Character Design

We recently did a cool character design assignment in my visual storytelling class.

The task was to create a character who could exist in the universe of an existing animated movie, so I chose one of my favorite movies, Paranorman. The character i was working off of was Alvin, the bully.

 By Heidi Smith, property of Laika.

I wanted to make Alvin's older brother, Garrett.

Garrett is about 6 years older than Alvin, and the two were very close. Garrett always hung out with Alvin on the weekends, and was Alvin's biggest supporter when he was learning to breakdance. 

Garrett was strong and confident, but due to academic struggles he could never find much direction in his life. So he joined the military and served a year in Afghanistan before getting killed by an ied.

Garrett's death was the cause of Alvin's bullyhood, because he just couldn't deal with the loss. Alvin keeps this picture, the last one taken of them hidden in his room, and it is one of his most prized possessions. 

I got so into this project, and by the time I was finished, i truly felt like I knew Garrett. I knew how he would talk and move. I knew what he would do when he was procrastinating. I could picture him not only existing in the world of Paranorman, but also in ours. I felt so much for this character, and now I have to move on to new characters and new stories. Such is the life of an animation student, I guess.

On another note, foreshortening is hard to draw. So are hands. And this doodle I did while watching Gravity Falls has both of those things.

I really need to learn more about hands.