Concept Art & Robot Animation

For a possible robot character I researched int robotic characters, toys and actual build robots. If can pull it off I intend to make a robot character for my animation using a method of rigging that requires the parenting of individual shapes (i.e. arms, legs, fingers etc) to the individual parts of a skeleton rig. This way I do not need blend shapes or any weight painting should the tests succeed and I can pull this off.

Story Ideas

Below are some ideas of duo acts that I could use acting against each other in my story in some format.

1) Robot Hunter & Alien

2) American Stickman & Soviet Stickman

3) Small Robot & Big Robot

4) Policeman & Crook

5) Ant & Elephant

6) Caterpiller & Butterfly

Stick Men

A new idea would be for me to try and animate 3 dimensional stick men (which facial features). This style would be simple and not too difficult to rig and weight.

(Much thanks to Yaniv who gave me the idea)

Chibi Design Style

'Chibi' is a term used in Japan to describe a drawing that is small or childlike and simplified in appearance and size. Many people take existing characters and design them in such a way and I think this style could be of a good influence towards my design style.

Below are some examples of Chibi, using characters from the Naruto manga and anime series, taken and redesined in the Chibi style.

Spy vs. Spy

Spy vs. Spy is a black and white, wordless comic strip about two spies called Black and White who are constantly waring with each other and coming up with very sophisticated and creative ways to outdo the other.

Fosters Home for Imaginary Friends

A simple and very 2 dimensional style of character design.

Klonoa

From the video game series of the same name

Megaman & Robotboy

Megaman from the game series of the same name and Robotboy, also from the series of the same name.

MegaMan (above)

Robotboy (below)

Astro Boy

Another simply designed character. Astroboy was created by Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s, Japan and appearing in his latest incarnation in 2009 as a CG film.

Character design

Below is an image I found of a minor character called 'Starman.exe' from the 'MegaMan Battle Network' game series. The design is another fairly simple one, though less so than Rex the Runt and could be used as influence for one of my characters.