It would be more accurate to describe Pok as genderless rather than a male or female but the other characters find it humanizes 'him' a little to assign him a gender role. Pok spends his time following Ron around whereever he goes, literally sliding after him in a stood up or sat down position without moving his legs at all, as if he was a cel of animation that someone literally just slid across a scene. This is to emphasize the overwhelming ominous creepy factor that Pok exudes as he is a usually silent but still very intimidating character and even Ron and 'Neil' are typically weary of him. When not being horribly frightening, Pok looks for objects to fill his eye sockets with like bottles, lightbulbs or legs of ham which could be used as a good ice breaker in a scene or a punchline. This is also where Pok gets 'his' name from, from the 'POK!' noise when something is removed from a socket.
And finally, Lucy or 'that creepy little girl' is a wannabe voyeur who spies on Ron from outside of the house, from tree tops or in the shadows when he's outside. She has a strong obsession with Ron and his friendly ways but prefers to communicate in her own way to him by dressing as different objects and animals she thinks he likes so that if he ever spots her, he might know that she knows something about him rather than ever actually speak to him . Which.. is a very stalker-ry in which to get to know someone. But she can serve as a kind of narrator to some episodes or a plot hook for investigation.
I should show more people to garner impressions of these and alert Tony to my progress so far. Otherwise, I need to steam on and get this tidied and finished me thinks.
A psychological breakdown
Something which I've been thinking about is adding other characters alongside 'Ron'. I want to take the 'random' element from the protagonist and distill it into a supporting cast. My reasoning for this is the 'random' in the original concept is potentially a powerful surreal comedy tool but in one character, myself and those I've discussed the subject with believe that the personality would be absorbed and lost. So, break it into several, discernable chunks.
What I've observed in shows like 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force!' and 'Ren & Stimpy' is that a contrast of personalities makes for a watchable cast, with a character like Frylock or Stimpy who are either logical or optimistic enough to get us through each episode intact. We might want to subvert this like they do occasionally but for now, I'm going to stick with the basics that I'm starting to pick up.
I'm thinking at the moment of having 'Ron' as a happy-go-lucky character with his sock puppet as an overly agressive contrast, so we get just in those two characters already a flexible range of possibilities and reactions to events.
To contrast with those two strong personalities, I'm thinking of incorporating a meek, nervous character who operates close by, maybe a neighbour who suffers from a nervous disposition and is frequently disturbed by the actions of the main cast. I'm not certain about this paticular personality as of now, because I don't want the setup to turn into a kooky, "Normanmeyer's being frightened by the 'un-normality' of the Adam's family" situation so, I need to watch that this character isn't very dull or cheesy.
(If you don't understand that last point, the Normanmeyer's were a run-of-the-mill American family who were used as a direct contrast to the Adams family in the cartoon show which was very cheesy. Not the contrast itself, but the mood of the cartoon in general. I would post a picture of them up here but honestly, I've had some trouble locating one. I'll put one up if I gets one)
I could also use a mysterious silent character as an ice-breaker or punch line-deliver-er in the main cast. This sounds a bit complicated so, I'll mention Silent Bob. His character usually stands by the sideline whilst the rest of the cast do all the talking, simply miming agreements or confusion or other light expressions until critical points in the narrative when his intervention can influence unexpected inciting moments or conclusions, e.g. when he comes out with a pearl of wisdom just as no one else can call anything to mind or by acting almost on intuition to a dangerous situation and saving all of his friends. This character is a leveller, a creator of equilibrium and a proverbial kick in the arse for plot lines.
Maybe some kind of rudimentary animal could suit this position, like anthropomorphic Brian from 'Family Guy' only, with less personality. Ironically here I think I would specifically want this character to have little of what we would normally call character. Well, if I intended to make him or her mysterious that is. I suppose Silent Bob has character, and he's very expressive, but I have this idea currently for having a very intimidatingly silent and mysterious version of this archetype and for that, I'd need what was outwardly a very 'blank slate'.
As for anymore characters... Maybe some kind of observer over the whole thing or a narrator? Not sure if it's necessary really, doesn't feel like it at the moment but it wouldn't hurt to have another character who can either explain what is going on or maybe just another way of introducing plot lines. Like 'Ron's no. #1 fan stalking him everywhere and thus being able to tell us exactly what he's been up to or something similar.
What I've observed in shows like 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force!' and 'Ren & Stimpy' is that a contrast of personalities makes for a watchable cast, with a character like Frylock or Stimpy who are either logical or optimistic enough to get us through each episode intact. We might want to subvert this like they do occasionally but for now, I'm going to stick with the basics that I'm starting to pick up.
I'm thinking at the moment of having 'Ron' as a happy-go-lucky character with his sock puppet as an overly agressive contrast, so we get just in those two characters already a flexible range of possibilities and reactions to events.
To contrast with those two strong personalities, I'm thinking of incorporating a meek, nervous character who operates close by, maybe a neighbour who suffers from a nervous disposition and is frequently disturbed by the actions of the main cast. I'm not certain about this paticular personality as of now, because I don't want the setup to turn into a kooky, "Normanmeyer's being frightened by the 'un-normality' of the Adam's family" situation so, I need to watch that this character isn't very dull or cheesy.(If you don't understand that last point, the Normanmeyer's were a run-of-the-mill American family who were used as a direct contrast to the Adams family in the cartoon show which was very cheesy. Not the contrast itself, but the mood of the cartoon in general. I would post a picture of them up here but honestly, I've had some trouble locating one. I'll put one up if I gets one)
I could also use a mysterious silent character as an ice-breaker or punch line-deliver-er in the main cast. This sounds a bit complicated so, I'll mention Silent Bob. His character usually stands by the sideline whilst the rest of the cast do all the talking, simply miming agreements or confusion or other light expressions until critical points in the narrative when his intervention can influence unexpected inciting moments or conclusions, e.g. when he comes out with a pearl of wisdom just as no one else can call anything to mind or by acting almost on intuition to a dangerous situation and saving all of his friends. This character is a leveller, a creator of equilibrium and a proverbial kick in the arse for plot lines.
Maybe some kind of rudimentary animal could suit this position, like anthropomorphic Brian from 'Family Guy' only, with less personality. Ironically here I think I would specifically want this character to have little of what we would normally call character. Well, if I intended to make him or her mysterious that is. I suppose Silent Bob has character, and he's very expressive, but I have this idea currently for having a very intimidatingly silent and mysterious version of this archetype and for that, I'd need what was outwardly a very 'blank slate'.
As for anymore characters... Maybe some kind of observer over the whole thing or a narrator? Not sure if it's necessary really, doesn't feel like it at the moment but it wouldn't hurt to have another character who can either explain what is going on or maybe just another way of introducing plot lines. Like 'Ron's no. #1 fan stalking him everywhere and thus being able to tell us exactly what he's been up to or something similar.
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Audience Research
This is the first post in a series of back log post dates as I've been looking for houses recently and have silly-ly neglected to update the old blog. Theres a bit to go through, ticking boxes and all that.
So, I overcame the problem of which direction to take the character, now on the working title of 'Ron' cause it's one that my 'focus groups' have assigned him. I did this really by talking over the problem with the inhabitants of forums on sites who's audiences might watch the 'older-teen-to-adult' cartoons I'm talking about. The sites I'm talking about are collectedcurios.com, newgrounds.com, deviantart.com in the cartoon section and friends and colleagues who have this viewing taste. I still need to post up on conceptart.org to gain more opinions but I'm doing pretty well so far.
The range of the sites, although not specifically chosen for this purpose is good because it grants me a range of sub audiences within my broad audience bracket. For example, collectedcurios is host to a fairly small community who discuss the works of the character artist, Jolly Jack and so have this one artist in common for aesthetic taste. Newgrounds was undoubtedly the most difficult to gather constructive points from because it's users are primarily young teenagers and as such, alot of users tend to have little patience for others but, in a way this is great because it's like being able to just dip my hand into pure intended audience and see how it feels. Deviantart was the most understanding of the sites and my guess for this would be because this is a community that is specifically used to dealing out and receiving criticisms with art work.
To cut a long, long, LONG story short over the forum posts and discussions with peers, I had basically asked which direction my audience felt that I should take for the character. It was agreed by collectedcurios almost unanimously, by my peers and by alot of newgrounds and deviantart that a character with a discernable personality who they can see in different strange situations each episode, as opposed to a completely random character.
So, I overcame the problem of which direction to take the character, now on the working title of 'Ron' cause it's one that my 'focus groups' have assigned him. I did this really by talking over the problem with the inhabitants of forums on sites who's audiences might watch the 'older-teen-to-adult' cartoons I'm talking about. The sites I'm talking about are collectedcurios.com, newgrounds.com, deviantart.com in the cartoon section and friends and colleagues who have this viewing taste. I still need to post up on conceptart.org to gain more opinions but I'm doing pretty well so far.
The range of the sites, although not specifically chosen for this purpose is good because it grants me a range of sub audiences within my broad audience bracket. For example, collectedcurios is host to a fairly small community who discuss the works of the character artist, Jolly Jack and so have this one artist in common for aesthetic taste. Newgrounds was undoubtedly the most difficult to gather constructive points from because it's users are primarily young teenagers and as such, alot of users tend to have little patience for others but, in a way this is great because it's like being able to just dip my hand into pure intended audience and see how it feels. Deviantart was the most understanding of the sites and my guess for this would be because this is a community that is specifically used to dealing out and receiving criticisms with art work.
To cut a long, long, LONG story short over the forum posts and discussions with peers, I had basically asked which direction my audience felt that I should take for the character. It was agreed by collectedcurios almost unanimously, by my peers and by alot of newgrounds and deviantart that a character with a discernable personality who they can see in different strange situations each episode, as opposed to a completely random character.
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Split over how to develop
I'm a bit stuck over how to start developing the character and what direction to take him. As I can see currently, there are two distinct paths. One is of complete random mania and the other is a more Adult Swim surrealism path.
My intention is to make characters which follow up both of these paths using a quick personality and some coloured pictures and then show them about to intended audience members and Tony to see which direction to continue in.
My intention is to make characters which follow up both of these paths using a quick personality and some coloured pictures and then show them about to intended audience members and Tony to see which direction to continue in.
First colour of a 'ronnie'
This might not be what he ends up looking like at all, I'm just trying some colours out on some of my doodles.
EDIT: I've been told by a few of the potential audience members that I've shown this blog to that this kind of drawing of the character is very 'cartoonish' and doesn't feel very 'adult'.
This is concerning to me obviously because I wanted the character to feel like it could have a serious potential, or just not be disregarded as a kids cartoon.
How to solve this..? I'll come back to this post when I've gotten some advice or thought more about it.
Sketch Doodle ideas for character.
These are some doodles for ideas for the character, on his form and his actions. I'm using red curly hair here purely because that was the hair colour of the character given to me in the roughs Tony showed me.
The pig, Isreali and the boy in a dinosaur costumes are side characters I'm thinking of.
I'm finding it difficult to proceed beyond the point of just doodling the character doing random things because by default, the character lacks alot of definition and it's really difficult to tell what direction if any is a correct one.
I mean, alot of the drawings I've done here show 'Ronnie' (working name) with a very elasticated kind of body, showing explosive random potential through his form, with a sock puppet which he talks to so.. there is a 'random' mania element there or as some kind of goblin or animal or popular cultural icon like Shakespeare. The seperate elements on their own might be amusing and all but it's bloody difficult trying to pin him down. What I'm suspecting from alot of these drawings is that the character would end up being some screaming deranged mess which would satisfy the quota of being random I guess.
THIS kind of random:
Who knows, a completely manic character might work. But I would wager that the show it starred in would need a couple of other characters to counter and contrast it's personality. You know, like the genie from Disney's 'Aladdin'?. His character is built around the comedy style that Robin Williams is good at; fast paced schtick that changes direction constantly through various voices and impressions of personalities.
My guess is that without the blander personality types to distill 'Genie' through out the film, you would lose interest in him quicker.
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