Wednesday, 17 May 2023

Side Project: Ron the Recreator 17/5/23

 Side Project: Ron the Recreator                                                                                                                   17/5/23

Figure 1: Alex Dorpenburger from Close Enough

This is a quick idea for a little side project I have in mind that is no way meant to replace Seoras in any capacity.  This is literally just something else I can animate in the upcoming sessions with Duncan.  Beside the aforementioned reason of Seoras, this character's capacity and link to pre-existing material make him far too big for a student project.

This character is meant to be a lampooning of god-like "big bad" characters in animation and entertainment.  This is a character who has the power to foresee the future, control life, shapeshift, alter reality and destroy universes, and is meant to be an irredeemable antagonist.  The catch of this is that instead of being portrayed through the body and mannerisms of a serious dramatic actor, this character is pictured by me to be portrayed by comedian Jason Mantzoukas.  The most notable roles that the actor has done in animation include Alex Dorpenburger in Close Enough, Jankom Pog in Star Trek Prodigy, Scarecrow in The Lego Batman Movie and Mr Manoogian in Bob's Burgers.  None of these characters have godly, otherworldly powers and his role within series is usually closer to a jerk-like variation on the everyman.  This role would act as a deviation from his normal figure choices.  The character is meant to be a fanmade original character that is meant to exist in a universe of characters from Nickelodeon, and one of the characters draft costumes is meant to indicate that with the various visual cues attached.

The main antagonistic objective that the character has in my story is to replace one character's prominence in this Nickelodeon-character-focused universe with another character that he feels has been vastly overlooked and underappreciated, namely eradicating the series known as "The Loud House" and replacing it in terms of popularity and significance with the series known as "Glitch Techs".  Whilst this objective is in some ways selfless as its seemingly meant to be for someone else's benefit other than his own, I don't expect the audience to fully sympathize with him because he is mainly doing this because of the former series irks him too much and reminds him of his beleaguered past.  His mannerisms and personality are also meant to be arrogant but insecure as well as largely snobbish: he is fully convinced that his own ways are the most effective regardless of their cost to others.  The main detriment of his plan is that his plan of getting rid of the "Loud House" universe is that it results in the obliteration of all the other character universes if not executed carefully, but he still persists with the objective.  This character is also meant to be a connotation of fanboy-type figures on the internet who literally care about nothing else and will vehemently insist a character can do no wrong even if they are clearly shown to do so: in other words, this is also meant to be a mockery of shallow fanboy culture.

Figure 2: Initial character concepts

Figure 2: Character breakdown

Figure 3: Character inspirations

The way that I intend to create this character is in Maya, but he would look more similar to the characters in the "Money for Nothing" music video from 1986 due to my relative inexperience with the practice of making characters in 3D.  The blocky, primitive quality of the models in the video is a realistic goal for me to aim for when making the character, especially when a sharper outline can help in creating someone with a villainous appearance.  The "Money for Nothing" style is meant to be a style choice that I can create because of my current skillset rather than a cultural reference. 

Figure 4: Character costume draft

Figure 5: "Money for Nothing" music video still: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fgarage.vice.com%2Fen_us%2Farticle%2F9kpmzp%2Fdire-straits-money-for-nothing-video&psig=AOvVaw1usK5B7e96E166Wcv-ANZE&ust=1684396625837000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CBAQjRxqFwoTCJjylMbw-_4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE 


Figures 6 and 7: Initial character costume designs


Figures 8 and 9: Character shapes and structures




Figures 10 and 11: Facial tests

Figure 12: Incomplete colour test








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