13/10/25 Start of Isobel Stenhouse live brief
started off with initial ideas – answering the questions that were given by Isobel to start thinking of how some of these ideas can be fleshed out.
21/10/25 – Before this meeting with Isobel, I noted down initial ideas I had that related to the brief and had a couple. I ended up choosing one, but still open to going back to another idea if the one I had chosen didn’t really fit within the brief, waiting for Isobel’s feedback. But based on the idea I already had, I made a style moodbard of how I wanted the character to look, and I’m aiming for a children’s illustrated style to represent the child character I’m trying to design as if the story is being retold by that character’s pov.
Things noted in this meeting: 1. Make sure to understand your characters, personality and how they act first before designing anything for them 2. Create gestures of how the characters act whilst doing things, e.g., for my main character, since they will be a kid, maybe things like them playing, etc. 3. What can the item be that can be developed, as it doesn’t need to be the thing that’s stolen.
Idea so far- set in the past, not sure how long ago or maybe even now, as some sellers are old school (asian street food stalls), like an older lady that’s selling noodles/duck shop, and the duck is hanging from a string as a display in front of her stall. i also found out that the “sidekick” character can be anything because at first I was thinking another person that helps out with the stall but I think maybe a dog character or some sort of animal thats the pet of the owner
maybe the pet can be a tool to attract customers to the shop and whilst its acting cute it notices that the young character is trying to steal. Or it can be a dog that is chained, and once it notices, it starts barking, but because the owner is so focused on preparing and serving her customers, she doesn’t notice that the dog is barking because of the little kid.
As for the kid, coming from a low-income family, the reason for stealing is? It could be that the kid is trying to act out as a form of rebelling? Either that or because duck is more expensive, maybe it’s the most expensive on the menu, and they’re craving but have no money.
The item could be their wallet (bucket, or a plastic bag explore how it can be changed, then a regular wallet. Think about what kids may have access to instead.
28/10/25 – design investigation and gestures
This was the work I had for this week’s meeting
The feedback given by Isobel –
Make sure the dog has a characteristic that makes it special (why would someone ask me to design). The design was too generic of a dog, like all dogs bark, sleep, etc.
Is the dog super timid (I think maybe making the dog a small yappy dog that barks a lot, so the owner doesn’t care much when it’s barking, since she’s too busy with customers, and since it barks all the time, she doesn’t take note that the kid is stealing something.
Add details to the characters.
For the worker character, does she have a uniform that shows when u first look, you can tell what their occupation is
Kid is okay for now, just add more details and clothes, hair, etc
4/11/25- selected rough characters
Before next week’s class with Isobel, I want to try to explore the selected characters a bit more and refine them. for the kid, maybe looking at hair/outfit. The lady – more on her overall design/hair, and expressions. for the dog, making it more obvious that it’s an overfed dog, maybe or having a feature that makes it special.
Isobel’s feedback – just try to explore these characters further
11/11/25- 1-1 tutorial with Isobel
Isobel’s feedback
The kids’ design is going well,
The lady posing is awkward. Make sure, before looking at colours, etc, to have a good base.
All the designs visually look nice; however, there’s nothing that really stands out about each of them and interesting (wants to push it more even if they’re ordinary characters, how can you know more about their life, look at how other movies, etc, make their ordinary characters special/worth looking at).
Not much point developing them more – maybe add another character ( maybe a homeless person, another shopkeeper, etc), basically someone who will have an interesting “costume design”
18/11/25 – developing from isobels 1-1 feedback
I thought it would be better if I were to continue developing my original ideas instead of also making a different character, as it would have been a challenge, as if I were already making “ordinary’ chaarcters it would be a good way to test if I can push them to be more visually interesting. the changes i mainly made were to the duck seller as she was really bland before and now i feel that her look is much more of what i was orginally imaginging, her appaerence is intimdating while her personality is the opposite. The dog and the girls’ design mainly remained the same, but with small additions or changes.
25/11/25
Isobel’s feedback – the designs now have much more personality and have developed well from how they were previously. The design looks like it would work well for TV/animation, less for games, as it’s less detailed.
things that she listed to do – design the prop, her suggestion was maybe the sign of the market stall (what material it’s made from or how it’ll be hung, etc.) will have to do turnarounds for all three characters as their design/costuming doesn’t include a lot of detail. Look at the layout design for the final presentation, which might include one fully rendered character sprite in posing.
2/12/25
had to adjust a few things on the turnarounds, need to start finalising the prop design and making final layouts
12/12/25 – Final 1-1 with Isobel
Overall, for this brief I’ve learnt a lot from Isobel and was glad I was able to work on my character design. I would say in terms of what I could’ve changed if I were to do this project again, is working on spacing the amount of work I did for each meeting with Isobel and as for design i would’ve wanted to had developed a more detailed understanding of my characters personality so when it comes to designing expressions it would be easy to imagine them in different situations that wasn’t related to the brief. As For what i think i work well within this brief was definitely taking the feedback from isobel and trying to work on them as much as possible which proved in the end as i would say my final characters definitely improved from how they were originally especially the shop keeper as i would say i challenged myself into drawing an older character which before i would try to avoid shown by my early concept of her.