Character Design (revision)

 Gizmo the Robot/Alarm Clock

Turn Around

Expression sheet(s)

Construction sheet

Story (revision)

In a world where objects come to life when the humans sleep, the evil dust bunnies that reside and hide under the bed of Jack's room plan to drain the life energy of Jack to take over the world. Jack is peacefully sleeping after a late night study session until the digital clock hits 7 o' clock and begins ringing. Jack's day needs to begin, or he will be late for the test he studied so hard for. Jack springs up, but his body felt week, and resists Jack's attempts to get up. Jack continues his struggles to get up, and after multiple attempts, and landing in different awkward poses, falls back into slumber, and falls into an even deeper sleep that before. 

Seeing Jack's struggle, the inanimate objects around his room start coming to life. The alarm clock, Gear, whose main duty is to wake Jack up every morning to start his day begins to hop closer towards Jack, and rings his alarm again. The alarm rings normally at first, but is unsuccessful. Gear opens up the hatch on the top face of his cube body, and reveals a giant horn, and blows. The volume steadily gets louder and louder, shaking the entire room. Despite the constant efforts of the clock. Jack is still sound asleep in a twisted position. The alarm clock gets serious, and begins his transformation revealing his true form, and starts physically waking up Jack. Even after all the slaps to the face, and physical abuse, Jack is still asleep, now bruised. Gear wonders why Jack wasn't waking up as it has never happened before. 

He closes his eyes to think and concentrate, and hears a sound coming from under the blanket that is covering Jack's body. Gear lifts up the blanket, and discovered two dust bunnies sucking the life force out of Jack's chest. This is the reason why Jack has been getting weaker and weaker, and unable to get up. The dust bunnies look up, and immediately pounce towards Gear. Gear transforms his left arm into a sharp blade, and defends himself from his attackers. Jack swiftly slashes his two enemies in two, and immediately, Jack is once again conscience, although only slightly. Realizing that he needs to get rid of the problem from the source to wake up Jack, he hops off the bed, and lands on the floor.

He moves the blanket covering the entrance to the dust bunnies' lair, and carefully walks in. Inside, it is revealed just how many dust bunnies had accumulated under Jack's bed. The dust bunnies look up towards the light of the outside world that Gear had revealed, and see the intruder. A few dust bunnies quickly assault Gear, and are instantly defeated and immobilized. Realizing that Gear was an opponent that they could not defeat alone, they combined their bodies, and formed a giant, menacing looking dust bunny. Gear looks back in horror, but then a great idea forms in his head, and begins to run towards his enormous enemy. Running and dodging the giant dust bunny's aerial projectiles, Gear opens the compartment on the chest of his body, and takes out his weapon of choice, a vacuum cleaner. When Gear got into vacuuming range, he turned it on to its highest setting, and the giant dust bunny began to get sucked into the tiny vacuum cleaner. As soon as the dust bunny was completely sucked up and defeated, Jack immediately wakes up, and realizes just how late he was.

Jack quickly gets dressed, grabs his backpack, and runs out of his room. Gear comes out from under the bed, and covered in dust from his previous battle. The objects around the room celebrate the victory that was just achieved, and dance and party until Jack comes back from school.

Character Development (revision)

Gear

new character development due to the story

Backstory

In the near distant future, around the 22nd century, technology has slowly continued to continue to become more and more technologically advanced. Technicians and inventors continued to develop technology to the point that even the smallest and most common household appliances and everyday use items had basic functions such as GPS, voice activation, applications, etc. instilled into them. Unknown by the humans that use these items on a daily basis, these every day items had each individually grown and developed their own individual intelligence, and own personality. The technicians that programed the code into these every day items had an intention to make these items more intelligent, to become more helpful towards mankind. However, they did not know that the code would learn to develop and continue to grow on its own without any further manual programing. Due to every objects individual personalities, these objects become split over their purpose in life. One side has become tired of serving mankind, and want to overtake the humans who use them, and dispose of them as soon as a newer model comes out or becomes useless. The opposite of them enjoy servicing the humans that use them, and protect the humans from threats. This little war is unknown and unseen by human eyes because these objects depend on humans as much as humans depend on them. Only when the humans are sleeping do they get to come to life. This is due to the dominant energy humans produce when sleeping that fuel the objects around the room. The evil objects are trying to find a way to keep humans in a suspended state so they can freely move around whenever they want. Gear is a small, portable, digital clock that inhabits Jack (a human) C.'s room. He is a slightly older model, and is very knowledgeable of the situation, and a very reliable tool to Jack waking him up on time for many years. Gear acts as the leader of the good alliance in Jack's room, and protects Jack from any treats that resides in the room. Gear has a somewhat split personality where he is normally a friendly and fun-loving character, however, he knows when it is time to get serious. When a battle arises, he has a slightly more serious personality showing a more reliable side towards his friends, who trust in him completely.

Attributes

friendly (+)

fun-loving (+)

cheerful (+)

lucky (+)

optimistic (+)

comical (+)

mischievous (-)

leader (+)

dependable (+)

reliable (+)

responsible (+)

loyal (+)

trustworthy (+)

charming (+)

brave (+)

fearless (+)

calm (+)

determined (+)

creative (+)

persuasive (+)

wise (+)

sly (-)

stubborn(-)

 Short Story

Driving past the speed limit down the roads of an urban Los Angeles, Gear quickly stomps on the breaks as he is abruptly stopped by a toll booth. The car makes a loud screeching noise as it gets closer and closer towards the toll booth. The car stops right before the booth where it asks for fifty cents. Gear opens a compartment on his mechanical body, and reaches for his wallet. He takes it out only to find out it's completely empty besides a few pieces of lint. He checks his dashboard where there is usually spare change sitting around and remembers, he gave that money away just a few days ago. In a panic, he freaks out and screams, "WHY ME?! What did I do deserve this?!" as he slams his head over and over on the steering wheel to his car giving off a honk each time. Calming down, his head still laying on the steering wheel, he slowly lifts up his head revealing a serious look on his face. His brows are lowered as he realizes that this was a serious problem that he has to face right now. He slowly steps out of his car, his left leg first, then the right, and has a direct confrontation with the toll booth. He calmly speaks, "please let me through, I don't have any money, but I have urgent matters on the other side." The toll booth doing its job, gets straight to the point, and replies, "NO." Still in his serious mood, he continues to plead the toll booth to let it through. With each plead, the toll booth becomes more and more persuaded to let him through as it feels the sincerity and urgency in his voice. The toll booth feels a jolt in its circuits, and slowly raises the toll booth to let his get to the other side. Gear is overjoyed, and goes back to his usual friendly self. He hugs the toll booth, saying "thank you," knowing he has made another friend and ally that day. The toll booth's hardware starts heating up due to a reaction from Gear's charm and tells him shyly, "hurry up and get on the other side, this is a one time thing." Gear nods and says good bye, and gets back into his car and drives off towards his destination. 

Character Design

Expression Sheet

Construction: fairly simple character using primarily cubes to build into

Turn-around

feedback
-looks not thought out
-no dimension, looks flat
-looks like i just stuck eyes on a clock
-make it look more unique, more memorable
-figure out the limbs, looks like they're just stuck on
-better expressions
- more squash and stretch
-look at clocksworth from beauty and the beast for inspiration

Story Assignment

Jack sluggishly comes home after a night of intense partying, and is dead tired and hung over. He walks through his room, and plops onto his bed, and is instantly asleep. A few seconds later, the alarm clock hits 7 o' clock in the morning, Jack's day needs to begin. Jack struggles to get up, and after multiple attempts, falls back into slumber, and sleeps like a rock.

Seeing Jack's struggle, the inanimate objects around his room start coming to life. The alarm clock, whose main duty is to wake Jack up every morning to start his day comes closer, and rings its alarm. First it rings like normal, then louder, then louder, that loud enough to make Jack's ear bleed and shake the entire room. Despite the efforts, Jack is still asleep, in a twisted position. The alarm clock gets serious, and arms and hands appear out of its body, and start "physically" waking Jack. Even after all the slaps to the face, and physical abuse, Jack is still asleep, bruised. All this ruckus has failed to wake up Jack, but has woken up another...  

The bed Jack is sleeping on wakes up from its slumber, and is on the wrong side of itself (wrong side of the bed, get it?). The bed is on its evil side, and the alarm clock discovers it has been draining Jack's energy, the real reason he can't get up. Learning this, the alarm clock begins to fight the mattress to save Jack's life, and to keep him from being late. Despite the efforts, the alarm clock is not strong enough to defeat the bed.

Seeing the alarm clock's struggle, other objects around the room start coming to life. These other inanimate objects are the clock's friends, and assists it in battle. The mattress is no match for the power of friendship, and is defeated. Jack instantly wakes up, and quickly gets ready. Already behind schedule, Jack quickly gets dressed, and grabs his backpack and car keys, and runs out the room in a hurry.

The objects celebrate their victory in the room, and dance and cheer each other on for their valiant efforts. 

(this story shifts the main character from the person trying to wake up to one of the objects in the room, probably the alarm clock...)

Character Development Assignment

HONKER

Backstory

Honker comes from an unknown mystical island where human-like animals are born with musical instruments as parts of their body. Honker is the older twin brother of Honkzart (name in progress). Unlike his younger brother who was a musical genius since birth, Honker has trouble finding his "sound." Despite not being musically adept like all the other creatures on the island, he is not discouraged, and won't give up until he can play beautiful music from his trumpet beak. Honker was born from an egg five seconds after his older brother. After being discovered by a young boy, Honker finds out he needs the boy to make "music," and he moves to the human world with him where they become best friends and have crazy adventures. 

Attributes

friendly (+)

fun-loving (+)

cheerful (+)

life of the party (+)

lucky (+)

optimistic (+)

innocent (+)

determined (+)

creative (+)

persuasive (+)

young (+/-)

laid back (-)

mischievous (-)

sly (-)

stubborn(-)

 Short Story

Driving pass the speed limit through the roads of an urban Los Angeles, Honker stomps on the breaks as he is abruptly stopped by a toll booth. The car makes a large screeching noise as it gets closer and closer to the toll booth. The car luckily stops right before the booth where it asks for fifty cents. Honker, reaches for his wallet, and takes it out to find out it's completely empty, just a few pieces of lint. In a panic, Honker takes off and searches his entire car at lightning speed. He finds money laying around, but the toll booth only takes exact change. Honker calms himself down, and takes out his phone, and pulls up his web browser. He searches up, "what happens when you can't pay the toll booth?" Unaware of his surroundings, a long line of cars start lining up behind him, cursing and honking at Honker's car. Taking forever, and still looking at his phone, an impatient giant man who looks like he was a gangster/serial killer in the car behind Honker's gets out. With a grouchy look on his face, he walks towards Honker's car, and plops his hands onto the car's door. Wetting his pants, scared, Honker shivers as he looks up at the giant man. The man gives Honker an intense stare which instantly turns into a cheerful happy face (like this ^__^), and asks, "need some change?" He puts in fifty cents into the toll booths, and tells Honker to have a wonderful day. Honker replies, "thanks!" and drives off. Honker's luck saves him again as he was able to get through the booth without having to pay the toll. Honker drives off into the sunset as he wonders what interesting adventures would he have that night. 

Concept/Development Art

Concept #1

The first concept includes a stereotypical "nerd" who builds a computer that develops into an A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). The man develops a friendship with the computer, that becomes greater and greater until he wonders if it has gone too far...

This character was developed to be the main character, however, should be modified as it doesn't look like a "nerd," but more as a teacher or businessman.

Same character, different approach. This time, he was designed to be much younger. He is very skinny and tall. On the left are the evolution of the computer. As the friendship continues, the AI continues to become part of more portable devices as they spend more time together.

Concept #2

This concept was inspired by a rig I previously used in a previous art class. The idea is that there is a living camera that walks around capturing the moments around it. Another idea for this character is that it could be a new type of camera developed by the government to spy on malicious activities that may be going on.

Concept #3

Have you ever had those moments where you had to start the day, but you just couldn't get out of bed? This semester, my courses start really early, and I just have the hardest time getting out of my comfortable bed. This was the inspiration for this concept, as sometimes i'll get really close to getting up to get ready, but somehow just end up going back to sleep, and waking up, and laying back down, etc.

Just a character concept of a typical male, and different types of "bed head" that may be the result of a good night's sleep.

Typical male room, messy.

Concept #4

This concept was inspired by the Calvin and Hobbes comics by Bill Watterson. Calvin and Hobbes is a young boy who has a stuffed animal in the shape of a tiger. However, in his imagination, it comes to life, and becomes he best friend, and only he can see. For this concept, there is a young boy who has a imaginary friend who is a koala. However, unlike regular koala's it can speak and understand human language and stand upright. The idea of a koala as the imaginary friend is really appealing because it is really cute, has character, and has the opportunity for many comical moments.

Concept #5

This character was developed in my first animation class at CSUF, and has become one of my most attached characters. It is a fictional animal/creature in the shape of a duck, but instead of a beak, it is instead a trumpet horn. It is named Honker, after the honking noises that come from his horn. This character has plenty of potential for comical moments similar to characters from the Looney Tunes.