Major Project -Task 2 Design Proposition

 24/02/2025 - 16/03/2024 (Week 04 – Week 06)

You Siyuan / 0366978

Major Project 1 / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylors University

Task 2: Design Proposition

CONCENT

INTRODUCTION

Lectures
TASK 2:DESIGN PROPOSITION
FEEDBACK
REFLECTION

INTRODUCTION

Lectures

TASK 2:DESIGN PROPOSITION

Week 4

In the fourth week, our group gave a presentation, and here is the feedback from two teachers:

1. Change the story
2. Hot pot closed
3. The effect on the protagonist
4. More emotional character design
5. Connect with your audience
6. Using 3D technology
7. Layered, 3D effect
8. ANIMATIONS

We made an online appointment with the teacher to discuss our ideas. After a discussion with the teacher, our group had an online meeting.

fig 1.1 Online Meeting

These are two examples that we found. Our character design style can be based on this exaggerated approach and designed from different angles.

fig 1.2 Character design style

Reference Links：Link 1  Link 2

Then we changed the whole storyline, and our characters had to be redesigned. I was responsible for part of the character design.

The overall style of the design is small head, big body, long arms. In order to make the characters more harmonious, I choose to unify with Yang Jiayi, the 5-year-old daughter wears school uniform, the 25-year-old protagonist friend wears graduation clothes, the 25-year-old protagonist girlfriend wears casual clothes, and the 35-year-old protagonist wife dresses.

fig 1.3 Character Design

However, after discussion with the team, there are many small details in the painting that need to be modified. Different details can confuse the picture.

Modify the problem:

First of all, my characters don't have the same proportions. The head of an adult character can be uniformly reduced to 1:6 or 1:6.5, while the head-body ratio of a child character can be maintained at 1:3 or 1:3.5. The age difference is clear.

Keep the complexity of all the characters' costumes consistent and avoid being too complicated or too simple. The costumes of the supporting characters I drew were too simple, so I had to balance that.

Facial features are partially uniform, such as eyes, nose, and skin tone. I started the design with dark and light skin tones, and I had to modify those details while maintaining each person's facial features.

These shoes are not uniform. Most of the characters wear flat shoes, except for the little boy who wears curved shoes. They need to unite.

The length of the arms is uneven. An adult's arm should be the same length, but a child's arm will be different because they are still growing.

fig 1.4 Character modification

Week 5

After revising the above issues, our group had another discussion and finally decided to revise our script, which meant that the characters we designed changed. I revised it again.

I started looking for character references in our latest script. Our new script includes:

chef

Chef's assistant

3-4 clients

2 waiters

Family (Mom, Dad, 15 year old)

A couple

I designed more characters. I'm in charge of the waiter. Our theme is about hot pot, so I used the common black and white collocation for the costume design.

fig 1.4Character Design Process

Let's start the storyboard with a line drawing.

Final submission

Feedbacks

Week 04 (25/02/2025) :

Adjust the story to enhance the emotional resonance. For example, show how the MC has changed from a teenager to an adult, and how the closure of the hot pot has affected him. To improve your 3D animation skills, such as layering, 3D effects, and motion graphics, see Delicious in Dungeon.

Week 05 (04/03/2025) :

Push the AD story and make sure the art style is appropriate. Blend 2D and 3D animation styles if possible.

Reflections

Experience：

In the last two weeks, I've basically finished designing seven characters. It's key to find the right references for each character, including appearance, clothing, and expressive characteristics. I needed to keep the character's core characteristics in tune with the overall style. In the process, some details such as facial highlights and shoes are difficult to grasp, so feedback from the team is crucial to optimizing the design.

Observations：

The character design has been tweaked several times, with each change bringing the character closer to identity and personality. Not only did I have to make sure that the look was right for the career, but that the emotional expression was right for the script. Although the theme is skewed towards object design, the emotions of the characters still need to be conveyed accurately, and constant refinement allows me to better control the style of the characters.

Findings：

Character design is not only about shaping appearance, but also the overall expression of identity, background and emotion. In the future, I will focus more on the unity between the characters and make them more natural to the story.