Balloon Boy

Here I have developed my Balloon Boy idea a bit further by creating a better image of the character using Photoshop. The first picture is a exact copy of my original sketch and the second has more colour and eyebrows.

The question is how am I going to create the eyes and mouth because I don't want the mouth to look 3d. I would rather the facial features to look 2d and painted on like a party ballon with a print on it. This is something that would need to created outside of 3ds max, most probably in Flash.

Facial Expressions Research

The facial expressions of the character can be vitally important to convey the emotions that they are going through. The are over 40 muscles in the human face and these muscles combine complexly to show different emotions. In the Preston Blair series there are twelve Phoneme mouth posses that can give the expression of a character talking. These shapes can be pre-prepared before the actual lip syncing of the character animation has started. Using the 'Morpher' modifier in 3ds max will give nice realistic movement of a human face but this is quite a tricky method because the model need to be well made with good features like lips and cheeks that are easily able to be manipulated without problem.

Animals are often used by Disney to create interesting characters in their animations. The animals often have very humanistic facial shapes to show their expressions, this is because the animators want the audience to connect with the character and to easily understand what emotions they are going through. The Disney character Micky Mouse walks upright and his mannerisms are very human, this is also true for his fiscal expressions that more resemble a young boy than a mouse. Pluto the dog isn't as human looking as he walks and acts like a dog. Facially he primarily tries to be more like a dog but because Pluto doesn't talk he needs to show of his emotions by changing the shape of his mouth and eyes which will also make him look more human, this is especially noticeable with his lips.

Disney Cartoon - Pluto's Playmate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAEdJc3RBg


Drawing out all the different facial shapes of your character seems like a good thing to do as it prepares yourself for when you start animating. Below is lots of different expressions that a Disney lion Cub character could make within a story. Each facial shape is worked out before hand and that shape will now be the slandered shape for that expression throughout the movie.
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Humans have lots of different expressions that look subtly different, which are sometimes hard to distinguish between. To help understand the expressions character animators will exaggerate facial expressions so they are easily recognisable. The subtle expressions might easily be missed or misconstrued by young children so exaggerating them is a good policy for animating for children. Below is a set of expressions for a bold cartoon man. Each expression has subtle difference's like one eyebrow up and one down for being dreamy, of both eyebrows down when being bored.

For one of my initial ideas I have come up with Balloon Boy which uses just facial expressions. The character has no nose or ears which doesn't really matter when animating a human style because they don't move. For my initial sketches I left out the eye brows which I think would be a mistake as they will come in handy when trying to convey his expressions. Below is a bunch of simple smiley faces with different moods that I think matches the style I want Balloon Boy to have. These will be a good reference if I go ahead with this idea.

Initial Character Ideas/Mood Board

To give myself some inspiration I looked at a lot of different types of animated characters that were about on the Internet. For my Mood board I chose a variety of characters that I liked the look of. In the picture there is: 2d, 3d, iconic, human, animal and strange looking characters. The majority of characters are either human or animal but there are the odd one that is a bit different. For example I found some strange looking house hold items with arms and legs. My favourite has to be the bazaar Spongebob Square Pants, his facial expressions are brilliant! It would be nice if I could create a character that was unique and a bit different.

The first character idea I had was Wolf Boy. This came about because I was unsure if I wanted to create a human or animal character, so I thought of combining the both to make a boy in a wolf costume. The boy be quite cute and Innocent and have a good imagination. He will also act out being a fearless wolf and take on the mannerisms of an animal. The boy doesn't have to be a wolf maybe a chicken or Tiger could work.

For a more abstract idea I came up with Balloon Boy! This is a character that to my knowledge has never been done before and I was quite original. I started thinking of different sides of his personality maybe happy and mellow with a nice big smile across his face, but bad luck is always around the corner for Balloon Boy i.e, getting stuck in places due to static, the knot being undone and seeing him fly through the air. I thought it would be fun to have an animation that had different sketches of his ups and downs!

The string attached to him could also be animated, for instance it could turn into an arrow shape if Balloon Boy want to point somewhere or he could tie himself to something.

Character Personality Research

Below are links to clips that show a real attention to personality in a character.The clips show examples of the body language that provides the signals to there personality.

Decency - Vancouver Film School (VFS)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT3tJZv0sSA&feature=channel

The first thing that comes to my attention is the subtle facial expressions of the Sheepish character Tony. He doesn't want to get involved with the stone throwing but he is been pressured into getting involved by his friend. It shows Tony is a bit of a thinker, he has a conscious and he's also a bit of a wimp when it comes to standing up to his friend. I like the bit is where he takes a small breath before he picks up a stone. This seems like he is talking himself in to it, inside his own head.

Hungry Gopher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcWQClEqspo

The main character 'the Gopher' starts of looking a bit 'simple' and not very intelligent but he has a great idea that makes you think otherwise. But you find out that the idea is too good to be true and the Gophers bad luck will prevail. I like the way he goes through lots of different emotions from happy to scared and then to angry in a short space of time.

Spirited away - No face clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4SneUJbAmE

In this short clip from the film Spirted away the lead character Chihiro meets a mysterious ghostly spirit. The personality of the girl comes out well here because she shows her innocence and her 'girly' mannerisms well. Her arms are close to her body and her hands clenched in a non-confrontational and anxious way.