Evaluation

On the whole I am pleased with the work that I have produced. I have learnt new techniques and utilised these to create a believable character, which fulfilled the brief given. I particularly enjoyed working with morpher and using FFD boxes to manipulate the shape of the eyes and facial expressions. These techniques were new to me and I feel proud of how I have managed to use them in my piece.

I very much enjoyed the amount of research within this project with regard to behavioural study and trying to recreate actual expression on my model. I have tried throughout the animating procedure to link the expressions and body language as closely as possible to real behaviours and gestures, studied through people watching and also film clips taken.

I feel that experimenting with morpher, boning and view constraints during the animation production has helped me to produce a relatively realistic impression of a new character. I have realised that I have found a new love for 3D modeling through character animation that I had lacked in previous modules dealing with 3D modeling. I believe this is due to the basis of animating that I came across in this module largely based upon human behaviours and expression which I have always been very interested in. I also particularly enjoyed the scope of being able to create any type of character we wished and to analyse our creations through trying to build a convincing character and with it, his own unique personality.

This module has been one of my favourites throughout my time at University and I hope to continue to produce work based upon my experiences within this project.

Improvements

There are quite a few instances that I would alter or change if I had more time. As I have mentioned previously, I would have liked to include a background and other characters and props to create a more convincing environment for Terry. I feel that I have applied certain techniques to try to communicate the persona I have created for Terry reasonably well although with more time I think I could have made him much more villain-esque by introducing other characters that he could annoy and irritate, as well as becoming frustrated himself.

I would also liked to have spent more time on body language, trying again to include movement of Terry's body and limbs more. More camera angles and scenes could also be used to create a longer and more dynamic piece.

With regard to Terry himself I do like the fact that he doesn't have any dialogue in this instance but in future projects I would very much like to use lip syncing techniques and give Terry a voice. I would also like to use real actors within the piece as, although I am very grateful to my willing participant being the voice of Terry, I feel that by using a trained actor I could achieve an even more realistic reaction for my character.

Compiling the Pieces

After I had generated the audio and the visual I compiled them again within Premiere Pro and exported them as one media, creating the final animation.

Here is the final project. The video above is of a lesser quality to be able to upload it on this site.
I hope you enjoy!

Audio

For the audio of my piece I used Ableton to create a soundtrack to increase the believability of my whole project.

Above you can see the screen grab of my Ableton file.

To start constructing the audio I sourced two alarm rings from freesound.org. I then asked a willing participant to record some verbal aspects to the piece such as the yawn that starts the scene and also the frustrated tut, annoyed groan, angry ringing and the wobble at the end of the piece. The alarm sound effect was quite harsh in tone, so I added reverb so create a more natural sound, that I felt worked better.

I used one alarm for the initial ringing scene and combined two for the frustrated ringing section to demonstrate a louder and more angry sound that coincides with the angrier expression of Terry. I also added a ticking audio section for when Terry looks up and watches his hand move to the 'O'clock' position. After the verbal sections were recorded they were synched to the video. I then sourced a glass smash file from freesounds.org to use for when Terry falls at the end as I couldn't find an actual alarm clock smashing sound effect. This smash didn't work quite how I wanted so I used a low pass filter so it sounded more like a bell, and the sound of an alarm clock fall instead of a glass.

Finally I added the melodic piano version of  'Hickory Dickory Dock' as an intro and outro. I faded out the tune at the beginning as I faded in the ticking. I decided on using this tune as a theme tune due to it being instantly recognised by children and adults alike, instantly creating the idea of a clock based animation. I used the tune at the end to complete the sequence, to balance the piece.

Premiere Pro

As touched upon in my previous post, once I had rendered the majority of scenes I required for my piece, I imported them into premiere pro to edit and to collate the animation as a whole.

Above a screen shot of the premiere pro file is viewable, showing the separate scenes. For some of the ringing scenes I manipulated the effects of the transitions between scenes (particularly at the beginning and end of the piece), added a title scene and I also tried different speeds, speeding up some of the ringing sections to add to the frantic feel of Terry. I realised at this point that my opening scene of Terry yawning didn't really work and so I re-rendered a version of that scene with the use of a camera zoom to 'set the scene'.

Once I was happy with how the audio looked it was time to construct the audio accompaniment.

Moustache Hands

Some of the scenes were rendered quite a few times due to mistakes, such as the outer body of Terry being visible through his open mouth. Once I had rendered the majority of the scenes I required I imported the rendered scenes into Premiere Pro. I then edited and moved them around to create an initial piece (without sound) to show to a few people to gage their reactions, ask their opinions and also to see whether Terry and his facial animations were believable enough for a final render. Most of the feedback I received was positive, although one audience member did question the time change in some of the scenes.

I explained that the hands on the clock face were used for the majority of the piece to emphasise the emotion and gestures of Terry (e.g. yawning the hands are pointing down as if stretching with his facial muscles) and during the second scene there are used for Terry to tell the exact time and to know when to start his alarm call. In the scenes where Terry is not using his hands to emphasise his facial expression, they act as his moustache, at a generic twenty to four position.

Final Scene

For the final scene I wanted Terry to go from being an angry little clock to get his 'comeuppance'. Throughout my research into existing villainous characters, for the audience to connect with the hero of the piece, the villain never ends up victorious. In my original storyboard I had Terry ringing too close to the edge of the bedside table and falling from it. Since I had no environment and consequently no bedside cabinet for Terry to fall from I chose to show him wobbling where he was and losing control of his ringing which made him fall backwards. 

I animated Terry wobbling and I had to try a few different techniques to get him to wobble effectively. Linking and connecting the different objects didn't work as each piece of Terry decided to fly off wherever they fancied. In the end I had to group the objects and make the wobble effect by moving his legs and using rotation. Unfortunately after grouping Terry's pieces I was unable to affect the pivot point, which I wanted to place down on one of his legs. I had to therefore leave it central to Terry which I don't feel worked as well as I had originally intended. In the end I was reasonably happy with how Terry wobbled and how his pupils moved due to the link constraint I had used for him to look at. 

As Terry falls backwards there is no real connection point where he hits the floor as there is no real floor for him to hit. I would like to have added real world physics to this part and assigned mass and gravity to the scene but I ran out of time.

Cameras

To mix things up a little in the animation I used a couple of cameras to zoom in, for example in the opening scene, and also halfway through the ringing to suggest a lengthened sequence of ringing (without having to endure too much of the noise for the audience) I inserted a camera shot that comes from behind Terry and over the top. I also added a camera shot that zooms in to Terry as he falls at the end of the piece, entering his mouth and fading to black.

I wanted to include different angles and camera shots to sustain interest for the audience and also to generate another aspect of movement within the piece, whilst still trying to fill the screen and create that close up and villainous aspect of Terry without being too obvious.

Animating Eye Issues Resolved

When it came to animating Terry when he was ringing his alarm, I was using AutoKey and rotating Terry after moving the pivot point of every object to the same point. The only issue I came across when animating Terry in this way was that the white of Terry's eyes would disappear.

In the first section of ringing I rotated Terry's eyes individually from his body, as I mentioned previously. To combat the disappearing whites of the eyes in the more frustrated section of ringing, I inserted an animation sequence that shows Terry scrunching his eyes up and close them in anger in preparation for a more exerted section. Inserting this sequence allowed me to animate the ringing without worrying about the loss of the whites.

Background and Props

In my storyboard I included a setting for Terry. A background stage, props and a scene in which to 'live' I will not be including these within this project as I have been made aware that I will not be marked on this section of the animation. I feel that without these props and scenery I have been able to spend more time on the characterisation of Terry and his expression which I have enjoyed, and hope that it will demonstrate the time I have spent trying to get his expression right and believable as a character. If I had more time I would have included these assets to increase believability but if the character is not believable, the background wouldn't be so I am glad to work solely on the character.

Once I have completed this module I do intend on carrying on with Terry and animating him with a home to live in as I have become quite attached to him and hope to create a more complete animation in my own time.

Body Language for Villains

During my research of more well known villains I have taken note of some of the body language that is used by these villains. 

Cruella DeVille

Cruella as mentioned previously, is very thin with accentuated limbs and a large fur coat giving her overly large shoulders. She is often hunched and although skinny she fills the space that she is in, for example the room or in fact the screen. She also sweeps around the scene in a dramatic and swift fashion.

Ursula

Ursula is huge compared to Ariel (the heroine of the film the little mermaid) and she dominates both the screen and also seems to surround ariel with her tentacles. She moves quickly in a creepy way with her tentacles seeming to be everywhere. At the ending of the film she even grows to massive proportions and creates a whirlpool of the sea, becoming enormous in an attempt to kill the heros.

Darth Vader

The main body language of Darth Vader is that of sweeping around with his large black cloak, again he is taller than the other characters and a lot of the camera angles are from ground level looking up at him, making him seem larger and more dominating.

Doctor Who Villains

Looking back at the research I did regarding children's magazines and TV shows, the Dr Who villains in the majority also tended to be much larger than the heroes and also have more of a robotic style of movement, moving away from the 'personable' feel of the heroes. Examples can be seen in famous Dr who villains such as the Daleks, Cybermen and the Judoon.

Sharks

Filling the whole screen and scene in which they are in tends to be the key here. Also their speed. Whether talking about the film Jaws or indeed in more recent adaptations of Sharks in Finding Nemo and Shark Tale.

Most of the villains that I have researched for this project tend to err on the side of madness or psychotic. To show this trait in some fashion I decided to give Terry his OCD and his time-keeping as a sign of being on a mental knife edge. As I have mentioned before, I didn't want to go too 'obvious' with my character so he is not 'mad' but there is scope there for the potential to turn which I hope to demonstrate in his frustration and anger at being ignored.

Again, the majority of the characters looked at show size to demonstrate their villainous temperament. As Terry is short in stature I will be utilising camera angles to portray him as filling the screen to add a menacing feel to the animation. This technique can be seen in many of the different types of media I have researched about villains and their body language.

There are many clips and sequences on YouTube of 'Top ten best and worst villains' and similar videos. This one below demonstrates great villainous characters that are larger than their enemies and camera angles that show their size, for example King pin, Scar, Green Goblin and Lord Voldemort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hutIsu7GjU0

I also looked at popular children's video games and literature as part of my research to cover all areas as nowadays most characters get turned into franchises that create films, games, books and toys all aimed at the target demographic that this brief entails. Video games include disney games, mario, sonic and Harry Potter. The literature that I researched included Harry Potter of course, having read these books I must say that the villains are very striking and again tend to be very quick, intelligent, large and frightening, verging on madness.

This link below was useful as an initial starting point when I was creating my character, giving him slanted 'evil' eyes for the majority of the piece. I also used red for the main body which has connotations of danger, and blood which (as shown by previous research) is common among villainous characters. The polished brass of Terry indicates his OCD traits with time keeping and punctuality which can often transverse into tidiness and his pride in his personal appearance.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8517826_draw-villain-characters.html

Animating Issues

Due to how I had modeled the eyes (explained in a previous post) I couldn't attach them to the face and still manipulate them the way I wanted to (with the FFD boxes and rotating the eyelids for blinking). So I kept them as separate models and manipulated them individually. This was working well when I created all of the facial expressions (a few examples are displayed in my previous post) the issues came when animating Terry as a whole object.

In the scene where Terry gets agitated that no one is paying him any attention, he gets quite frustrated and wobbles from side to side in an effort to ring harder and louder. For the rest of Terry (excluding the eyes) it was simply a matter of rotating every model at specific times, using Auto Key, after moving the pivot points to the same position.

When it came to using the same technique on the eyes, when I tried to move the pivot point of the white of Terry's eye, it disappeared altogether (see above). Unfortunately in this scene with Terry ringing I had to manually move the eyes into position once I had animated the body. I tried to move and rotate them to coincide with the movements of the rest of Terry although you can still see it doesn't quite match up precisely which I am unhappy with. Due to time constraints I pressed on with the animation and if I was to have more time, this is one thing I would definitely try to resolve further.

This clip shows the eye movements separated from the rest of Terry.

Another issue I found after 5 hours of rendering was in the beginning yawn scene. I realised too late that when Terry yawns, part of his outer body (in red) can be seen in the bottom of his mouth. This clip can be seen below. To rectify this was relatively easy as I had kept each part of Terry separate, I went into the editable poly of the outer body and manipulated the vertices so this didn't happen.

Morpher Facial Expressions

Here are the new morpher facial expressions created using the still images from the video of Oscar acting out the story board as a reference. I firstly did some preliminary sketches of these in my sketchbook before adapting the sketches to the 3D model.

Yawn

This is the Yawn scene that will start the animation. I altered this slightly so that the nose rose with the eyes and the open mouth did not touch it. I feel the eyes and mouth shape worked particularly well to generate a facial expression very similar to the one seen on the left.

O'Clock

Here, I tried to get the mouth and eyes looking at the big hand and 'concentrating'. I feel this face looks very much like the human counter part and am chuffed that I managed to get the mouth to almost close, in a similar shape to the still image of Oscar, even regarding the constraints of the turbosmooth issue.

Peek

This is where Terry takes a peek to see if he has awoken his intended target. As Terry is the villain of the piece I gave his eyes a more 'evil' look, by pointing them downwards and showing Terry peeking upwards he is short in stature with 'small clock' syndrome, looking up rather than Oscar does here.

Ring.

Here I had trouble making Terry's mouth properly shut due to the challenges explained earlier with turbosmooth. I did feel however that this expression of mouth almost shows the same expression as Oscar - as close as I could manage. The FFD boxes on the eyes were manipulated to make them more 'scrunched' as in Oscar's image. With the movement of the body and also the bells I believe this will look similar to the human image.

Morphing Issues

After changing the material of Terry's face (in retrospect I should have foreseen the problem and changed the material before using morpher) of course I had changed the initial model. This meant that all of the morpher targets I had created were not the same model and therefore morpher stopped working. To solve this problem I tried many many different things involving changing the order of the stack and creating more morpher targets but for some reason each time I did this I couldn't get morpher to work. Due to morpher being an integral part to my animation this was a problem that I had to resolve. Eventually I managed to get morpher working once more by using a 3DS Max file of Terry minus his bones. Therefore the movement of his face and his limbs may have to be done seperately.

New morpher targets

One of the other problems I came across when remorphing Terry is that each of the morph targets required turbosmooth to be removed from their stacks (or at least did when I tried!) which made it quite difficult to create the correct expression on the actual model of Terry. On some of the targets I had to cross vertices quite substantially to try to close Terry's mouth.. this made editing the targets quite challenging. This happened I think, due to the changing amount of polygons on the targets and the final model that has turbosmooth applied. I edited the targets to the best that I could without generating folds and problems on the final model when the expression was changed.

Face Materials

After boning Terry and playing with morpher to move his mouth, I wasn't happy with how the material on his face was distorting when his mouth moved. I took a photo of my personal alarm clock and edited the photo of Photoshop to take away the hands and centre ring. I then added these to Terry as a bitmap.

I still wasn't happy with this material, mainly due to how Terry ended up looking like he had eaten some numbers every time he opened his mouth. To avoid this issue I used a multi-sub object material to make the inside of his mouth black.

In the Polygon Material ID section I assigned the outside of Terry's face to the clock bitmap via smoothing group 1, I then selected the polygons inside Terry's mouth and assigned them to smoothing group two and put a matte black vinyl material on it via the material editor.

Boning Terry

As my character is an alarm clock.. I decided that he should look and act to an extent as an alarm clock would with regard to his movements. My animation is based largely on facial expression as the bells (which will move to dictate the ringing and hopefully some body language) and legs are the only limbs that I will bone and rig on my character. The main body of Terry will act as a regular alarm clock body and be rigid as I don't feel it would add very much to the animation and I foresee it creating problems.

I wish for the face of Terry to show his impatient nature and demonstrate his very short fuse.. getting angry when people don't wake up and pay attention to the time/him. This I will demonstrate through his frustration.

Here are the bones that Terry has in his limbs.

Characterisation

Throughout the animating process I have constantly been thinking about the character of my piece. I found this piece (see below) on "lazy-villains" by a writer that inspired me to keep my character mute (no generic evil laugh!) to an extent (there is an audio soundtrack to the piece). I have also (through anthropomorphism) tried to step away from the 'typical' villain. I wanted to use the research I had gathered on existing villains and use some of the traits in my character but not to make a clone of a pre-existing character. The brief was to generate a new villain so that is what I hope I have achieved through my work.

http://nusseymagazine.com/abigailnussey/?p=455

Facial Expression - Storyboard

To enhance the believability of Terry in my animation I took a series of videos of a willing participant to act out the story board I had created so that I had some real facial expressions for which to translate onto my character. Below are the videos taken, put into sequence with premiere pro.

Terry's Mouth Can Move!

Using morpher, I cloned Terry's clock face and by editing them seperately into various facial expressions (focusing on the mouth at this time) using the edit poly mode, I then linked them onto my original model and using SetKey, I manipulated the values of each mouth movement to make Terry move.

I then rendered this animation to see how it would look in my animation with materials and such. In retrospect I should've rendered every nth frame as my tutor suggested for my test render. This is a lesson I have learnt after a significant amount of time spent waiting for this 3 second video to render! I guess this is all part of learning to animate :)

The rendered video of Terry and the beginnings of his mouth movement;

Here you can see the beginnings of Terry's movements although work will have to be done to ensure the mouth is a lot smoother around the edges and also his eyes and the rest of his face will have to be manipulated to really acheive the desirable effect.

Research - Facial Expression

To get the right facial expression in my animation to portray the right emotion and be clear to the audience in terms of storyline I have been researching into different facial expressions. To start with I have been looking at the mouth and the different shapes I will have to create in morpher to allow Terry's mouth to move in a realistic fashion.

Here is a female mouth using the different movements to create certain shapes. Taking this as a starting point I have (using morpher) constructed some mouth shapes for Terry.

I have also been looking at the mouth shapes created by speech to use with Terry, even if I decide that he will be a mute character I thought it best to have the option of speech.

Following my research into the mouth movement to use with Terry, I then went on to do rather a lot of research into facial expressions used by actors to convey different types of emotion.

The following YouTube video is particularly helpful in explaining certain aspects of expression. For example, this professional actor suggests widening the eyes 35-40% without moving the upper brow to convey anger in the eyes.

Following this research I hope to convince a friend to let me film him acting out my storyboard as 'Sir' Terry, to capture the essence of emotion I wish to portray through my animation. I hope that this will be a very useful project in creating 'real' emotion in my piece.

'Sir' Terry's Mouth

Here I have added a mouth to 'Sir' Terry, and I have been working on using morpher to animate the different facial expressions, currently regarding the mouth. 

Above you can see I have added a clock face bitmap for Terry's face. It works as a temporary material but I am hoping to take my own photograph to use as a bitmap for Terry's final skin.

Sir Terry Timepiece -An Initial Model (and an unfortunate discovery!)

Here you see the beginnings of 'Sir' Terry Timepiece. 

I have used the eyes from my original cartoon rat character for ease and created a model that will become my final character. I wanted a relatively simple model so that rendering won't be a big issue and I stuck to the general look of an alarm clock that many people could relate to in terms of form and structure (minus the eyes of course!) 

The next part I will be focusing on will be Terry's mouth which will be integral to the facial expressions I have illustrated on my storyboard. I also want to texture him to look relatively realistic with bronze/gold coloured bells, ceramic/painted metallic body and plastic facial features.

Unfortunately or fortunately... I'm not really sure which yet, whilst continuing to research alarm clocks and how they can be animated effectively, I came across this short animation on YouTube. 

It has a lot of very similar attributes to my proposed theme and idea, without however, the main idea that I will be showing the frustration of Terry through his facial expression cementing his character as the antagonist of the piece. I think that after finding this video I will go out and film some people getting frustrated and angry, and use their facial expressions to help me turn Terry into much more of an annoyed and temperamental character rather that will move my final piece further away from this idea.

I may however still decide on changing my idea completely if I feel that I cannot move far enough away from this piece which is a little too close to my original idea for my liking.

A Couple of Tutorials

1. Cartoon Eyes

In this tutorial we learnt how to create some cartoon style boggly eyes, complete with movable blinking eyelids. Using basic spheres I modeled the eyes, with two eyelids (upper and lower) and also the head and nose of my rat creature. I then modeled two large ears by manipulating a further two spheres. Using FFD boxes I was able to warp and manipulate the head, nose and eyes into the shapes that I wanted. I used the FFD boxes on each eye and its counterparts to create a sneaky and villainous look for my character which I thought turned out quite well. I added two look at constraints, one on each eye so that the direction of the pupils could be moved independently. I made the pupils follow the shape of each eye to add to the overall shifty look of my rodent.

I particularly enjoyed this tutorial and think that eyes such as these will work really well in my chosen villain Sir Terry Timepiece, although I do quite like my rat character which I will keep incase my whole idea changes or I end up including him as a secondary character in my final animation.

2. Boning and Skinning

In this tutorial we learnt about boning and skinning a model so that it can be moved and manipulated for animation using bipeds and rigging. Initially I modeled a simple figure to which I could add some bones. I then used the biped to add his bones, manipulating them to fit his limbs and moving them into position. From this I then added a skin modifier to attach the model to the rig. This didn't work as planned. unfortunately the model and rig did not like the idea of becoming linked by skinning and even though the bones were added correctly to the skin modifier, both entities seemed determined to stay isolated. I continued to try this method and even completely re-modeled my figure due to his feet originally being at a strange angle to his legs (see above) even this, however did not fix the issue. I then tried using the physique modifier instead and manipulated the envelopes to encompass my whole model. This worked in a sense, in the issue regarding the model and rig becoming linked, it did not however work well. Every time I tried to move the rig, various sections of my model's arm would twist in on itself and I was at a bit of a loss as to how to fix this. 

Although this tutorial was not entirely successful, it did help me to understand the techniques used and I intend to use bones to create a rig for Sir Terry that will fit his proportions correctly which I will then use and hopefully link using the skin modifier once I have figured out what my issue was. 

Initial Storyboard

Here I have sketched out a preliminary storyboard for 'Sir' Terry Timepiece (please excuse the glaring misspelling of 'initial'). I decided on a small sketch in where Terry tries to do his duty and wake up the boy in his bed but as he does so, realises that the boy is ignoring him and starts to get more and more frustrated and angry as he tries fruitlessly so wake up the snoozing boy. Eventually this frustration and anger cause him to stray to close to the edge of the chest of drawers which inevitably leads Terry to his demise as he falls from the dizzying heights of the bedside cabinet and onto the floor below with a crash. 

To gain a better visual depiction of how this scene would look, I decided to colour this storyboard in Photoshop which can be seen below.

Character Development

During tutorial 2 we did a task that involved creating a persona for a generic character to make him more unique and to give him characteristics that make him more of a character with a back story. On the left you can see the character and the features I gave to him to make him more believable and lifelike.












As the tutorial above had shown, I needed to create a persona for my chosen character. To start with I decided on what my character would actually be.

I asked a couple of friends and family to ask their relatives between the ages of 7 and 11 who their favourite villains were and also what they dislike most. Many of the responses I got were the characters that I had already researched. The most interesting answers I received were to the "What do you dislike most?" question. To this question, the responses varied including school, getting up for school, bedtime, peas and spiders. I particularly identified with 'getting up for school' because my personal villain is my alarm clock and getting up for work! I then decided that as most of my sketches and research thus far had led me down the rather stereotypical route of how villainy has been portrayed, I thought that I would avoid this by making my character not look particularly menacing on face value but rather have an evil streak. Taking how the Beano's depicted villainous behaviour using the facial features of the character, I thought I could still create a 'villain' but avoid the trappings of his or her appearance being too obvious.




A favourite character of mine of all time has to be Pixar's Luxo Lamp, becoming integrated with the companies identity and the short animation of the big and small lamp of the same name.

I particularly like this character and animation because the character and expression of both lamps are so clear and yet the lamps do not even have faces. Using this idea I thought that I could perhaps create a villain from an everyday object, namely my alarm clock.

As you can see on the left, I started to brainstorm my alarm clock's persona and his characteristics.



On the right I started to generate an illustrative depiction of how my alarm clock might look. During my time spent sketching how my alarm clock might look I remembered Disney's Beauty and the Beast had a clock character called Cogsworth which I decided to research for inspiration.

Cogsworth 

 Researching Cogsworth online led me to some sketched expressions of Cogsworth. I sketched these out myself adding an alarm clock surround on a couple to see how a face would work within my idea. The original sketch image can be found at the link below.

I found I really liked the idea of using a face as the expression would be much clearer and presumably stronger for the young audience to pick up on.

http://superramen.deviantart.com/art/More-Cogsworth-Expressions-87186137

Whilst primarily focusing on expression and visual research to do with Cogsworth (as I didn't want to be influenced too heavily on using similar aspects for my alarm clock fellow) I did stumble upon a biography of Cogsworth that I thought gave an accurate description of his persona.



I decided to use categories that had been used to describe Cogsworth and relate them to my own character.

Here is the character development that I came up with for my character, now christened 'Sir' Terry Timepiece. I decided he is not officially knighted, however he likes the title and thinks that it gives him status, which he is very preoccupied with as he feels that good timekeeping and punctuality are of the utmost importance.

For clarity I have re-typed 'Sir' Terry's final biography here;

Name:  'Sir' Terry Timepiece

Personality:  Terry is pompous, self-important, has a superiority complex, rude, abrupt, annoying and suffers OCD regarding time keeping and punctuality

Appearance:  Short in stature, slightly plump, unfit (winding gives him extra energy), he has a moustache (the hands of the clock face) large goggly eyes, two alarm bells on his head and two stumpy little legs

Goal:  To make the world realise the importance of punctuality and get everyone up on time, more specifically his 'person' Timmy

Home:  Timmy's bedside cabinet

Affiliations and Allies:  Terry is a bit of a loner, no real friends to speak of although he has a soft spot for Timmy's wristwatch Tracy

Enemies:  More modern timepieces such as digital alarm clocks, mobile phone alarm clocks and he hates cockerels 

Likes:  Terry loves to watch the sunrise, he enjoys waking people and takes pleasure from startling people. He likes traditional mechanics such as clockwork, cogs and gears. He collects stamps, enjoys playing with stray bits of blue tack with his little legs and he secretly likes the pat on the head he receives after waking someone up

Dislikes:  Daylight saving time. He hates people who are early and despises people who are late. He also dislikes laziness

Powers/Abilities:  Can ring his alarm bells at will, always has the correct time

Fate:  Terry is replaced by a digital radio after smashing on the floor of Timmy's room

Quotes:  Terry likes to quote Louis the XVIII of France "Punctuality is the politeness of kings" (this is another reason he likes to refer to himself as 'Sir' Timepiece)

Facial Expressions - Generic Villains

 Here I tried my hand at sketching some expressions that I found online, giving them life with just a few features and strokes of the pen. I feel this process has helped me immensely to gain an appreciation of the fact that there are two key areas of expression in the face that depicts the most emotion - the mouth and even more importantly the eyes!

After the market research I generated a quick and basic mind map of the main and most common features of a cartoon villain.

A quick tutorial sketch that I found on youtube later (at the address below) and I felt ready to create my own generic villainous characters;

 On the left is my generic male villain and on the right a female version. Personally speaking I prefer the male villain, whether that be impressed upon me by the multitude of male villains versus the disproportionate number of their female counterparts I am not sure, however for my project I think I am going to focus on a male villain.

Below I have created a less realistic cartoon villain using the traditional vampire idea of 'evil' (complete with pet dog... of course?)