Some Visuals: Character Designs

As promised, here is some of the initial character designs and art that I generated for the film.
Here's the first drawing that started it all:

I really liked it right off the bat, but forced myself to create a few more designs:




Good thing too. I wanted him to look human but to have some ducky attributes. I have since decided that I like the idea of him having large paddle like feet and possibly a larger head. Also, in my last pitch to the committee it was suggested that perhaps duck boy was part of some scientific experiment. I liked that idea and have since decided that his leaf/dirt diaper will actually be made of feathers. I even considered the idea of giving him duck feet but I think that would be a little too much. Here is what I envision as being duck boy's final design:



I'm still working on some different style boards (next post) so the art style might change but the basic character design should stay the same.

Also here are some ducks:



Weekend after 4th of July I'm hoping to go on a duck research outing in a park or pond (or maybe just the Zoo). If any one would like to join me and draw ducks you're more than welcome to. AND if any one has a video camera I can borrow that would be awesome too. I'd like to capture some video reference of ducks in action.

In other unrelated news, I just purchased ToonBoom and am very excited about its capabilities. I think it will work well for my film. It has all the advantages of paperless 2d and it doesn't look too vectorized like flash. Plus as I learned from Shawn, it has very good coloring tools and some compositing abilities. I'm trying to learn it as fast as possible.

My parking meter is about to run out so I'll wrap things here for now.

The First Post!!!

Welcome to the first post of my Sr Thesis Blog! You'll have to forgive me as I'm rather unaccustomed to the grand tradition of blogging; nevertheless Sheila suggested that we start one to organize our thoughts and document our progress, so I figured I'd give it a go. I guess by the end we should all be able to see an evolution of our film from beginning to end of our production?

My film is called "Duck Boy," and it tells the story of a (questionably) human boy who hatches from a duck egg and grows up in a family of ducks. Like most of the things I do, this film started in an extremely stupid fashion. One day, several months ago I drew a sketch of a little boy hatching from an egg. The image was so charmingly absurd to me, and after laughing my ass off for five minutes I decided to make a film about it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Initially the story was one of independence and fitting in, but has since evolved into more a story about the concept and strength of family: a bond so strong that it defies and even crosses species lines. I also had ideas about the contrast between human versus animal, difference and sameness.

A lot of people had problems with the fact that duck boy's origins are ambiguous and the fact that pretty much everything else in the story is fairly realistic except for the whole boy from an egg thing. These things never really bothered me. I kind of just accepted them as part of the diegesis of the film. Maybe if I think of something concerning those issues I can put it in the story.

Anyway, I think that's enough for introductions for now. I've never done this whole blogging thing and I'm not really sure how to wrap this up. Keep an eye out for future posts. I'll put up some of the initial character art and story boards, and eventually style boards and environment designs (which I still need to work out).

Cheers for now!!!