Final Presentation

Overview Of How the Characters Met The Requirements

- The Scenario is a children's game targeted at the age group 7-11 year olds an age i find that the audience can begin to explore characters and games becoming more realistic and be approached in more realistic scenarios.

The idea of the game is that the Grey Squirrel once was a Brown/red Squirrel and good to but he did not recycle and the Grey Squirrel became bad and evil. So now the Red/Brown Squirrel and his faithful sidekick the mouse have to recycle the street to help the Grey Squirrel to become again. So while the Grey Squirrel is trying to stop the Red/Brown Squirrel and the mouse from recycling however every time you collect recycle a piece of rubbish from the street the Grey Squirrel becomes a little bit more Brown until at the end of the game the Grey Squirrel will become good and his old good personality, because he recycles.

 The hope of the game is to teach the target audience some moral understanding within the world not only to do with friendship and helping others but to help the world by recycling.

I intend my game to be used in primary schools and for at home as i think it has the potential if with more time the ideas were developed that more than one person would play and the game would become a multi player game.

The characters are anthropomorphic but they all follow the same style, each with their own twist to their style.

Character Designs

- I started by looking at various different animals and their shapes and colours, originally i did look at squirrels and mice but i wasn't so keen i was in fact more interested in cats and actual physical objects rather than a animal. I went on to do trials in these areas but in the end did not feel like this was right.

My inspiration came from Angelina Ballerina a childhood favourite of mine and stories that i have always treasured.

 I then begun to look deeper at squirrels and realised that in fact this was something i actually wanted to pursue this i started by using a pencil tool and vector tracing.

I started to look at Characters and Scenarios and ideas began to form, I played with tracing and photoshop to come to some possible characters. I drew out mouse after mouse and squirrel after squirrel to come to some possible design ideas.

Then on, I started to look closely into the squirrels; these animals appealed to me as they are seen as cute animals but really are quite fierce. I looked at different styles, colours and different anthropomorphism techniques to present my two squirrels. 

Originally I decided on my squirrels to be the other way round I wanted the good squirrel to be grey and the bad to be brown however after much research i found out that the grey squirrels actually drove the brown ones out of many countries making them in fact the bad ones themselves. After this i had to swap them round altering my colours and shapes of each of the squirrels.

- The Rodent

- The rodent was in fact the last character to be created, his personality is rather thick, he is loyal, trustworthy but not very bright.

I found myself imitating the good squirrel when designing this character, i felt this is appropriate as it shows true friendship and sticking by each other something i wanted to get across to my target audience.

The colour green here is used again I made his eyes, shoes and waistcoat green however slightly darker colour so that it does not outshine the good squirrel.

If i had more time i would develop this character by making a version of him of what he was like before he met the good squirrel and how he recycles now and looks after the environment with the right influence.

 - The Bad Squirrel
- The bad Squirrel, originally I wanted to make him the exact opposite of the good squirrel but as my designs began i found that he in fact had his own character which i went along with. Instead of green i changed the colour to red as it is a angry, blood thirsty colour but also that of passion, which i felt was appropriate.
When the character was painted I found problems with the tail and colouring, as well as the shoes. So once again the whole drawing was scanned and put into photoshop. once in i adjusted the tail in the hope to make it more atomically accurate. With the shoes Unlike the good squirrel i did not pick a pair of shoes that my target audience could relate to as i wanted them to be as disassociated with the grey squirrel as possible unlike the good squirrel.
The saturation was altered so that the bad squirrel would be more scary and dominant, standing out from the other characters.
After much consideration I decided that the grey squirrel cam across as to scary especially for my target audience so in the end i decided toad more colour: i.e brown around the edges to create a softer effect and showing that the bad squirrel did once used to be good and used to help the environment.

- The Good Squirrel
-Before i reached my final outcome of the Good brown Squirrel came from looking at various different squirrels and combine them together to reach my final decision. The good Squirrel in fact has his own colour. Green, green represents recycling and his passion for helping the environment. This he projects to his faithful companion the rodent.
I made his shoes green converse: Converse are very common shoes that everyone knows and recognises something that the target audience can relate to. They do not give off a huge statement and are fairly neutral in the fashion world.
After painting the character i put the image into photoshop where i corrected the colouring, contrast and levels to get the warm affect that i had originally intended. I also widened the tail as i felt originally the tail gave off a angry, scary affect.
With more time i would create more versions of the good squirrel of when he was younger and looking similar to the bad squirrel.

First Attempt

  

Final Outcome

Settings

- The game would be set in a street one end would be the good side cleaner, nicer, sunnier and the other would be dark, gloomy, and full of rubbish. the rest of the street would be filled with rubbish to and thats what the good squirrel and he trusted sidekick would have to clear away.

Further work and Development

- If I was given more time to work on the project i would expand the various versions in which the characters are presented, such as; for the Bad Squirrel I would make another version of him showing the good side of him before he went bad as he didn't recycle. Another example with further development that i would expand would be the settings and background although i have done some work on this subject I feel that this could be expanded, I have begun these idea generations but with more time the levels and specifics of the game would be completed and the generation of how anthropomorphic to go and how life like the details would become with more development. Furthermore i would make a series of the sane characters for the different levels in the game this i would do using various digital programmes such as photoshop and illustrator using a variation between that and hand drawn sketches and paintings. This i would do so that i could expand my ideas and reach out to various different audiences and possibly expand my target audience to get the message of recycling and the environmental issues out to the younger generations.

In the settings I would design the street and rubbish with more time, i would also create a end to the story where the grey squirrel becomes good and realises his mistakes to bring in a moral to the story of recycling and the environment.

Final Character Design

The Good Squirrel

The Loyal Sidekick

The Good Guy Gone Wrong/Bad Squirrel

The Mouse and the process of Painting and Through Photoshop

I went through many processes trying to come to my conclusion of the mouse i wanted him to be more simplistic than the other characters as i felt that this portrayed his character very well. I started to paint more in black colours and dark, thick black outlines.

Half way through the painting i realised that i wanted to mimic the red/brown squirrel seeing as the mouse is the simplistic sidekick, loyal. 

when i was painting i found myself creating darker browns at the edges of the lines which gave more depth to the character but not so much that the other characters had.

By this point i still hadn't drawn the hands or feet and then decided i would give him shoes like the other characters.

I then went on to painting the eyes green to match the good squirrel.

Next i went on to painting the hands and feet. Shoes converse painted green and the hands just given a human touch to them as i felt that the most simplistic character of them all should be the closet to animal form.

I then painted a green waistcoat on to the mouse but like everything else it is a lot more simple and block coloured than the other one on the brown/red squirrel.

Finally I put the image into photoshop, i used an eraser to neaten all the edges further. then i used colour, tone, contrast and levels to brighten the colours in my drawing.

however one problem i do have with the picture and would change if i was to further the context of the characters is that the shoes and waistcoat are to dark and should be lightened to match the eyes of the mouse and the green on the good brown/red squirrel.

The Good Brown/Red Squirrel Painting and Photoshop

This was my outcomes when i had finished painting the first version i put the whole picture into photoshop here are my results.

This is my first trial in photoshop, however the brown/red squirrel at this moment in time did not have hands and feet i began with the photoshop trials. I copy and pasted the tail to enlarge it so that it gave off a more friendly and cute vibe when compared to the other ones.

I then went back to my original drawing and added a small pair of converse and a pair of hands. I made the shoes green to match the rest of the theme of the squirrel.

The squirrel then went through a few attempts in photoshop and finally after enlarging the tail once again i corrected the colouring giving the whole picture a more "soft toy" look and a cuter, nicer one that my target audience will latch on to.

The Bad Grey Squirrel Drawing and Photoshop

For my grey baddie i used a mixture of watercolors, fine liners, felt tips and Photoshop to proceed to my outcome. 

When my first attempt at my grey squirrel was completed a found that the tail did not quite fit and that the shoes were to pointy and long. However because i was happy with the rest of the picture i put the whole image into Photoshop and edited and cleaned the picture from there.

First attempt in Photoshop, firstly cut and pasted the tail so that it was close to the body of the squirrel. Next i colored the shoes and cut off the unnecessary "antlers" on the top of its ears. I then went on to trial two. 

Photoshop trial two, i used contrast, exposure and highlights to altar the Grey Squirrel to make him look scarier and more fierce so that he stands out compared to the other animals/characters.

I decided that from all the different variations of the character that i had done this was the best and most suitable as it was fierce enough that the "bad" in the character would come across but not so bad that my target audience would be scared. The shoes and the brown highlights give the grey squirrel a more comical and soft tone to it while the sharp edges, greyness and the darkness give a terrifying look to the character

The Good Brown Squirrel Shoe Outcome (Primary Research)

Why? I chose these shoes because i felt that these are the kind of shoes that my target audience can relate to and i felt that this would give off a good sense of security with their height and shape, however when drawn i am planning on changing the colouring of the shoe to a green to match the colouring of the squirrel. 

The Grey Bad Squirrel Shoe (Primary Research)

Why? Doctor Martens are a typical "bad boy" and "rebellious" look and that is what i am going for with the bad squirrel. He is a good guy gone wrong and this shows in his style. However unlike the other shoe i decided not to match the colouring with the typical colour of this character and stay with a dark black and involve the red into it.