Character Design and Short Story Presentation

We have been lucky enough to have a woman named Sara, who has a lot of experience in the area of character design and short story development working in the animation department. The presentation she gave us on this topic was really interesting and I learnt a great deal from it, because as somebody who is very interested in Pre-Production, there was a lot that I didn't realise about the process of Character Designing!

What new information this taught me:
Characters often centre around one or more of three shapes, either a square, triangle or circle. (Each shape gives off a different vibe, eg: a more triangular character would look more threatening where as a more square shaped character could potentially be more knowledgeable, strong and less of a threat and a more circular character is usually a much more likeable character and usually more friendly)

For a character to become well known, all aspects such as their colours, silhouette and body Language all determine how memorable they will be. 



Does the Character have an icon? (eg: Superman's wisp of hair, or Mickey Mouse's ears)

Line of Action - it is important to imagine an invisible line of movement going through the character's body.

Asymmetry - Is the Character identical on either side? Also, when designing a character, think about the body language and poses that are relevant, not just always stood face forward. (sometimes simplicity can help make a character more well known.)

Things to think about when creating a short story:

• Who is the main character?
• What is their "Urgent Goal" (needs to be established quickly)
• Who is the "flawed character?"
• There needs to be some form of conclusion (was the urgent goal reached or not?)

I found all of this really interesting and helpful, and will definitely be thinking back to this a lot during my story and character development!