@Phil [Minor Project] 32: Oxygen Character; More Hand Testing

In response to Phil's feedback on my previous post I have experimented with Oxygen hands H19 and H20 in combination with his body. My primary favourite is 12 and secondary favourite is 15.

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[Minor Project] 31: Oxygen Character; Hand Designing & Testing

I began with the top view of Hydrogen's hand and developed Oxygen's from there, since both their bodies are built upon a sphere. I had previously encountered the problem of the claw-like appearance 3 fingers can have whilst designing Iron's hands, so I decided to give Oxygen four fingers because it may further help the audience empathise with him if his hands are more humanoid. 

After producing 20 variations I chose my top 6 - H04, H06, H08, H12, H13 and H17 - and tested these out in combination with Oxygen's body. For 07-09 I tested out my top 3 of these with smaller hands. I was torn between 05 and 08, thinking 05's hands might be too big; I decided upon 05 as my favourite, which uses H13 as the hands.

Favourite Oxygen design

Oxygen hand thumbnails H01-H20

Oxygen (with hands) thumbnails 01-09

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@Alan [Minor Project] 30: Iron Character; Modelling 01

Alan do you have any feedback for me on my Iron modelling progress please? Such as whether you think the hard edges of Iron's torso are suitable, or whether the hard edges are too sharp on Iron's torso/feet.

Latest Progress

Perspective

Front

Side

Top

Foot Projections - Non-smoothed

Foot Projections - Smoothed

Orthographics

Iron's head will sit partially within an alcove inside his body, his hands with also be able to retract into an alcove either side of his chest, I have indicated these features in the front & side views via dotted lines and darker shading. The side view does not show Iron's facial features or his brow.

Development

On Iron's foot I had previously performed an offset extrude on its lower part to create a hard edge, afterwards I decided to extend the edges up the foot on the 4 sides instead, giving the foot harder edges leading to the point. Curving in the bottom of Iron's foot in the front view did not look right so I decided to remove this feature.

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[Minor Project] 29: Oxygen Character; Chosen Colour

After receiving feedback from Jackie, Adam & Kayliegh I have switched to using CL08 for Oxygen's colour scheme. Turns out this isn't too similar to Iron's colour, as I had previously worried.

Back Row: Graphite (Carbon), Iron & Helium. Front Row: Oxygen & Hydrogen.

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[Minor Project] 28: Oxygen Character; Colour Tests 01-10

Taking Oxygen thumbnail 75 ahead, I have performed multiple colour tests. Feedback from Kayliegh indicated that her favourites are CL08 and CL02, meanwhile my favourites are CL09, CL03 and CL02. 
Next up is designing Oxygen's hands...

Favourites

Oxygen Colour Tests 01-10

Colour Influences with Swatches

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@Phil [Minor Project] 27: Sound & Language Ideas: Gibberish, Simlish etc.

The inspiration
Jackie linked me to a really effective Character-based animation about some of the properties of Oxygen and its interactions with other periodic elements. This animation's reliance is on physical comedy, expressions and a voiceover. Similar to my Elements Academy characters, some of the periodic elements have been adapted as elementary school children. This animation got me thinking about my use of sound in my eventual Elements Academy animation...

Why not a voiceover?
Using a voiceover does not feel right for my animation, I feel it's too direct and could take the focus away from what's important about the animation, how the elements interact.

If not a voiceover, what?
Elements Academy will be so much more about what the characters do than what they say; this leads to the interesting proposal of rather than my characters speaking a specific language such as English, I'm looking to go the route of The Sims Simlish language, and Despicable Me's Minions by having my characters use a gibberish-based language. Using a gibberish-based language would mean characters body language, tone and expressions take centre stage.

A gibberish-based language, why?
If Elements Academy was a real web series, using such a language would remove the need for translation for viewing by non-English speakers, thus reducing costs and increasing its ability to reach a wider audience; in practice taking further advantage of the internet's multinational connectivity, thus increasing the marketability of the product and widening the dissemination potential of Elements Academy merchandise.

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@Phil [Minor Project] 26: Oxygen Character; Thumbnails 56-75

After receiving feedback from Phil and Jackie about my previous Oxygen thumbnails, I have adjusted my tactic. The main changes include the moving of the facial features higher up the body, the addition of a button nose, and bringing back the mouth's horizontal symmetry. My favourite thumbnails are 75, 70 and 68. 

In thumbnail 75, to help fill the blank space on Oxygen's body I tested out a tie inspired by the Erlenmeyer flask, however it quickly became apparent that this wasn't really working and I removed it in the next thumbnail.

Favourites

Oxygen character thumbnails 56-75

More influences

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