I will be working on the initial setup for FMP.
Initially, I intended to create an animation of an anti-hero character in order to better represent my portrayal of the anti-hero character on screen, using the story content as a vehicle. However, due to the short amount of time available to complete the project, I chose to create the modeling, material, rigging, and animation for my FMP project.
For my FMP project, I wanted to create a female demon character. The anime initially inspired me, ‘Re:Life in a different world from zero’, the character of Ram. Ram was once a genius and the strongest being of the demon clan, but he lost his only horn to protect his sister Rem and was unable to fight for long, known as the “hornless ‘demon god’.
Inspired by this, I wanted to create a female demon character with a broken demon horn on her head to act as an anti-hero. In my thesis research, I mentioned that an anti-hero is a character who does not meet traditional heroic standards in certain areas, such as spirit, qualities and abilities. However, the character also has heroic qualities or behaves in a way that meets heroic standards. So I wanted to create a demon character, using characteristics such as evil itself to contrast with the traditional righteous hero. But the character would also have some heroic actions of his own, such as protecting others or being brave enough to sacrifice, which would meet the heroic criteria.
FMP’s character design.
Name: Amodei
Gender: Female
Age: 22
Characteristics: Has a broken demon horn on her head
Character Backstory: Amodei was born into a tribe of demons. Amodei’s father is the chief of the demon tribe and uses his power to protect the tribe, and he has always taught Amodei to grow up as soon as possible so that she can take over the task of the chief. But Amodei prefers to be an adventurer, exploring the interesting things around her, and she doesn’t like to be tied down to anything, preferring to live a life of freedom. An enemy attack killed Amodei’s father and there was no one left to protect Amodei and her tribe, but Amodei grieves as she remembers her father telling her to grow up and defend her tribe. As she watched her tribe suffer, Amodei’s anger made her more powerful. As Amodei fought her enemies, she managed to repel all the attacking tribes, but she also lost one of her demon horns. The horn is the source of a demon’s power and with the loss, Amodei was no longer the strongest demon in the tribe. But Amodei realises her responsibility and is ready to take her tribe with her to find a new home.
Characterisation ideas:
The character of Amodei is designed to be more of a naughty character, I think. She doesn’t realise in the beginning what she needs to protect or accomplish, or even that she doesn’t care what others think. But after great danger and shock make Amodei realise that her life has changed drastically, she is forced to grow up, or rather act in her way to complete the heroic act of protecting her tribe.
The anti-hero should be reflected more in the setting of the character’s character behaviour. I wanted to set the character up as negative, unmotivated, and often retreating when encountering difficulties. The character knows what she needs to accomplish, but she is not a perfectionist or heroic character because of her nature. She is not strong or spiritual, and this can easily lead to her retreating.
Feedback:
I reported back to Alan on my planning for the FMP project. He thought I was doing too much content. He suggested that I should focus more on one area of research, such as animation or modelling. But because of the demands of my job, I may need to be more familiar and conversant with the whole process of animation production in future. Only when I am familiar with the whole animation process will I be able to be involved in teaching at the school or help my students make animations. So I still wanted to show in my FMP project that I could complete the whole animation process.
In fact, after some discussion, I decided that there wasn’t enough time to do a full animation film. So I will finish the character modelling, material mapping, binding, lighting and rendering first, and then do some simple character animation.