Adaptation Part B: Oiwa Design Sheet

To decide on the final design, I decided I wanted to ask on social media for input, I had a decent number of responses which mainly leant towards 5. This helped me finally decide on the design to take forward.

Adaptation Part B: Character Research - Ghosts and their kimonos

Since I've decided on developing my character as an onryo, I looked into more paintings that have depicted ghosts. As mentioned before, the typical design that represents ghosts is their white kimonos and long, straight black hair. Some are simple, others have extra layers for their kimono.

Kimono thumbnails 1-12:

Adaptation Part B: Character Spectrum

During my tutorial with Alan we discussed what type of character Oiwa will be like. On one side of the spectrum she could be a hysterical spirit like Regan MacNeil in the Exorcist, which Oiwa is depicted as in the original kabuki play or on the other hand I can depict her as an ominous presence such as characters like; Jennet Humfrye from the Woman in Black, Samara from the Ring or Kayako Saeki from the Grudge.

Design-wise, if I were to go with the "hysterical" character, the main design focus would be Oiwa's face deformations and balding hair.

For the more ominous characterisation, the main focus would be on her kimono, adding extra details like another layer, the obi design etc. As when it was being discussed, Alan suggested having her worldly injuries disappear once she becomes an onryo. The atmosphere for the final short animation will be considerably more haunting just with her eerie presence.

Adaptation Part B: Onryō Silhouettes

Using watercolours I quickly painted out simple silhouettes for Oiwa's onryō self.

Adaptation Part B: Watercolour Practise

For this project, I want to give a traditional feel to my 3D character and I decided that I wanted to do all my textures by hand.
I've never used watercolours before or own any so I went out and bought myself a set so I could practise with. These are quite messy and I have a lot more practising to do, but I wanted to give myself feel for what I need to be doing for my textures later on.

Adaptation Part B: Character Design Research

For the character Oiwa from Yotsuya Kaidan I've been researching into her outfit. There are three outfits I'll be developing before deciding on one to take to the final stages of her design. There are a few things that I need to take into account.

Firstly, if I want to be historically accurate, Oiwa would have come from a rich family (during the Edo period, which Yotsuya Kaidan is set in, the samurai were of high class, so considering that her husband was a samurai we can assume she was in a wealthy family). There's also the fact that her father, Samon, wanted her to separate from her husband Iemon too (divorces cost money, and the fact that Oiwa's family doesn't need to rely on Iemon's wealth also suggests that they are of wealth).
With that in mind, the typical dress wear for a woman in the samurai class would wear a kosode, a short sleeved kimono.

However Edo fashion was influenced by the design and style that courtesans and entertainers wear. Outside the samurai class, women experimented with a more elaborate kimono - the furisode, which is often seen on the Kabuki stage. Characterised by long, flowing sleeves, the furisode kimono was accented by a large, loosely tied obi.

The third outfit I've decided I wanted to develop is the white burial kimono, which Oiwa is depicted in when she becomes an onryō (vengeful spirit).

Traditionally, onryō and other yūrei (ghosts) had no particular appearance. However, with

the rising of popularity of Kabuki during the Edo period, a specific costume was developed.

Highly visual in nature, and with a single actor often assuming various roles within a play, Kabuki developed a system of visual shorthand that allowed the audience to instantly clue in as to which character is on stage, as well as emphasize the emotions and expressions of the actor.

A ghost costume consisted of three main elements:

• White burial kimono, shiroshōzoku (白装束) or shinishōzoku (死に装束)
• Wild, unkempt long black hair
• Face make-up consisting of white foundation (oshiroi) coupled with face paintings (kumadori) of blue shadows (藍隈 aiguma) "indigo fringe", much like villains are depicted in kabuki make-up artistry.

1. tengan: 天眼 the heavenly eye
2. menpu: 面布 veil 
3. juzu: 数珠 rosary; string of beads
4. tekkou: 手甲 covering for the back of the hand and wrist
5. sudabukuro : 頭陀袋  sack; carry-all bag 
6.  六文銭 (roku mon sen - 6 images of sen [old coins]) is in the sudabukuro. (The coins are to pay passage into the after-world when crossing the Sanzu River)
7. kyahan: 脚絆 gaiters
8. The sudabukuro is hung from the neck. 
9. Obi: 帯
10. tsue: 杖 cane; walking stick; staff
11. tabi: 足袋 Japanese socks with split toe
12. zouri: 草履 Japanese footwear sandals
13. burial kimono: 経帷子 white kimono in which dead person is dressed

Character: Character Final Concepts

V2 is the playable character in the game. The last of the experiments to awaken from its long slumber. A basic combat model in appearance, its true power lies in its core's ability to mutate its abilities with the use of other model's cores. V2's limbs are pure energy generated from its electromagnetic core and is able to shape them at will. Its core is powerful enough to allow V2 to float, but in its current state, it does not last long. 

In game sprite.

Like the background, V2's design was adapted into the vector style.

V3 is the successor of V2, however due to booting up before V2, it was able to upgrade itself to the design we see here by combining itself with other experiments in the lab. When the humans were still running the lab, it was actually because of V3 the project was shut down and the lab abandoned as it was too much of a risk.

Size comparison with V2.

Character: Hero Character Development

When I spoke to Justin last week he recommended doing some research for how my characters limbs are floating and what not. I had magnetic fields already in mind so I did some quick research on it. I've given my character a magnetic core which confines and guides magnetic fields, so exactly what I was needing for this character. 

I did some quick silhouette block outs to give me more of a general idea of what I'm wanting this character to look like.

Narrative: Male and Female Character Design Development

After getting together the four of us discussed what we wanted for the characters in our animation. My main idea for the male characters was a squarish design and for the female more circular (I looked at couples such as Carl and Ellie from Up for inspiration). 

Now that I had a decent idea of how I wanted these characters to look, I worked on them digitally to make it easier to adapt the style for the both of them.

Narrative: Initial Character Ideas

Since the three of us agreed that cardboard boxes would be a good idea to incorporate into our designs in some way I did few sketches.
I wasn't sure how literal we wanted to be so made a few cardboard characters:

I also did a quick stylized human character to go along with it, inspired by the Animal Crossing art style:

Scarlett, Megan and I all agreed that we wanted to work more on the stylized human style for our character rather than literally being a cardboard box. We plan to play around using cardboard textures on our characters/environment.

From Script to Screen - Character Final Designs

Old Man final design:

The security guard is a very minor character in this story so I made him generic looking:

From Script to Screen: Trapeze Artist 1 Character Design

Went with the traditional leotard male performers wear whilst performing. I wanted to throw in a mix of training outfits (first two) and performance outfits (last four, which are more glamerous. Three more character design sets to post up after this~

CG Artists Toolkit Drawing: Character Design Class 2

In this session we learnt about the three fundamental shapes in character design; the square, circle and triangle, and adapted this with our attempts at redesigning characters with these attributes. I was given Bugs Bunny and attempted to make him more villainous:

Next we were given a type of character we had to make 3 designs for, and I was given "gladiator". Here I went for a more traditional gladiator design for the three of them, and attempted to follow the fundamental shapes for character designing:

CG Artists Toolkit Drawing: Character Design Class 1

This class we had to bring an image of our favourite characters (and style), and I chose Briefers Rock from the anime series; Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt.

I was then given Winnie the Pooh to draw in this style, which I found very challenging and did numerous attempts:

 I tried to keep to the PSG style but ended up losing what was "really" Winnie the Pooh; his roundness, so I gave it another shot with that in mind:

 Finally, we had to draw our character we brought in in a completely different style, and I was given Spongebob Squarepants and this was my attempt: