Edited Idea - Snowman

I had a discussion with Richard Barnes about the progress that I had currently made with the animation and models. We had a bit of an issue with my main character model of the penguin. Unfortunately because I created it working closely alongside images of Pingu, the animated character, the final model ended up looking very similar to the character. This would be an issue because it limits my ideas of the development of the character because I am struggling to think of ways of editing the penguin to make it less like Pingu but still keeping the penguin character.

I spoke with Richard and we decided that this could be an issue when it came to marking the models. We decided that the best solution would be to create a new model to use as my main character and could use the current model of the penguin briefly in the animation. The main focus would still be this new model however using the penguin I could create the ability for the new character to react according to what the penguin does.

I wanted to stick with the snow/ice/arctic idea so that I could keep my penguin model and incorporate it into my animation. We spoke about possible ideas for characters that would fit well into this scene. One idea that we thought of that I liked the idea of was creating a Snowman as the mainc haracter. I had a fear that it would be a struggle to create and animate using a biped for a Snowman but RIchard clamed my fears by saying that the biped was not a necessity in the animation.

A snowman has very little manouverability because it is 3 blobs of snow with stick arms and no feet. This makes it impossible for the snowman to walk around and do most animations that normal characters could do. I thought that it would be interesting and a challenge to create an animation using a character with very little manouverability yet still be bale to show a great amound of feelings and emotions.

My next task is to carry out some research into the different looks of a snowman and the huge range of already created designs. I will also need to look at current examples of Snowman animations that have been made and see how different actions and animations have already been made. The final piece of research I need to do next is looking at other character/animals/people that have a similar body shape and characteristics and investigate how they move and carry out actions.