Character Design: Outline of story

Today I was given an established animated world and had to come up with a new and unique character who would fit into this world. I was given ParaNorman, a stop animation film which came out in 2012, by Laika.

 I began by firstly refreshing my knowledge of the plot as It had been a long time since I had watched the animation. I then went through and researched all of the main characters in order to understand the people who were already established in the ParaNorman universe. 

Paranorman - Stop Animation, Dark Setting, Exaggerated Faces/proportions, Horror

Norman - Is able to see and interact with the dead. Is the main character

Agatha Prenderghast - Main antagonist of the plot. She cursed the town, however is not actually evil. She was killed for her ability to speak to the dead.

Neil Downe - The sidekick to the main character. Is bullied for his looks

Mitch Downe - Not very itelligent, but very strong. He is Neil's older brother.

Mr Prenderghast - Normans Great Uncle. Also has the ability to see the dead

Courtney Babcock - Normans older sister

The film has a late 70's and early 80's theme

After I was able to establish the main themes of the animation and what sort of character populated the world, I then began to investigate what sort of character I could create. The animation is based on the dead (zombies) however almost everyone in the town of Blithe Hollow, sees them as either an inconvenience of is scared of them. I thought maybe their is a character who could be infatuated with the dead. I began to think of what sort of person would like the sound of zombies. I arrived on the idea of a mad scientist, who wants to capture the zombies in order to use them for his research. 

This character could be the main antagonist of a sequel, who's goal is to capture zombie/ghosts and use them in his experiments. As it is set in the late 70's to early 80's his machinery would be very clunky and large. It would be overengineered and be prone to breaking as the technology has not been perfected quite yet.

I started thinking of how the character could look. He would have the main archetypes of a scientist, crazy white hair, utility belt, glasses/goggles and jumpsuit/lab coat. I wanted to think of how his personality could effect his design in a Paranorman style. Characters are very exaggerated in order to fit their purpose. This makes each character look interesting and unique. My character's purpose is to be a scientist and so he will need to be smart. For this reason I want his head to be large as if containing a brain holding a lot of information. He is also the villain so will need to be designed with this in mind. He will need to have pointy features which warn of his nature. 

I found it hard to draw in the style of ParaNorman. I could visualize what my character looked like but found it hard translating this onto the paper. I do however think I came up with a solid character who fits the universe.

In the afternoon session, I managed to finalize a version of my story for the character bible project.

I have taken my research and ideas and come up with a story which I am happy with. 

Man is from the future. He is very vain and wants nothing more in life then to be the superhero everyone looks up to. He is very rich and so has everything you could want in life and is still not happy. He uses his money to research time travel and pinpoints the time (in the 60's) in which the superhero first begins appearing

Man from future uses time machine and arrives in 60's city at the exact point in which superhero gains powers. His time machine malfunctions and strikes a nearby boy, who gains powers. Man from future sees this happen and is devastated that he can never be the hero as he is the reason for their creation. 

The man from the future is now stuck in the past with no way of returning. He was unable to get his powers and due to him being in the wrong timeline, tears begin to appear in the world (this looks psychedelic). Man decides to take boy under his wing, posing as a superhero himself. He then uses his knowledge from the future to aid the boy in becoming a hero. He has study all of the events which have involved the hero and so knows a lot. 

The tears in the universe begin to grow larger, which destroys the city. Time keeper acknowledges the anomaly in the timeline and so travels to the 60's in order to set things right. The heroes believe that the timekeeper is the reason for the tears. The heroes confront the timekeeper. The man realizes his mistake and so returns back to his timeline. The reason why the hero is so good at his job is because he got his training from his mentor, the man. 

I really like how each character has their own motivations for doing what their doing and feel this will aid in coming up with a unique design. In order to distinguish the future from the past, I could make the past black and white and be in the art style of 60's comic (previously researched). This would then contrast against the bright colour's of the psychedelic tears which begin occurring in the city. By the end the entire world is being invaded by bright colour's. The main character is colourful compared to the black and white world he has travelled to.