Premise: Character Design (Part 5)

I proceeded from the previous designs onto the other characters and started to explore how these characters could essentially fit into the school setting. I started looking at the fantasy creatures first with another centaur design, another mermaid design, a medusa-based design, and a minotaur coach/teacher.

At this point, I realised that I was overall enjoying creating the animal designs more than the fantasy ones, and it felt like the animal characters had a more obvious overarching theme that tied all of the designs together for a more cohesive look. I also considered something that I had spoken to Alan about previously as well, which was that having multiple characters that were vastly different in design would be difficult to keep up with in terms of rigging and modelling, and that perhaps more generic blank slates could be modelled/rigged and then textured to make them look different instead. This could then mean that I could start to look at characters with animated textures on their faces instead of making entirely new models for each individual character.

I moved on to the animal designs again, looking at some of the previous designs I'd made and working on them somewhat.

At this point, I started to look at horse-like characters and faces for cats. I also went back to the kangaroo design that I'd made for the first iteration of the idea and used it to make her into a 'teacher' character.

As the basic idea for the story is about the fact that I was anxious about joining a new school when I was a lot younger where I didn't really know anybody and everything seemed scary (even if it didn't look it) and I felt like I didn't fit in at first (hence the other characters being something like animals or fantasy creatures). I want to focus on creating another character that will eventually help the main character to come out of their shell and get used to their situation. This would essentially be a sidekick character or a deuteragonist, and the characters would become friends by the end of the story and the main character would overcome their fears and feel more comfortable.

For both the animal and fantasy designs, I considered what Justin had said about there being some kind of antagonist character or characters, such as a group of bullies. While I did try to explore this briefly in some of the designs, I don't think having a narrative of an antagonist versus a protagonist would really fit into what I was trying to write about, so I am intending on focusing on friendlier and cuter designs. 

In terms of the other character that will become friends with the main character, I am leaning more towards the yellow dog and the brown cat designs at the moment.