Character Design for Animation

Believable characters are designed that way because they have been thought about from an early stage. For character designs to reflect the personality that has been described in the script, the designer needs to know clearly the message that the writer wanted to send through the action and the dialogue.

Task 1: Re read your script and come up with three words that describe each character.

You should also have considered Propp's character functions when writing the script.

1. The villain — struggles against the hero.
2. The dispatcher — character who makes the problem known and sends the hero off.
3. The (magical) helper — helps the hero in their quest.
4. The princess or prize and her father — the hero deserves her throughout the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess, thereby beating the villain.
5. The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
6. The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
7. The false hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the princess.

There are ways to visualise characters once you know what their role is in the story.

Ask yourself if the character is dynamic, lazy, wicked, mean, nutty.....

If their actions require them to be heavy, small, strong...

Consider stereotypes of these descriptions.

Task 2: When you have described your characters with 3 words, rough out some shapes that will form the construction of the characters. The shapes need to work well with the words.