Character Design - Hero, Sidekick and Villain

Hero

Phezi he hero of the Story is son of two african god, "Shango" and "Oba". his origin is loosely based on the tale Shango and his many wives, Shango had a wife called Oba and she found it hard to compete for attention, she wanted more time with Shango but she didn't know how to do this, another wife deceives Oba, and tells her to feed him her ears; that this would ensure she has his attention, naively Oba follows the instructions and cuts her own ear off, when she tries to feed it to Shango, he realised what he was being served and sends her away far from this village he was ruling. In the Origin of the Hero Phezi,  his Mother is Oba and she was sent away when she was pregnant with him, Oba struggled and she couldn't make it far, she ended up have Phezi on her own, doing the impossible Oba set up in an open field, and gave birth to Phezi...loosing blood far to quickly and with no medal attention, Oba died....but her body disappears, the god took favour in her and she was now watching over son, he found in a field by a couple who prayed for a child and they took him as a gift from the gods, raising him as their own. One day when Phezi was 15, and was out hunting...his village  was raided by bandits, they destroyed his village and kill anyone insight. Phezi arrives to his home destroyed and his parents dead, from here begun his journey on the world alone. He starts seeing marks appear on his body, they grow every waking day, when he was 16 the marks stopped growing and it formed a design Phezi didn't understand, one day he goes out hunting when he realised that these tattoos unravelled and peeled from his skin like a banana, but they also strapped back, if it touched a tree it could bring the whole forest down, Phezi grows to understand his powers but he knows nothing of his origin.

In the TV Show

The viewers meet Phezi in the middle of a hunt with his sidekick, Phezi now lives with group of teenagers; all together they're ten and they co-exist, Very tries to do their bit to help the group survive everyday, they venture out to find food and survive, apart from the sidekick they're all orphans who Phezi meet along the way, who grew to know each other and now co-exist in a make shift house

   

Sidekick
The Sidekick is now a privileged American Teenager turned Hummanitrain, he believes in give back to the world and in Karma, he always tries to do good deeds and be as pure as he can be, most times to a point where its almost comical, he dips his toes into  many things, he dabbles in Martial Arts, and reads about numerous religions he's very noble and truthworthy. our sidekick travels to Africa to live there, he decides to rid himself of his earthy possessions and material goods living to the most minimal that he can, following the teaching of Siddhattha Gotama (Buddha). Our sidekick always help when he could, though his kindness would be taken advantage of now and then, the people of the village grew to know him and love him, one day he was found dead nearby the village, it seemed as though an animal had attacked him, to a point that he was almost unrecognisable, the people of the village scrambled, picking up whatever they could, and begged help form a witch doctor who resides on the outskirts of the village (Maybe this was out Villain....who knows), she odd lady asked for dead chimpanzee amongst numerous other things, when it was all said and done he was brought back to life, but not in his human form, our sidekick still had his memory and he sounded the same but he was now half man half chimp thanks to the power of Black Magic or JuJu

In the TV Show
We meet the sidekick along side Phezi as one of the people he lives with, in a makeshift home surviving with a group of like-minded teenagers. Our sidekick always follow Phezi due to the fact he like his aura, always having his back as they venture out to hunt for food and when going on errands. Phezi met out sidekick in the jungle as he tried to coexist with real chimps, this was normal behaviour from our sidekick as he would always try new things, experiencing what he can. Phezi met him segregated form the other chimps, it seemed sad looking from the outside but our Sidekick was oblivious to this he was learning a new way to live in, seeing this he took it upon himself to take this odd looking chimp under his wings.

 Villain
The Villain's now changed to be a female witch doctor, there is no relation between the main characters origin, and her, she is in no way related to the Shango, but she is a real Witch Doctor, she knows of Phezi's power and plans to capture it. The Villian has a her own background story and has gone through her path to make her what she now is, she started out working on a potion which would enhance her powers making her strong enough to save her son, after her son was saved, she continued exploring the possibilities, somewhere along the line she was caught up, and started to yearn for more and more power, this hunger for more came to eventually be the cause of her sons death, she blames his death on the gods what had happened, not knowing it was her own doing, she then vows to herself to bring the the whole world down, destroy it, if she cant live in happiness (due to the death of her son, which was actually her own doing), she is doing to die and bring a whole planet with her son the god can know of her.

In the TV Show
The Villian is introduced as witch who is trying to collect unique forms of power, in her attempt to bring the world with her when she senses something in Phezi (our Hero) and begins to go after him.

Working in the Real World (Week 9)

Monsters & Creatures (Week 8)

Narrative (Zombie Sprite) The Cage

Art of The Cage

[Zombie Sprite] Crit Presentation

The Cage

Narrative (Zombie Sprite) Work Collection

Here are a few doodles done to understand the world, and an attempt to change style of drawing during the storyboard stage

During the point where we had to decide on shots and compositions of scenes in our story, we decided to create REALLY rough storyboards on different parts of the story and pitch it back to the group, we then decided what shots fitted and how long each frame would last.

For the Pitch I worked on some really rough audio, this particular part was where the boy finds out the horrific "truth" about War, I wanted each picture to have a sound of a drum HIT! as each picture went by, it was quiet subtle but, it was good enough for the stage we were at

 Felix was also completely modeled and animated



The animation was done, but it ended up being too long, so there were a few alterations in order to shorten the whole animation

Narrative (Zombie Sprite) Animating Felix

A few playblasts saved whilst animating Felix

Follow Zombie Sprite

Narrative (Zombie Sprite) - UV-ing Environment and Character building

.....A screenshot of a few objects UV'd in our scene

.....A render of the main character for our animation

Update: Felix and The Eagle, are Textured. The scene is Textured and lit, right now we are in the process of animating and finalising sound effects for the short animation.

Follow Zombie Sprite....

Narrative (Zombie Sprite) - Rigging

....a few skinning tests for our main character

Follow Zombie Sprite...

Character Design - Doodles

Main Character Update: Phezi's powers are linked to his tribal tattoos...whoever gave him his tattoos is isn't settled yet, but whoever it is...they knows of his true origins as the power of "Shango, the god of Thunder" comes from it...it peels of from his skin and wraps back to form after his attack....in the first season of the show...Phezi is just discovering his powers, but the full extent of his powers can engulf the earth....he can cause storms, change the weather, fix any electrical object..one zap from his hand is enough to generate electricity for his village for a year

Sidekick Update: Our sidekick is a young white man who had been mistaken for an albino, people of this village had never seen a white man, and when they noticed a young pale skinned boy walking freely around the village a witch placed a curse on him which meant he couldn't leave the village and will forever walk the earth (village) as a Monkey....

Story Update: Seeing as this is within the teen genre; they'll be little sub plots which all connect between the 10 characters our Hero lives with...it's just a matter of thinking what possible problems could underprivileged kids in Africa have apart from trying to survive, there could be a love story in there, or a family feud; these sub plots can't be anything like that of "90210" or the "Breakfast Club"....so there's ten other characters with the possibility of infinite sub plots....

Settings the Scene (Week 7)

Character Design - Sidekick (Figuring things out)

For a sidekick I started out with the idea of having animal who followed my main character..maybe a stranded animal he found after he was left alone to wonder the world....maybe this animal would have had some significance? But one thing I did know was I had to create, taking to account the environment my animal would be in. I started to think of combining features of different monkeys, working around other animals to create something, but I had no reason to limit myself so, I went back and thought about the sidekick; he may be very significant to the story he could perhaps be a human cursed by a witch doctor (A REAL ONE), and is forced to live life as a cross breed of something, maybe half human half chicken, this would make sense for this character to always be by the main character, as Phezi (main character) always goes off to see a witch doctor in hope of seeing his father every time their group go scouting for food and resources, this way the sidekick isn't just a tag-along but he's got something to gain....

I'm drawn to the idea of the Human/Monkey hybrid....I'd need to figure out the environment to understand which features to emphasize, and what type of Monkey he'll look more like, and how human would he even look 

Original & Distinctive Designs (Week 6)

Character Design - Villain (Brief Research and Influence Map )

The Villain of my story is no longer the chief of a village, but he's a Witch Doctor who is also the brother of the African God of thunder, he was casted down to earth to live as a mortal after going against his father's will. Now the Villain plots through the first season of the show to capture our Hero and retrieve his powers for himself

Witch Doctor

Personality: The Spark of Life (Week 5)

Head Modelling Part 7 - The Ear

Head Modelling Part 6 - The Nose

Character Design - Hero, Sidekick and Villain (Rough)

The hero (Phezi) of the story would live in something like a hideout with 9 other kids (Ages 17-19) and they struggle to survive in the world they're living in, the characters in this are inspired by the idea of the Zulu Warriors, so they'll just naturally be fast, have "warrior like builds", when Phezi starts channel the power of the thunder god Shango...

Line up of our Hero's friends (excluding his sidekick)

 This story draws inspiration from Oliver Twist and the very popular Zombie Genre; in Zombie Films there’s very little hope, when there a glimmer of hope and it and it seems like everything’s going to be ok, people die and it’s mostly by the hands of other people.

What I take from “Zombie flicks”, is the fact that world is over, regardless of whether there’s a cure or not, civilization isn't coming back, it gets to a point where people begin to eat people, and this feeling of all hope being lost is what I want to capture in the show, it'll be targeted towards an older audience.

The Villain of the story is the Witch Doctor our Hero goes to visit everyday,  Phezi believes that if he completes all the errands the Witch Doctor sets him out to do he'll be able communicate to his father, not knowing the Witch doctor is actually the Brother of the african god "Shango", he'd been casted down to live a life with  mortals, and our Villain is using Phezi to collect potions which he'll later use to attempt and draw out Phezi's god like powers at the end of season

The Sidekick is an animal Phezi found lost, a year after his uncle died. The world the story is based on isn't accurate, it's inspired by Africa, the Zulu Tribe and they're traditional designs, it just a fictional version of Africa, and Phezi's pet animal is an embodiment of that, it'll be created keeping the turain and environment in mind, which is very dry and hot.

Character Design: Show Logline and Hero Influences (Rough)

Human Characters (Week 4)

Head Modelling Part 5 - The Eyes

Head Modelling Part 4 - The Mouth

Drawing Stuff (Week 3)