Character Design | 8 | Idea 61 Revisited

Ok, so, I went with the Milkman character as I thought it had more depth, and since I last spoke about him things have changes a bit!

Last time he was a milkman who imagines being a cowboy (as shown in an early drawing above), its now expanded into him being influences by what he watches on television and what he sees at the cinema, because that's what kids do...they go and see a film, then want to be like that character by acting like them for a day or two until they see something else (I'm sure loads of people did it after seeing the joker in dark knight...even you)

So this opens up more possibilities and isn't restricted to western references for example...

Here, he's just watched a war film (doesn't matter which war film for this sketch)

Here's a sort of treatment/ character in a nut shell...

Malcolm's dream job as a kid was to be a milkman, 15 years on and his dream had come true. He never lost his childhood spirit and his imagination is still as imaginative as it was when he was a boy. His love for film and television fuels his imagination and makes his job as a milkman much more exciting!

Here's some more of his development, not in any order...

Trying to get a believable face here (above)

 Me saying whats what etc (above)

 started to look at expressions (very loosely, above)

 This one (above) was a first look at what I wanted him to look like, I did this to scan in and colour him in...

 First look at colour for Malcolm

Character Design | 7 | Ideas again

Keeping with the same theme of 'big kid' my other character is far out to the right.

I went even further with the age range and started thinking about old people. Retirement homes are like going back to when your young again, your back in a house with people 'in charge of you', you have to eat what people give you, and you gotta be in bed by a certain time.....


The Idea

I was thinking about having an 80 year old man who craves to be back in his childhood, but living in a retirement home restricts him from having fun. The retirement  home is a mixture of the home he grew up in and the school he went to as a child, and he'll do anything to get his kicks in this old folks home.

another way of going with this character is (i was talking to rick, and he suggested...) this is an old man who loves to talk about all his adventures he got up it in his life, and he'll act them out to his grandchildren or something. He'll tell tails of when he went to sea, when he was in the war, when he went to the shops and got attacked by a bear (his stories aren't too accurate)

 someone said he looked like grampa simpson, then i realized that, yes, he dose look like grampa simpson...so i rethought him, for the better.

 this old man's had a long life, i think of him as around 80, so he's gonna have a lot of knowledge of stuff from his 80 years on earth, go i gave him a big head

He was going to be called Vivian Maguire, but I've decided to go with the milkman idea, and develop that further, we think it has more potential.

Goodbye Vivian!

Character Design | 6 | Ideas...2

Instead of drawing/ doodling etc i though i'd think about jobs and see if a character could come out of what jobs i thought of.

I wanted to think of obscure jobs, something unique etc where do you start with something like this? Job center plus?...

...I work as a cashier at a tesco's, once i had a kid who watched me scan stuff through the till in awe and then after about a minuet of watching stuff 'beep' past the scanner, he said this to his mum, "i want to be a checkout man when i grow up" then, not even a second later he said "no, wait, i wanna be a super hero with fire hands!!!" and with that, he zoomed around the store pretending to shoot fire out of his hands at other customers...

...with this in mind, instead of going to look at jobs at the job center, i though i'd look at what kids want to be when they grow up. Everyone wants to be something really extravagant or something really random when there, like, 4 - 5 years old.

here's some of the crazy and also realistic jobs kids want to go into...

1. astronaut

2. doctor (boring!)

3. vet

4. footballer

5. train driver

6. farmer

7. ping pong player

8. zoo person

9. a pirate

10. cowboy

11. fire fighter

12. police

13. pilot

(this article is pretty entertaining, it has pictures and everything...even kids spelling mistakes) 



The idea

My initial idea was to look at creating a character who was in there teenage years, but once i thought about jobs it made me think, why not turn the whole thing upside down and have the character middle aged?

How can children relate to a middle aged man or woman though?

(not thought of a name yet so) ...............is a child in a adults body, his dream of becoming a milkman as a young boy, came true. He drives around in his milk float delivering eggs, milk and other stuff, to the people of the town.
But, like every other kid, he changes his mind, he's influenced by what he sees on television and in the movie, and now he wants to be a cowboy.
Living in the city is a thousand miles away from the wild west, so with his child like mind and job as a milk man, he'll just have to imagine it.


so, this guy is made up of the characteristics of kids but on top of this, he got the job of his dreams. Kinda like a kid in a adults body. kids could relate to this because this is them 30 years down the line...if they keep the same mind set.


Here's some drawings...

Character Design | 5 | Ideas

Talking to my dads friend who's an author/ actor/ anything that's not a steady job! he was telling me about what children like to read about (remember this is for a book, not a television show) and one thing that stood out to me was this little bit of information... 'children like to read about someone older than themselves, so, say if your 11 years old, the books you read would have a lead character who is around 14 - 15 years old' 

I started off thinking about teenagers as this would be a good age for a lead character. We were all teenagers once (i still am) so i started thinking what i could work with from being one my self.

I picked up on the fact that at around 13 - 15 years old, you didn't want to know your parents, you didn't want to be seen with them and you thought that they were against you. You want to start to be independent. you also want to go against what your parents say and do (looking at cartoons on the television, parents are portrayed as stupid n' dumb, and act as the comedy within the cartoon. a good example of this is 'fairly odd parents'), and this lead me to think about hair styles...

When my hair get too long everyone goes on about getting it cut, literally every day, until a do.

But for a teenager trying to be different and rebel against their parents, they'll go in moods n' say "YOU DON'T KNOW ME!!! I HATE YOU!!" and run upstairs.

So i was thinking how this could become a lead character, why is this person want his hair long? the whole worlds against him, wanting to get it cut etc maybe its super hair? maybe he's in a group?...
...but wheres the 'heart and optimism'??

 I could have gone further with the idea, but other things started to have more potential...

Character Design | 4 | Research

So, the target audience is 4 - 14 year olds. What do kids of that age watch???

I started off thinking of a character which would appeal to the really young audience (the 4 - 6 age group) because it fitted into what the brief was saying about 'use [the character] them as a source of learning about the real world' and all the programs out there at the moment consist of learning about the world in some way or another e.g Charlie and Lola, Mickey Mouse (on the disney children channel) etc

So i was thinking of character which want to learn about the world we live in, like a baby (babys because they want to learn about the world there living in, always exploring stuff) or a robot etc, and then taking that further.
But i stopped thinking..........because.....

I have two cousins one is 5 the other is 8. I asked them what there favorite cartoon is at the momnent and i wasn't surprised by the answer....Ben 10.
My sisters partner has two sons, one is 3 the other is 5. I asked them what there favor...blah blah...it was Ben 10

Watching stuff like Ben 10, The Cramp Twins, SpongeBob, Fairly odd Parents made me realize that these character also inform the viewer about the real world, but in a more moralistic way.
Things aimed at 4 year olds etc are about learning about what colour a strawberry is, and im not sure this brief is asking for that.

So I started to look more at the older section of the target audience.

Character Design | 3 | Book Research

Looked at two books for a bit of research on character design, get some inspiration from some of the best.

First book is called 'Cartoon Modern' love this book its by amid amidi (its archive drawings...not his!)...