A work in progress...
Blog for the development of our short character animation.
Sunday, 26 February 2012
My final version of Captain Bravestar
This is my version of Captain Bravestar. There are some similarities with Gary Welsh's final design probably because we are on the same page with most ideas.
Thursday, 23 February 2012
Bravestar Concept First Draft
My version of Bravestar before the character designs were chosen for the animation. Note that our group will be using the design done by GWelsh. I might tweak this design anyway if I have the time.
Tuesday, 21 February 2012
Tuesday, 14 February 2012
Monday, 13 February 2012
Script Second Draft
Bravestar
LONG SHOT
INT. SPACESHIP
The space ship is a mixture of old and new
technology. It is rather cramped. There are two display screens on the
right. One displays a list, with
pictures, of monsters that are wanted and the other a full screen image of a
huge monster. In centre there is a swivel chair and the control console. The
console is a mixture of buttons and levers. In front of the console panel is a
large screen with a view out into space. To the left there is a hunter’s hat
hanging from the wall and a mirror next to it.
Captain Bravestar is standing to the right at the
display screens. He smugly crosses out a recent monster kill. He turns his
attention to the full screen image of the huge monster and stares obsessively
at it. He slowly stroked the screen with a loving look on his face which then
quickly turns to an angry sneer.
He casually walks towards his control console and pours
himself a drink from a bottle and glass sitting on the console. The thought of
the drink makes him smile again. He places the bottle and drink on the console
and sits down in his command chair throwing his feet up onto the control
console. He then leisurely takes a cigar and lighter from his pocket and lights
the cigar.
Suddenly the
monster proximity alarm sounds. Startled he leaps from his chair launching his
cigar into the air. The cigar lands back on the command chair, where it slowly
sets the fabric on fire. Oblivious to the developing fire, Bravestar dashes to
where his hunting hat is. He pulls the hat on then takes a second to check
himself out in the mirror. Pleased with how he looks, he rushes back to the
console and begins working the controls.
He sees the
fire in his peripheral vision and he takes a quick glance at the chair then
back to the controls. When it hits him the chair is on fire he jumps round and
in a panic throws his glass of whiskey onto the chair. This makes the fire rage
and leap setting his trousers on fire.
He
frantically tries to put out the fire on his trouser and in his flapping knocks
over the bottle of whiskey. The spilled whiskey pours into the console causing
it to spark. The lights begin to flicker then the artificial gravity fails. He
struggles to stay near the controls but he is too far away to get a hold of
something and floats up helplessly.
With the
bridge engulfed in flames, the bridge is gradually filling with smoke and
Bravestar hopelessly drifts upside down. The legendary monster slowly appears
on the view screen and he catches sight of it. He takes a big breath then releases
a long cry.
Bravestar
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Finally he slumps, weightless, dejected.
Saturday, 11 February 2012
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
How To Draw Bravestar Front View
NOTE: The GIF doesn't loop. Right click image and open in an new window to see it again.
Further Development and Poses
Further development of the design and character personality with various poses.
Initial Character Sketches
Here are my first sketches of Bravestar.
I definitely already had an idea of what I wanted.
The following are work from a character design workshop where we did multiple fast loose thumbnail sketches to get a feel for the characters poses and body shape.
By this point I had a good idea of how he would look.
Script 1st Draft
Bravestar
LONG SHOT
INT. SPACESHIP
The space ship is a mixture of old and new
technology. It is rather cramped. There are two display screens on the
right. One displays a list, with
pictures, of monsters that are wanted and the other a full screen image of a
huge monster. In centre there is a swivel chair and the control console. The
console is a mixture of buttons and levers. In front of the console panel is a
large screen with a view out into space. To the left there is a hunter’s hat
hanging from the wall and a mirror next to it.
Captain Bravestar is standing to the right at the
display screens. He smugly crosses out a recent monster kill. He turns his
attention to the full screen image of the huge monster and stares obsessively
at it. He slowly stroked the screen with a loving look on his face which then
quickly turns to an angry sneer. He grabs a bottle of whiskey and a glass from
underneath the screen.
He casually
walks towards his control console and whilst doing so he pours himself a well
deserved drink. The thought of the drink makes him smile again. He places the
bottle and drink on the console and sits down in his command chair throwing his
feet up onto the control console. He then leisurely takes a cigar and lighter
from his pocket and lights the cigar.
Suddenly the
monster proximity alarm sounds. Startled he leaps from his chair launching his
cigar into the air. The cigar lands back on the command chair, where it slowly
sets the fabric on fire. Oblivious to the developing fire, Bravestar dashes to
where his hunting hat is. He pulls the hat on then takes a second to check
himself out in the mirror. Pleased with how he looks, he rushes back to the
console and begins working the controls.
He sees the
fire in his peripheral vision and he takes a quick glance at the chair then
back to the controls. When it hits him the chair is on fire he jumps round and
in a panic throws his glass of whiskey onto the chair. This makes the fire rage
and leap setting his trousers on fire.
He
frantically tries to put it out and in his flapping knocks over the bottle of
whiskey. The spilled whiskey pours into the console causing it to spark. The
lights begin to flicker then the artificial gravity fails. He struggles to stay
near the controls but he is too far away to get a hold of something and floats
up helplessly.
With the
bridge engulfed in flames, Bravestar hopelessly drifts upside down. The
legendary monster slowly appears on the view screen and he catches sight of it.
He takes a big breath then releases a long cry.
Bravestar
“Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Treatment
Treatment
Bravestar
smugly crosses out a recent monster kill on a display panel at the right side
of the shot. Then he gazes obsessively at a large image of a legendary monster
he has been pursuing.
He walks
casually to the control console in the centre of the shot, pours himself a
victory drink of whisky and sits down in the command chair. He puts his feet up
on the panel, takes a cigar from his pocket and lights it. The monster
proximity alarm sounds, startling him.
He jumps
from his seat sending the cigar into the air before landing on the chair,
slowly setting the fabric on fire.
Oblivious to the developing fire, Bravestar dashes to the side to put on
his lucky hunting hat but takes a second to admire himself in a mirror by the
hat. He dashes back to the console and starts working the controls.
He sees
the fire in his peripheral vision and he glances at the chair and then startles
as he realises it’s aflame. Panicking he grabs the glass of whisky and throws
it at the fire. Instantly the fire expands. His trousers catch fire.
He
frantically attempts to put it out, knocking over the bottle of whisky in the
process. The spilled whiskey pours into the console causing the console to
spark, the lights to flicker and the artificial gravity to fail. He struggles
to stay near the controls but floats away helplessly.
Initial Character Idea
Name: Captain. Laslo Bravestar AKA Dilbert Duggan
Age: 35
Occupation: Monster Hunter/Exterminator
Influences: Buzz
Lightyear, Harry Crumb, Jonny Bravo, Commander Riker, Zap Brannigan. Moby Dick.
“An egotistical bounty
hunter space-ship Captain that travels the galaxy hunting monsters.”
If his name sounds
ridiculous and fake it’s because he made it up. His real name is Dilbert Duggan.
He is captain of a small
ship, the Goliath, which travels the galaxy offering monster hunting and extermination
services. He takes on bounties to capture infamous monsters for a big space zoo
at the Washington
He comes the slums of a
futuristic Earth where as a child he spent his days watching TV shows about
fictional space heroes. He always dreamed of escaping to the stars and living a
life of exploration, excitement and adventure.
Earth of the future is
much the same as it is now but more extreme. The rich are way richer and the
poor are way poorer. Corporations are giant and in competition with each other.
Technology advances changed the way advertising happened. It’s all a lot less
ethical/moral. It’s very much an anything to get ahead environment.
His parents were both poor
and barely had enough credit to get by. His mother died in labour, which was
quite common for the poor as they had hardly any access to medical care. He was
brought up by his father. His father died of natural causes when Dilbert was 11
years old. At a loss and needing to survive he wandered around and by chance
found himself at the space trade docks in the city. He climbed onto one of the
cargo ships to have a look inside and accidentally got taken with them. On
finding him the crew decided they could put him to work cleaning the ship and
doing odd jobs.
The crew of the ship
treated him quite badly. Basically like a second class person. He got all the
rubbish jobs and constantly mocked. This was sort of all a game to Dilbert
though, he was living his dream and he acted and conducted himself like an officer
even in the face of the ridicule and mocking of his crew mates.
Well, one fateful day, 22
years later, he was going about his daily duties of donning a space suit and
scrubbing all the waste shoots on the ship, when suddenly there was a loud
crunching noise. The rending of metal. He opened an airduct hatch in time to
see the rest of the ship in the jaws of a gigantic space monster. The stuff of
legends. There had always been rumours of a beast of this size but no one had
ever seen it first hand and lived to tell the tale.
He was left as the sole
survivor floating in a space suit for days hoping that his distress signal
would be picked up before his oxygen reserves ran out.
Luckily again, his ship
was on an established trade route. He was rescued by a passing trade ship. No
one believes his story and most are skeptical that this creature exists.
Especially when he re-tells it in all its exaggerated glory.
He decides to prove it to
everyone and makes it his goal to catch and kill the monster and stop that from
happening to anyone ever again. Mostly
because he wants to be famous.
He used his savings from
his 22 years as an airduct scrubber on the cargo ship to buy his own small ship.
The Goliath. Despite it’s intimidating title. It’s a tiny ship. All he could
afford.
He’s quite delusional. He
thinks he is professional and experienced where really he is incompetent and
clumsy. A bit of an imbecile. Most of his missions are solved by his crew or
dumb luck rather than him although he takes all the credit. He is seemingly
oblivious to his own ineptitude.
He always gets excited
about installing and testing out new monster hunting gadgets of which none work
the way they are supposed to.
When he doesn’t know what
to do, he’ll fake it and put on a show of confidence rather than appear to not
know.
His crew consists of a large
brutish alien woman, a small sentient repair robot, ship artificial intelligence
and an enthusiastic child prodigy girl pilot, all of whom are much more adept
at their jobs than the captain.
Their ship is tiny and
cramped and not really very well suited for monster hunting. The other hunters
all have bigger fancier ships and often mock him about the size of his ship.
He actually believes that
his put on confidence and bravado is real. He often gets in over his head but
talks through it and confuses people with his gibberish. He thinks he is a hit
with the ladies but really he comes across as cheesy and not genuine. He just
believes they are playing hard to get though.
Hopes and Fears
He wants to be famous one
day for catching the biggest existing monster – No one has ever caught it and
very few have witnessed it and live to tell about it. He often retells the story of how he was the
sole survivor of the attack exaggerating it to a ridiculous degree to make
himself look good.
His biggest fear is being
thought of as a joke and he copes with this with his display of bravado and
willful ignorance of him actually being thought of as a joke by most people.
He wants to be taken
seriously but believes the only way for that to happen is to put on this act he
maintains about being an important, respected ship captain and monster hunter.
Relationships with
others
The kid on his crew looks
up to him and is really knowledgeable about the ship, monsters and everything
in general. It irks him a lot to never be right and he ends up making things up
and taking credit for the kids ideas a lot.
He always tries to teach
the kid why the kids ideas and plans won’t work or are wrong even though they
are right because he wants to be the one that knows everything.
He always refers back to
earlier adventures when he’s talking to anyone who’ll listen and grossly
exaggerates the scale, danger and importance of his involvement in the events.
He has to ask the AI to do
a lot of the things on the ship because he doesn’t have a clue to the point
where it’s just his go to thing to get the AI to do it.
He doesn’t have any family
ties any more. Both his parents are dead. He considers his crew his friends even
though they can barely stand him.
He doesn’t have much of an
education and is generally a bit of a moron. It’s miraculous that he is captain
of his own ship.
He takes his business of
monster hunting very seriously, often quoting regulations and spouting
technical data that is in most cases irrelevant and ridiculous.
Personality
He’s not a bad person. He
sees himself as doing good but doesn’t shy away from capitalising on events if
it will suit him even if it’s morally dubious or illegal to an extent.
A bit selfish, delusional.
Condescending. Oblivious. Sees himself as one of the good guys. Very fake. Lots
of bravado and bluster. Runs his mouth off about how much of a big shot he is
and tells lots of exaggerated stories. Exaggerated, fake extrovert.
Deep down, he knows he is
putting forward a lie about who he really is but I think this is repressed by
his subconscious. He is aware deep down that he’s not very successful in most
pursuits and feels generally quite sad about his failure to achieve his goal of
being someone important and of catching the monster that wiped out his former
crew.
Over the top.
He’s quite obsessive about
catching the monster. All other bounties are a means to an end.
Physical Description
Story Notes
View is of the small spaceship
bridge, with a large viewscreen/window in the background. There will be a
captains chair and some small work stations.
He is doing something at
the start like drinking coffee or spinning in his chair slumped when the lights
go out on his ship. A panel at the side sparks a bit to coincide with the
lights going out.
He goes to fix the panel
but after some fiddling about it sparks again and a panel flies off the wall
near his head. Another one flies up with a jet of flame at his feet. He moves
to the side to avoid it but still has his hand in the panel.
He’s awkwardly posed now
and tries to fix the circuit from this angle. He ends up getting his hand
jammed in. He pulls on it a bit but has no leverage from his awkward angle then
thumps the wall above it with his free hand.
This action causes a bit
of ceiling panel to come loose and sets the artificial gravity off so he starts
to float off the floor.
At this point an alarm
sounds signaling a collision proximity.
He sees the monster on the
screen and starts to panic then frantically tries to free his trapped arm. The
force of him freeing his arm sends him across the room into a wall panel at the
other side which restores the gravity as he hits it. He hits the floor with a
thud but there’s no time to waste. He darts to the nearest work station.
He’s about to fire some
weapons when the ceiling panel that came loose before collapses completely into
his work station rendering it useless.
He does the Darth Vader
“Nooooooooooooo” scream as the monster
eats the ship in one bite.
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