Study Task 8: Reflective Writing

For my practical response to this theme, I have tried to visualise the concept of character development. The main way this is possible is through physical appearances. These are the external attributes that are visible to any outsiders. This mostly has included things like; hair, beards, clothing, posture, attitude, demeanor, cleanliness and injuries (scars, missing body parts). Most of the images show the contrast of beginning and end, or polar opposites as much as possible to get as much difference as possible.

I came to find that many characters who go on negative character arcs (in which they become typically less morally sound throughout) they tend to grow more facial hair. I thought this could have something to do with hiding their inner selves as well as it looking more menacing. It’s less about the growing of the beard, but being clean shaven is often associated with being pure and clean, which these characters no longer are. There is also the trend of characters shaving their heads when going rogue or off the rails slightly. While Walter White had cancer which instigated the shaving of the head, it also worked with the same reasons as Captain Flint in Black Sails and Shane Walsh in The Walking Dead. In contrast to growing out a beard, they shaved their heads to mark a kind of clean slate and that they are ready to rebel.

It was hard to find ways to illustrate the aspects of character development without simply showing the physical changes in their appearance. I couldn’t really show the internal development in the way the characters make their choices. I did manage to illustrate a few of the ideas from quotes I had gathered. The quote about intention and obstacle was illustrated with the idea of someone reaching out for something (their intention) but they are being held back from it (the obstacle).

I feel that the visual research helped me further understand all aspects of character development. Though it is harder to show internal development, the external appearances are all relevant and complement it. For example, Long John Silver plays into the legend that is created around him as a fearsome and deadly pirate. His colour pallet gets much darker and his hair and beard engulf his profile to create a more imposing figure. I developed this into blending faces together from different periods of the characters story when they are at complete opposites. I started doing this by getting photos or screenshots and crossfading them over each other. This created a interesting effect that made me think about animating this kind of transition which ended up being my final piece.

I had been struggling to think of an idea for the final piece, debating whether to just do a character design or something like that. However, I am happy with what I did in animating Long John Silver’s character change. I drew the inbetweens so it has a good passage of the character throughout the seasons of the show. Admittedly, if I had decided on doing this earlier, I would have been able to go more in depth with more inbetweens and maybe even doing a full body transition.

I would have liked to have done more sketching and illustrating of the ideas in my essay. I am not much of a sketcher and so I found it difficult to always try to add pages into the sketchbook. I would like to improve my time management to allow me to get more done in my visual part of cop next year as I feel I could have done more in order to aid my project as a whole.

Study Test 7: Practical Planning

So far I haven't got as much in my sketchbook as I'd have hoped to. I think I am struggling for ideas since there isn't many other ways to show character development visually other than the physical appearances of them changing.  

As for where my practical work is going, I'm still not quite certain on the final outcome. It was suggested earlier that I could look into decide your own destiny style stories in which you turn to the page of whatever decision you want to make. These could be interesting because it lets the reader develop the story and character how they choose. It could have a certain amount of endings that reveal and create a different type of end character by the end of the story. This sort of idea really excites me however it is simply too much to do for the time remaining.

Through the process of gathering photos of characters changing through their respective stories, I have thought I could make an animation of a character morphing between the start and end of the story. This would be interesting to show, as their mood and expression can change too. I'm not sure if this is what I will actually end up doing but it is probably the most realistic idea at this point.

Primary Research:

I have looked at books and video essays to gather my primary research. These include Robert McKee's Story, Aaron Sorkin's Masterclass on Screenwriting and K.M Weiland's Creating character arcs to name a few

Secondary Research:

This includes searching for images/screenshots of characters throughout their stories to show the physical development. I have then also drawn using these sorts of photos for reference. 

Media and Processes:

I have and will continue to use pencils for most of my sketches. I will keep using photoshop to make digital pieces. I also want to try communicate the idea of true inner character using tracing paper to be able to reveal the underneath layers of a characters person. 

Context:

Robert McKee's quote saying 'True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation.' is really useful to understanding the fundamentals mechanics of character development.