character

A Character’s Clothes: Something That’s Often Overlooked?

Yesterday, Aaron Diaz (a.k.a. Dresden Codak) tweeted a few things about what a character wears:

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[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/dresdencodak/status/57483163085180928″]

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It was a pleasure to meet Aaron this past weekend at the  MoCCA Festival albeit before I discovered his insanely superb tumblelog and it was also a pleasure writing this blog post until the computer crashed and took the previous version with it, but what can you do.

Aaron is spot-on in his analysis. The clothes a character wears can say a lot about them as does the wardrobe they keep. Take for example, Marge Simpson:

Marge in normal clothes

Marge in formal clothes (yoinked from the Dead Homer Society)

Although she is wearing two different outfits, they can both readily be identified as belonging to Marge.  How about another example, Sam from Danny Phantom:

Sam in normal clothes

Sam in formal attire

Both pictures are clearly Sam yet if you saw the clothes by themselves, you would still be able to associate them with her. The clothes really do maketh the man (or woman).

In animation, it is obviously desirable to have a character wear the same thing most of the time. If they didn’t, there sure would be plenty of opportunities for animators to make mistakes!

A great exception to this rule was My Life as a Teenage Robot. Although Jenny (XJ-9) doesn’t wear clothes (on account of being a robot), her colour does change quite a few times throughout each episode. While this has a far less effect than changing clothes, it does help establish the mood for a particular scene. Generally, cold colours for quiet scenes, hotter colours for action/drama scenes.

This is a complicated topic for sure. I personally think that some character designers in animation deserve just as much credit as their live-action counterparts when it comes to clothes, especially in feature films.

So take note and don’t just slap a T-shirt and jeans on your character, they (and your audience) deserve much more.

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These Characters Are Some of the Best Ever Created

Of course we already knew that, how could we not? It’s a show about imaginary friends, the kind that are uninhibited by the realities of life or the sober self-awareness of adulthood. Such a diverse range of characters are exactly the kind that kids are likely to invent and animation turned out to be a superb artform to showcase them.

It’s fascinating to me to see how such superficially simple characters can often have many, many different levels of personas and traits. Of the core group, not one of them could be considered ‘simple’. What was even better was that they all bounced off of and into one another which made for some very entertaining stories.

I suppose that’s what eventually got me hooked. Yeah, the visuals are wonderful (courtesy of Boulder Media in Ireland) and the stories are top notch (thanks to Craig McCracken and Co.) but it is the interraction and interpolation of the characters and their distinct personalities that made me watch it religiously when I lived in Richmond for the year.

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Why Visuals Are The All-Important Way Of Expressing Character Emotion

I need to begin this post by pointing out that that displaying emotion in a character is not the same as displaying attitude, something I discussed here and based on Michael Sporn’s original post.

In animation, when it comes to displaying emotions, the simplified or rudimentary character designs often necessitates the use of exaggerated facial expressions or whole-bod movements to convey the correct message, This is why the eyes of Tex Avery’s wolf always jump out of their sockets by about a hundred feet and why the Looney Tunes always jump a mile in the air when startled.

For today’s study, I will use the awesome comic by Faith Erin Hicks that is Superhero Girl. As you might expect, it’s quite a visual comic however the strip I have chosen does not contain any traditional superhero battles, punches or even feats of heroic strength. No, it’s a great example of just some of the emotions that characters have to convey and how even in a simplified form, the reader can fully interpret them.

Staring off with frame one. Here’s Superhero Girl conked out in bed. Besides the requisite zzzzs, there’s a gaping, drooling mouth and a pair of closed eyes.

All of these are the traditional elements of classic cartoon/comic sleeping poses. Walt Disney took some liberties with the Seven Dwarfs and their goofy sleeping positions, but there is no need for that here.

There is little if any emotion in this scene but it is safe to say that our protagonist is content enough in her own little world.

Onto frame two, and we have two poses. The first is the single eye focused exclusively on the ringing phone. There is little if any detail, but we can assume that the call is an unwelcome intrusion.

The second frame is an establishing shot. There isn’t much that could have been done as there is no need to show any emotion although the raised eyebrows, sideways glance and un-smiling expression suggests that there is some apprehension present.

Sometimes a frame or shot like this can be off-balanced as the animator or artist tries too hard to inject some excitement where none is needed. Getting something like this wrong is all too easy to do. It’s better to play it safe, no-one will be bothered by something that doesn’t seem out of place.

Onto frame 3 and we’ve got a smile! A big one at that too. Smiles are perhaps the easiest way to express emotion. Everyone smiles when they are happy and we all have a deep-down desire to be happy, right?

Although this is a relatively far shot, there is no need for a lot of detail. The emotion is easy to read from here. As is the slight apprehension that lingers in the leg-hold.

Sometimes a gesture like that would not even be present. The reader may not even notice it. However, small things like that have a habit of affecting the reader/viewer in ways that they may not consciously notice or appreciate.

This next frame is a great one. The extra-wide smile is a full grin, brimming with a certain kind of confidence. The tilted pose is another common trait. For me, it seems to suggest a kind of care-free feeling in that the character is not too pre-occupied with looking proper and formal.

The gaze upwards and away belies the nature of the frame and indeed, the very conversation that is going on. The sense of everything-is-not-as-it-seems permeates the scene.

Again, the simple pose and details of the frame say are a very important part of the frame as a whole. Without it, the words would be read in an entirely different tone that would lose the special meaning they carry here.

Back again to the full shot with the big smile. This differs from the previous panel in that there is no leg hold. The frame seems much more natural and our hero appears much more at ease with herself. The apprehension has vanished to be replaced by the reassuring conversation she is having on the phone.

This frame is another simple one and again, it is an excellent example of less is more. Sure, the conversation could have been done without the need for another smiling shot, but I think it adds much to the story and leads the reader into accepting the same sense of security and happiness as the character.A far-away shot with a frowny face pretty much says it all.

In these dual frames, we have a setup and a reaction. The first clearly displays dissatisfaction. There is no need for much detail here. The lowered eyebrows and puckered up mouth are proof enough of that.

The second frame provides a bit more necessary detail. The sullen expression tells us all we need to know about the character. The pose is irrelevant here and isn’t shown.

The upward gaze is directed straight ahead, almost at the reader themselves perhaps to convey the feeling of annoyance or maybe resentment.

A gaze like this does not at all convey ‘attitude’. Rather it convey emotion. Superhero Girl is annoyed for a reason, she is not pulling a face like this just for the sake of it. Faith has drawn a great scene that hits the nail right on the head.

From that rather pedantic look we move to one of awful shock and fear. The eyes are wide open, the mouth is agape in horror.

I think the face says it all really, although the raised right hand suggests an attempt to grab at something.

The wide-eyed stare is one of the exaggerations that animated and comic characters do great. It works very well as a statement of fear or shock and continues to be used for precisely this reason.

The fact that she appears to be staring into the distance as well contrasts nicely with the previous frame where the reader appeared to be given her attention.

And lastly:

This far-off shot sums her predicament up nicely and the expression is appropriate in its lack of detail. The arm hanging by the side. the lowered eyebrows almost resigned to the inevitable reinforce how she feels without calling attention to themselves.

So anyways, this particular strip serves as a great example on how characters are called upon to display a wide array of emotions and how the visual look and pose of the character can be the most important way of conveying those emotions to the reader. The same goes for animation with the only difference being that the characters are in full-motion in between the frames.

This post does not attempt to outlay any particular guidelines when it comes to displaying emotion, it simply implores you to use it well because it really can make or break a character.

As you can probably tell, I like this strip a lot, mainly because of the wide range of emotions on display. It’s not that they speak to me in any special way, I just happen to like they way the strip as a whole is drawn. So much so, that I bought the original.

 

 

 

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Attitude in Animated Characters

Via: The Simpsons Black & White

Yesterday, Michael Sporn posted an opinion piece that expresses his dismay at not only the repetition present in Glen Keane’s artwork but also the continued presence of attitude in them. I had to go back and read it twice just to be sure I understood. Surely attitude comes from the character themselves not the way they look, right? Eh, no. As it turns out, you can pull plenty of faces that can be read as having an attitude.

The main point of Michael’s post is that Keane seems to have become comfortable with a series of repetitive character designs and an overwhelming knack for drawing them in poses that seem to shout rather than speak.

All of this got me thinking, where does the attitude of an animated character come form? Yes, their look has something to do with it, but actions speak much louder than words.

Think back to the original contemporary bad boy of animation, Bart Simpson. Look at the character model below (that took me an age to find):

Now we all know who Bart Simpson is, we all see his exploits and we all know that the picture above belies little if any of his character traits. Having said that, there are plenty of other pictures out there that can attest or allude to his mischievous behaviour. Perhaps the Simpsons isn’t the best show to use as an example. The characters are relatively simple and the show has relied more on plot and knowledge of the characters in order to elicit emotions from their characters, In other words, if Lisa is sad, she will cry, Homer’s eyebrows will furrow and he will clench his teeth if he’s mad and Bart will normally result to physical acts for a range of emotions.

Personally, I believe that attitude should come from inside the character. Think about Donald Duck. There’s a guy with some serious attitude problems yet they only came to the audience’s attention when they came up from below the surface. Outwardly, he seems like a genuinely charming duck, not the violent menace he often becomes in his short films.

What the Simpsons did do quite well was display the over-arching desire of some folks in the industry for their characters to display attitude outwardly. The classic episode of Itchy, Scratchy and Poochie is an excellent, satirical observation of this practise.

During the creation of Poochie, the executives constantly bombard the animator with ideas about how the character should look in the belief that form follows function. The last comment made is that the character should have more “attitude”, with the result that he gains a pair of sunglasses. Naturally because of the “attitude” that Poochie displays, he is immediately written off as one of the worst characters ever made.

When it comes to something like animation (and this is something that has been known for years), the former limitations of the medium (the traditional type anyway) meant that actions and noises were pressed into service as a means of displaying emotion.

My point is that the limitations of animation meant that characters had to convey their character as it were, in more ways than just the visual alone. With contemporary CGI technology it has become possible to mimic the muscles in the human face, thus allowing much more accurate replications of nuanced human reactions. This should become a crutch however, and traditional animation would do well to cling to the tried-and-tested methods of displaying attitude through other means rather than relying on looks alone.

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