LO1 - Brief Proposal - Character Model

 The purpose of my 3D model is to create a product which is high quality and can be transferred into a multitude of media. In this case it will be a mascot for the Tokyo Olympics and will be used as a means for advertising and promoting the Olympics as it will be associated and displayed throughout the event. Not only that but the character will also be able to be transferred into a 2D model in order to make merchandise such as T-shirts and key chains.

The form and genre of my product will be a combination of the modern Pixar style, which has realistic textures for materials and textiles, and an anime style, which comprises of proportions and eye style, and in a 3D, sense utilising a cell shading art style, as this relates to the art style of the country and is really relevant to some of Japan's heritage, so it would be a very good fit for a way to advertise the olympics for that country. Moreover, the style of the character will need to fit the sporty, athletic trend that previous mascots have used so that it doesn't seem out of place.

My proposed content is a 3D model of a mascot which will be fully textured and rigged, it will be a female character that appears younger as it relates to a lot of popular anime. I will be using a lot of bright, vibrant colours for clothing on the character to fit the very summery vibes of the Olympics. Moreover, it will be rigged to do a set of animated motions in which I hope to eventually put this into interactive software such as Character Animator or even Unity in which this character can be controlled and have pre-set animations. Moreover, it will have a voice actor which will do a set of voice clips which will be set to certain animations. Most likely I will have to apply multiple layers of voice filtering in order to get the desired tone and pitch. 

The main objective from this product is to create a character that can successfully advertise and promote the Olympics at Japan and inform people of some of the culture within the country, I believe this is something that is beneficial to audiences who do not have a full understanding of the country. Moreover, as this is a mascot one of its main purposes will be to attract a multitude of people from different countries to attract them to this big event. Moreover, as part of this, i hope my character will be desirable as a part of merchandise too such as t-shirts, Funko pops  

My target audience for this audience is sports fans within the classes of C1 and C2 and more than likely an audience of 5 years and above due to the majority of audiences accessed the Olympics via black box devices and past mascots being sold as merchandise towards youth audiences an example being the Wenlock and Mandeville plushies sold as part of the 2012 London Olympics. Moreover, it will have to be released internationally due to the fact that it is a union of countries so people from across the world will be wanting to view this content so it will have to appeal to a range of cultures and ethnicities. Even though my character is intended on being female, I do not want it to only be advertised towards women, so to keep it neutral, i will be making concepts for a 2nd character which will be male so then we can advertise towards male and female audiences by using them separately for products that are aimed towards a specific gender then use both to promote the Olympics as a whole. Moreover, to ensure this is ethical I won’t be following the traditional voyeuristic approach to the design of the women where they have their sexual features over exaggerated and very revealing as this is not appropriate for younger audiences and also may be illegal to release this to younger audiences and will go against ASA laws.

For this project my competitors will be companies that centre around graphics design, CGI and 3D modelling. This is because all of these factors are part of this project as I first must design my character in software such as Photoshop and Illustrator, this is so I can get a general design concept and can get a model to work off so I can get the correct proportions. Moreover, I will conduct some research and do product analysis on companies that are within this sector in order to see what sort of products are out there and also see what is effective so that I am aware of what I am trying to improve upon to make the most successful product. However, as these are large companies, I do not believe I will be able to reach such a professional standard, but I will aim to make something that is high quality and useable in industry.

As this is is a digital product, distribution will mostly be done digitally in the forms of adverts such as trailers and promotional videos, but also can be incorporated in to small animations which can be spread over social media, this seems fitting as the majority of audiences use black box devices which are portable, this means that they will be able to access the products anywhere. Moreover, to distribute this product to a youth audience, merchandise will be created and centred around the product such as plushies, t-shirts and mugs, this is possible as due to the cell shaded art style being used, it is possible to get 2d images of the character to put onto merchandise. Not only will this feature be applicable to merchandise but also it can be applied to advertisement as it can be used to create print-based adverts such as in magazines, bus wrapping and billboards. This is also good as bus wrappings can be used for people who are mobile and also be great for advertising in populated areas where there are many buses.

For my sample material, I will be making my concept art for my model in Photoshop, this is because it will give a clear example of what my character is going to look like. The concept art will also act as a base to model off of as it will be much easier to model when I have a reference to work with directly in Blender. Photoshop V Blender It will show the proportions of my character and give insight into the colour scheme and house styles of the product and organisation. I will also have a separate version with the annotations on my drawing to explain features and why they are the way they are and could possibly discuss any alternatives that I have taken into consideration. 

The resources I will be using are the Internet, in order to gather reference and boost my knowledge and understanding of Blender, this will mostly be used in pre-production and post-production as that is the areas where I would need to get references and fill in gaps when it comes to rigging and animating my character. Moreover, I will be using Photoshop in order to create my model art for the character so I can get the proportions and designs correct, this will be exported as a PNG file so then I can use it later in software. Then I will be using Blender, this is where the majority of my production and post production will be held as that is the software used to make 3d models. I will start by creating my character's proportions, then add the colour and repeat when modelling clothing and accessories to the character, then in post-production I will be rigging this character to make it able to smoothly move its limbs and allow the physics of clothing and hair to be in effect.