12/ Initial Designs

-Starting practical, taking inspiration from Nicolas Marlet's ability to stylise animal characters
-Looking at Japanese sculptures of Momotaro to check cultural accuracy again
-Deciding characteristics of animal characters, what would've been indigenous to Japan and how those animals usually interact. This meant looking at how a pheasant would fight/act/move and the same for the other two
-Considering what physical attributes are inherent to the animal looking recognisable.
-Looking at Japanese dog breeds, relevant to the heritage of the story: Hokkaido (hunters) Akita(Loyal) Shiba Inu (hunter) Kai Ken (less independent, is intelligent) Spitz (companion)
I chose the Hokkaido for its strong structure and hunting ability, necessary for this fighting story.

fig 1

-Continuing essay writing for submission (Intro and 2 chapters written and edited for first draft).

Fig.1 shows the initial notes I made for the characters, and the characteristics that I felt were necessary for translating the breed across.






-I have recently got skillshare, trying to learn how to strengthen my character designs as much as possible. A couple classes that stuck out were by Melissa Lee and Tom Bancroft.

  PRESENTATION of Practical Progress so far

I chose the Japanese macaque because it is indigenous to the hills of Japan, a species inherent to the country. It's also often the species that is depicted in the other tellings of Momotaro, as far as I can tell.

I chose this Japanese dog breed called the Hokkaido instead of the others (Akita, Shiba Inu, Kai Ken, Tossa Inu, Spitz) because it is known for being a hunters, which I felt would be more useful to the protagonist than a less independent dog such as the Kai Ken or a companion dog like the Spitz. It is big in stature and an intelligent, loyal breed which is everything that this character needed to be.

I'm really happy with where these designs are going, I'm really trying to focus on translating across their personalities and trying to push proportions whilst understanding the skeletons of the animals.
I wanted the animals to be full of character and expression like in Kung Fu Panda, however they still act as animals and can't communicate with humans which is why they aren't anthropomorphized to a human level, it's more like Avatar Last Airbender-esque. My version is a PG show, kid friendly, where the characters need to be full of character, as if these designs were being proposed for a full seasoned show of Momotaro.

After tutorial with Mike:
Unsure of how my animal designs were relevant to my essay, it has made it clear that I really need to stress why I have chosen this for my practical response. The point is stressing the importance of retelling a cultural story accurately and respectfully, which is what I will be putting into practice by not relying on stereotypes and doing my research on the time period.

I needed to stress that the animals are just representing animals so there is no worry about causing offense, but because they aren't putting what I've learnt into practice as much as human characters, but they do serve the story, I will approach these as side characters with less in depth designs as I bring in designs for Momotaro and his parents on top of the 3 animals.

I have been consistently trying to watch some Skillshare videos on character and background design whilst I work on these designs, including these below by Tom Bancroft, Melissa Lee, Jonas de Ro...