Development

Animated films are built around characters.

How do you make a good character? You mix basic ingredients together and they fuse into something which hopefully becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

The basic mix is

(a) a good script – Give them something interesting to say and do.

(b) an appealing and unique design. These designs are out there to be discovered. Usually you have to put a few miles on the pencil before you find them.

(d) If character voices are involved then a strong vocal performance from the best character actor you can find.

If you manage to put that all together, ignoring technical details for now, then you should end up with appealing characters.

So how long does this all take and can I get a new character built by next Friday?

You can get a character built very quickly but if you have the luxury of time and you already have a great script then invest the time in making the characters really come to life. Animation has a long shelf life. It’s a process that ideally shouldn’t be too rushed. At the same time every project needs deadlines. So a bit of tension between what you’d like to achieve and what you can achieve is to be expected and welcomed.

When character designs are green lit one of the biggest challenges can be moving from 2d to 3d. Sculpting in 3d helps bridge the gap. Once you get into the 3d realm you will face a lot of new and interesting options because the character usually needs to look good from all angles. That amazing 2d silhouette may not easily transfer over to 3d. It’s worthwhile regularly referring back to the original sketches and trying to keep the essence of the design intact.

Rigging enables all the interesting poses that the character can achieve. Again at the rigging stage interesting options will arise and some limitations will most likely present themselves.

By the time you get to animation the character should be looking pretty good and capable of a wide range of motion. Then it becomes an acting challenge. You have to find the character and keep it consistent throughout.

It's not easy but it builds character.

Character development can be done with or without funding. If it's the latter then it's often reffered to as development hell.

Slate Development

We have a long form project in development with the working title “The Nauticals”. It’s a comedy road movie which is mainly set underwater. Watch this space for concept designs.

Over the years we’ve also developed several concepts for half hour specials and short films. We hope to share more information as soon as they get the green light. In the meantime here’s a few concept images designed for us by the great Nate Wragg.

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