Onwards, onto the Major Project!

This is a very exciting time, but also a pretty uneasy time too. The Minor was a really important project for me. It allowed me to see exactly what I can achieve when I put hard work and a simple idea together and I'm really proud of how my animation turned out. My character turned out to be even more charming than I'd hoped and it's because of his adorable-ness that I now have a rough idea where I'd like to go next. The scary part is taking what I've learnt from the previous project and making something even better than before. However, as it is also an exciting time, I may have an idea that could be.

I've recently been giving more thought into what I'd like to be doing or where I'd like to be in my post-uni future.  I realised that when I think about working in the film or games industry I get really nervous, but when I think about the idea of becoming a toy designer or being part of that process, my excited to nervous ratio changes completely and I feel a lot more enthusiastic.  I want to channel this into my next project and after a talk with Alan I've come to an almost-decision. I'll put a proposal together along with some initial research today, but the general idea is that I want to design a selection of characters, or perhaps a playset (so a character or two and a bit of scenery) that is cute and suitable for children, but that adults will find equally fun.  Depending on where I go I might like to also do a small animation, one of the characters interacting or maybe a title sequence for the show they may be part of. I've got a lot of books to flip through but my very first inspiration for this came from The Octonauts books and CG cartoons and the Sanrio characters, such as Hello Kitty.

Also, after my meeting with Alan it became clear that one important aspect of this project is to keep it simple, because that's one of the reasons my Minor Project character was so successful. I need the characters to have a base in something, whether thats them all being the same but different, like The Smurfs or Poddington Peas, or whether there are a couple of hierarchical characters and then a group of soldiers that are all the same, much like a chess set. Also, they need to be connected in some way, much like the Poddington Peas and Octonauts. A couple of suggestions were trying to think of a common ground e.g. creatures from a garden or underwater, or taking a complex or sinister book such as Alice in Wonderland and reducing it right down to vinyl simplicity.

There's a lot to think about over the next day or so but what's important is that I have a direction and that I'm excited! Onwards and upwards! :D