One of my favorite aspects of the creation process is to create characters.   For me I use them to drive my story.    For me characters come first.  Usually  I’ll scribble up some character and then it inspires me to think about that characters life.

Below are some of the characters I have created over the years.

names

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One key for me when creating a character is to keep them simple.  For example the guy below.  Not much to him but a humanoid snail.   But for me I think he is awesome.  When I see him I start thinking about what he is like, where is he from, what kind of life he would lead, etc.

cgtalksnailo_by_themightyflog-d6k0pfa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personally I like characters out of the norm.  I get tired of the good looking guy or girl being the main hero ALL the time.  I always wanted the monsters to be the good guys.  I wanted the little side kick like character to be the main hero and so for me I’ve always designed characters that were a little off and I would give them a weakness of sorts.    That weakness would be part of their character.

Another thing I think about when I’m creating a character is to give him a goofy name that just fits. Here are a list of some of my characters names.

Kalimar, Sasquatch named Joe, Snailo (pictured above), Flog, Alienboy (Raimi is his real name) Low-Key, Spoon, Taco, Soft, Poke, etc.

While some are stupid they are recognizable and say something about the character.

For example SOFT.  Pictured below.   Soft’s father gave her up when she was only around 2 years old.  She was bought by a robot from a planet similar to Cybertron.  Basically it is a planet that was taken over by robots.  Being advance technologically they joined the Galactic Federation as any other alien race would.   This robot is a criminal and has brought Soft to his home planet as a show piece and to have fun torturing her.  She endures being frozen and released for over 100 years.    However being the daughter of her powerful father she escapes the clutches of her robotic owner, she wreaks havoc on the planet and ends up taking over the robot planet all on her own.  Her name is Soft because she is a soft thing in a hard world.   This is really where her story begins.  She learns her father has taken over several planets over the years and has put her younger siblings in charge of these planets.  Her goal is to undermine her siblings to make her way to her father and prove she was the daughter that should never have been thrown away.

SOLF copy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All that just to tell you why her name is SOFT.

SOFT is actually a part of my Bigfoot Vs Nerd Universe.   I’m thinking big.  LOL.  Make sure when creating characters that you also copywrite them.

That is just a side note.

Now if you can tell I’m about to start creating my own anime and show you step by step how to do it.  Step 1 is creating great characters.   Some folks go story first but I go character and let it organically go from there.

 

Okay so my favorite type of story is good old fashioned “heroe’s Journey.”  Most if not all Shonen fall under this story type and I love it.

Here is a breakdown of the heroes journey.  When making your anime you have to think about what you want to do.  Remember story is key.  You could have horrible graphics but if you have a great story it will capture an audience.  Story is the most important part.

 

Yup it is.  Hard as working in the hot sun digging ditches for a living?  Probably not.

But I wanted to share MAStar’s words of wisdom and personal experience in making anime.

 

MAStar has been creating One Punch Man vs Goku.  It was a fun little animation.

He is working on another here and his own anime series.

We talk about making anime.  Truth is that year after year it is getting easier and easier to do it on your own or with some friends.

For example check out the latest trailer for Gantz 0.

Here are some behind the scenes.

So maybe combine Poser, Iclone or DAZ3d with one of the packages below.

Personally I’ve used IPIsoft but I’ve recently been thinking about Iclones Mocap or Iclone mixed with Perception.

Hey Perception if you want to give me a mocap suit and Iclone you want me to start making my anime using your stuff that I promote please call me.  LOL.

Seriously….call me.  Perception Neuron looks awesome.

Okay back to our story.  Did you know the creator of Gantz actually used Poser in creating his comic?

Yup!

So why not use something like POser, Iclone or DAZ to make your stuff?

Now I need to find some cheap facial capture software.  If you know where to find it please let me know!

I love it.  Reallusion please get me one of these.   I will tell everyone about it till the end of days.  :)

Here is an artist showing us how to use Sequencer to make cinematics.  First let us show you the level of work you can do in UE4

 

Here is the making of this awesome looking cinematic and here are some videos that can show you how to do it yourself.

Here is the making of…

I hope you can see the possibilities.  This animation was done in real time/live.   They used characters and motion capture.

Motion capture is getting a lot cheaper.  .  I showed a video in the posts that shows just how much cheaper they are getting.  So the question is can you combine Cheap motion capture, with say Poser, Iclone or Daz characters?

http://kadaj777.deviantart.com/

Imagine using something like the characters below.  Popping some mocap ln there and using Ue4 for the render?

jia_by_kadaj777-da94u80 aiko3d

Michel Victor has some cool work.

He has extensive tutorials on how to add animation to a still drawing.  You don’t have to make the whole anime frame by frame.  Why not do a manga with a little bit of pizzaz to it.

 

You can get your tutorials here…

 

https://gumroad.com/michelvictor