Drawing voices

In this article, Jacqueline Goss show us her findings from creating an animation called Stranger comes to town : 2007, in which she interviewed 6 people about their experiences coming across the border into The United States to either emigrate or visit. 
From this we learn that there is a very thorough process of checking identification such as finger print recognition that is now digitally done and they couldn't see anything like a screen to know what was going on.
These peoples recorded interviews were used to create a documentary style animation a little bit like creature comforts in the fact that its real life peoples stories but instead of seeing the people they came from, we see a made up character that appears to tell the story like it's their own. In stranger comes to town She uses characters from World of Warcraft, partly because on the game, the appearance decides where you come from in the game. This is the same with nationality. It shows that all of these people are different and probably not what you would expect to see from their voices. 
An interesting note was that all of the people that were interviewed chose a character that was the same gender as themselves. This made it easier for the animator as it would be more believable but I don't think that is what she was expecting. 

Jessica Rabbit

Jessica Rabbit is designed to be extremely attractive and sexy and to be the centre of attention, everyone looking at her. She knows this and can use it to her advantage, this helps drive the narrative because we can clearly see that this is the case. Her being drawn to have her attractive assets enhanced (large breasts, tiny waist, really wiggly walk)helps us believe that she can cause distractions and make people do things by flirting. She is also dating the most unlikely of candidates- Roger Rabbit.

 We also know that she is a fictional character though because of her being drawn, but we still believe the story line because of how she acts so intimately with the other characters.

Mr.&Mrs Potato Head

I think Mr and Mrs Potato head are really cool characters designed really cleverly and comedically. Mr potato head is a doll that you can put limbs and facial features on wherever you want. This really works in Toy story because they are supposed to be toys in a kids room so they will be played with, so its really funny when Mrs Potato head loses her eye and it turns out its under Andy's bed and she can still see through it so can see what's happening. Which obviously helps a lot with the narrative as if she didn't have a detachable eye she couldn't see what was happening at home. There are a lot of comedic scenes revolving around these like when Mrs Potato head is looking inside Mr Potato heads storage saying she sure she packed something. And When they get all mixed up like the image above. It really adds comic value to the movie.

Wall.E

Like lady and the tramp, Wall E and Eva are opposite characters. Wall E is old and worn and compacts junk and likes to collect things he finds, he's cute, worries a lot, is lonely, he's all rusty and falling apart, he's not particularly attractive looking.

Then theres Eva, She is very modern, sleek design, she has LED lights for eyes and on her chest, she is there to detect new life, she is also cute and loveable and worries.

Yet aside from all these differences, Wall E tries and gets the girl and is really romantic and as the viewer you almost feel sorry for him because he's never going to get the girl. But he does!!! But it is important for the narrative to see that they come from two different worlds, Eva lives in space and is checking if earth is inhabitable yet and Wall E lives on earth and can't believe how things have changed since they have been in space.

Morph

Morph, although a very simple character, has still been designed. He is a very simple plasterscine figure. He has a cute loveable face and just a very simple body that doesn't do much describing. But this in itself can drive the narrative. This is because this means that morph can 'morph' into anything and is really easily animated and tell any story and change into any characteristics that are required to tell the story! I think this is very clever as morph doesn't have a specific continuous story, he just does different things each time. He is just a loveable character whatever he is in. He doesn't even have a proper voice so that younger children, people with learning difficulties, deaf people can all understand what is going on without having to hear what is said.

Lady and the tramp

In lady and the tramp, the characters are designed in accordance to their name or visa versa. Tramp is a homeless scruffy dog and Lady has a home and is rich. In this film its important to show their differences so that the story makes more sense-that they're from two different worlds and come together.
Lady is rich and posh and to show this she is designed to be well groomed, she has an expensive collar, long eyelashes, and the way she holds herself with her nose in the air and trots around like she owns the place at the beginning.
Then theres Tramp who is not groomed so has hair sticking out all over, then his ears are quite often crooked and open mouthed with no manners and very playful, always getting dirty.
They need to exaggerate the differences so that the narrative works better and you understand why they have such different thoughts and how they change each other for the better at the end.

Hercules

I think the characters and costume design in Disney's Hercules really help drive the narrative as the animation is set to explain greek mythology. In the picture there is a God and a Goddess so they naturally are dressed at greek gods and goddesses. We see the style in many portrayals of these times in fine art. The loose cloth tied in the middle, not attached at the sides. 

As for hercules himself he is wearing an armour looking costume which shows that he fights i.e is a hero/god. Also in this film the gods have a glow to them like in stain glass window portrayal of jesus. So this shows people watching it that they are special and gods. This helps drive the narrative because you don't need to work out why this person is glowing because previous experience has suggested that its a god.

Heroes

 Heroes and good guys, just like the villains in the previous post, have their own colour scheme. This consists of reds, blues, whites, golds. Maybe as this is patriotic to america as that is where most of the animations come from. Having this colour scheme helps us depict the heroes from the bad guys. For example in spiderman 3 where there is a bad version of spiderman, he has a black costume, this easily shows who's bad and who's good.
Not only do we see this in the colour ways but we also see it in how the person stands. Heroes are shown to puff up their chests and stand tall and be strong and are handsome but villains hunch over and look unattractive. As I mentioned in the previous post, all of this helps to drive the narrative as it is clear to us what is going on.

Villans

Colour ways play a big part in character design. For example a lot of villains are designed with the same sort of colour ways as you can see in the pictures above. They are designed in blues, purples, blacks, greens, reds, a lot of dark colouring. Because of the consistency in the design of villains, it makes it easier to see who is a villain. 
Not only do colours help but they are also quite often designed with really sharp lines and harsh angles and very pointy. They are designed to be attractive in some ways but with an uneasy feel or in some cases, not attractive at all. 
This is what we as a society associate with villains/bad guys. Dark colours, unattractiveness, harshness and these evil facial expressions.
This all really helps back up a narrative as you need to know who is who and you know a villain has bad intentions. 

Woody

Next I chose Woody from toystory. So the idea of this character is that he is a toy. But this toy comes to life. I think he has a great character design especially his limbs how they are like stitched at the joints so they can bend. Then the boots and hat look really plastic, and so does his face.
 I think the movement they create is great. Like when andy plays with woody, he is very floppy and lifeless because he is made of floppy materials. But when he comes to life, although he has some rigidity so he can stand up, his movements still reflect the floppiness like a puppet. This is very important so we still keep in our heads that Woody is a toy and not a human in this movie which is key to the film or it won't work. 

Tarzan

I have chosen to talk about Tarzan as my first demonstration of my understanding of character and narrative because I think he is just the perfect demonstration of how character design can drive narrative. 

Tarzan has been raised by apes so he would move like one, be suspicious of humans, be very animalistic. I like the way they have really thought about Tarzans' muscles and how muscular he would be with all the climbing he would do in the jungle. Obviously this is a kids film so they had to coverup his...manhood...but they did it really well by using a loin cloth which is very jungle like. 

I think the ape like design of Tarzan really helps drive the narrative as we see just how not human tarzan is. He has never seen a human before, and doesn't know what one is. I like his facial expressions as shown in the image above. It's very nervous about new things and the way he sniffs things like he's actually an animal. He's just very explorative and animalistic in everything he does and this really helps show where he is from and why his story is so different and exciting but also believable. 

Also his hair looks like its almost dreadlocks, this is because he doesn't know what a brush is and its so long because they don't know it can be cut, they don't have scissors and they're used to apes who's hair doesn't grow that long. Also his skin is a pretty dark colour as he lives outside in the wild so he would be exposed to the sun a lot.

I like how his fingers and toes seem to work differently to a normal human as he has adapted to swinging on vines and climbing trees meaning he needs to grip more. This just backs up the narrative more.