Just about a year ago, I attended an Animation Design Workshop in Seattle, Washington called Schoolism Live. There I learned from several professional animation production designers. From Sculpture to Character Design, they explained their processes and what they each find important when designing for video games, television and feature length movies. Chris Sasaki from Pixar was one professional whose presentation greatly informed me about how to approach designing my own characters. What stood out most for me was his attention to the pre-designing researching phase. He advised in the beginning to stay on track that designers should briefly write up a description of the character using simple adjectives and ALWAYS refer to this when in the design process. After establishing who the character is in writing, He says to research costume designs and similar actors or characters that may embody that character. Putting together a "Mood Board" or visual collage of all of these references.
When I started designing Blackberry Beard, I envisioned him as being a lot shorter in stature compared to Steve Silverado. He would always be looking up to him but not be afraid of him. In fact, he would be intimidating Silverado. I also researched some steampunk eye pieces for his bionic eye. My idea for that element would be that it can act as a nautical telescope as well as a microscope to examine his victims up close. For his bionic corkscrew arm, I was thinking about the simplicity of the designs of armor from the Mega Man series. To me the corkscrew hand serves as torture device for his victims. I envisoned it slowly getting longer as it gets closer and closer to it's victim's throat. As I was fleshing him out, I thought of the Characters of Tormund from Game of Thrones and Ganondorf from Zelda. He has a threatning and insane demeanor as well as slicked back hair and beard.
