For Project 1B, we were tasked to create 3 characters! Here’s mine:
CHARACTER 1: THE BONSAI MAN
Inspiration: Looking out the window, I wanted to make a character with trees for a head.
In a world where everyone has plants for heads. Das rite, imagine a sakura lady wearing a kimono, a peony-headed lady wearing a cheongsam. No shit they use their roots to absorb nutrients.
– Trims bonsai as a hobby, so that would mean trimming his own head.
– Wrinkly, traditional and deeply rooted to his culture/traditions (pun intended)
– He fights off urbanization, the opposite of traditions
In an adventure in search of urbanization to destroy, he learns to come to terms with accepting development.
CHARACTER 2: LADY ANXIETY
Inspiration: I just thought of a lady’s head completely wrapped in bandages, reminding me of some of Christopher’s McKenny’s dope photography. She has no actual head or face, just like the character in Durarara!
Initially, she was named the Clothed Lady (after the bandaged face), and she was some sort of an urban myth – when people saw her, they would be mysteriously granted talents. Wouldn’t everyone want an urban myth like that to exist? Technically, if she did that, she would be a talent scout. Ha-ha.
If it’s an urban myth, is this the Clothed Lady real? Could it just be a psychological effect where people think they saw her, and they started believing that they had been granted a talent?
But eventually, I scraped the talent-scouting-lady for the lack of a good story and transformed her into Lady Anxiety instead.
She has a cloth wrapped around her face, suffocating her as she is trapped in her own anxiety and mind. She is also constantly afloat, unable to stay rooted to reality as her mental conditions cause her to feel trippy all the time. With her inbuilt emo-ness, she dons a long, black, flowy dress, which seems to be classy.
Some people may seem classy and composed (or a myriad of other positive descriptions) all the time, but that does not show what they’re hiding beneath their covered faces. Lady Anxiety is a showcase of that.
She goes on a suffocating adventure to wallow in self-despair, only to discover her rotting face and non-existent life (oh yes she’s dead but she doesn’t know it, because she’s dead on the inside). It could be a horror story.
CHARACTER 3: ODDBALL, flower pack edition
Inspiration: Oddball is a character I developed potentially for an animation shory. I took it and changed it up as I looked up and saw the Japanese frozen flowers on my desk.
It’s an oddball of happiness that everyone is wary of. C’mon, it looks weird, who would dress like that? It’s fashion screams steer clear. Only animals were not afraid of it, in fact, they loved Oddball instinctively.
The truth about Oddball though, it carries around a backpack full of colorful, glowing flowers daily, tapping the flowers onto beings and objects, giving them life and happiness as the flowers absorb negativity and disintegrates. (Different flowers tackle different kinds of emotions?). Oddball does it on a day-to-day basis, with no one noticing the effects of his ‘magical’ flowers.
If people knew, would they engulf Oddball, and beg him for his flowers? Sometimes human beings are strange; they know what makes them happy, but at the same time they are afraid to pursue the said happiness.
Oddball is a lone wolf and a socially awkward creature made up of scraped junk and their memories. Could he be a person, like everyone else? If so, what about it’s own emotions? Animals are drawn to Oddball because of their sharp instincts and unprejudiced minds. Oddball doesn’t speak.
Story:
In the present world flooded with negativity, Oddball is especially busy, but his garden is running low on supplies. Oddball is an oddball of happiness that everyone is wary of, because of his oddity and appearance. Without the world paying any attention to him, day-to-day, Oddball religiously harvests mysterious flowers that seem to absorb away the world’s unhappiness.
The adventure begins when Oddball meets a little girl, who notices Oddball because of her innocence, in contrast to the judgmental, depressed and generally negative adults. The duo goes on a journey of discovery, learning more about each other’s world. What new rules will be made about achieving happiness?
Questions to help develop story
– Does happiness solve all problems?
– Is Oddball emotionless?
– How does Oddball make himself feel better?
– Where does happiness come from?
Some plot points
– Oddball goes about doing his work, whimsically tapping flowers
– He notices a little girl staring at him
– Which is unusual, because he usually goes by unnoticed or is treated rudely
– Little girl runs towards him, Oddball, startled, bolts, little girl chases (mom doesn’t know)
– Oddball runs into the forest and stopped to catch a breath, thinking that he’s safe, only to turn around, in shock that the little girl is right behind him.
OR
– Little girl touches Oddball with her finger, they stare at each other. Mom walks away without noticing girl is gone. Oddball walks off and the little girl follows.
– In quest of bringing the girl back to her mother, the little girl goes through a day with Oddball
– Learns about the mystery of Oddball (harvests flowers from Cloud9, where emitted exuberance gather and causes flowers to sprout – happiness goes round, spreads around)
– Oddball knows that he has been doing this forever, but have no memories of how it all started. *Can be included for feature length story, otherwise, scrape it and Oddball will just be a mysterious character.
– Lesser and lesser ‘fairy flowers’ because people are just so negative
– Little girl teaches Oddball a lesson; happiness can be created and spread from the heart, not just with the use of its flowers (Oddball always treated badly, so he wouldn’t know)
– When little girl returns to mom, mom thought Oddball kidnapped her, but little girl told her the truth, and Oddball fully understands the lesson taught by the little girl as happiness engulfs him.
Some feedback I’ve received are:
– For Bonsai man, him trimming his Bonsai head could be themes about beauty and perfection
– For the poster, a background could be added to show the world the character inhabits.
Which I find are helpful! This project was fun to make and I kind of enjoy character designing. This is also a different type of character design I am used to, as I used to draw the characters I design, instead of photo bashing.
