Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Designing a Character; In-House Style Vs. Personal Aesthetic

Class Schedule:

1.  8 - 8:30; evaluating the Alan Moore Reading. 
Questions: 

Opening Question - 

What is an odd thing that alligators eat in Louisiana?

8:30 - 8:45

Lecture on Well Developed Environments with Eternal Logic:

Springfield, The Simpsons



Due to the Simpson's prolonged length in programing, the show has consistently developed an entire environment, most notably examined in the classic episode "22 Short Stories About Springfield."  The town of Springfield has developed an internal map that is observed in the opening credits in the form of a fly-by.  

Neo-Tokyo, Akira



Neo-Tokyo in the landmark Anime classic, AKIRA, is a major part to the success of the film.  The city itself is a character due to its attention to detail and vibe.  The intricate elements of the environment heighten its illusion of reality, allowing the audience to feel the illusion of existing in a futuristic vision.

American Flagg!



Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! is cited in Alan Moore's "writing for comics" as an example of a narrative with a highly developed internal logic.  The names of basketball teams within the future are mentioned, the recipes of the meals the characters eat are in the author's notes and the whole comic is interrupted by News Reports and Non Sequitur Commercials that exist within this Reagan Economics Futuristic Satire.  Reading Flagg! now feels almost grotesque in its prophetic estimates of a corporately owned, oligarchical, hyper-masculinized and misogynistic society.

8:45 - 9:45: "In-House" Exercise & Crit"

Many animations and cartoons are drawn in an "In-House" style.  This means a style which is predetermined by a head creator.  The classic example of this would be "the Simpsons". 





While the Simpsons have been "refined" in aesthetic (you will notice this early 1989 rendition of the family feels more hand drawn with no location of where light is hitting the characters in relation to the above image (making the below image appear flatter)), their proportions and characteristics are identical.  While the cloning of a character can be done with the assistance of a computer, it is literally impossible for two humans to draw the exact same Homer Simpsons.  The minute details of our individual hands cannot create exact copies.  Our own artistic tendencies and how we hold our instruments of mark making are too idiosyncratic.

In contrast, DC and Marvel Comics have corporate owned characters that are NOT drawn in-house style.  Their hand picked artists are encouraged to draw these characters in their own personal styles, although it is within the confines of the companies editors and owners.  As a result, their characters can become marketable to a variety of audiences.  A perfect example of this would be Batman and his depiction through the ages.

 

Batman is drawn for children in the pages of "Lil' Gotham".



And Batman is drawn for adults who are fans of gritty, noir crime literature.



Batman can be campy.



Batman can be slick and stylish.

Every artist interprets Batman to their own aesthetic vision that is developed into what is considered their iconic style.

Exercise:

Think of an In-House character.  Popeye, Yogi Bear, the cast of Akira, the Simpsons, Family Guy are all good examples.  We will collect a handful for the projector and then attempt to draw these in-house characters as perfectly as possible by observation.

When these In-House drawings are completed, draw the same character in your own personal aesthetic with your own materials.  We will compare and contrast the two.

10 minute break

9:55 - 10:30: 

Develop a Character for your environment.  Develop questions for this character first.   Write an entire page of questions like Alan Moore writes an entire column asking questions about the imaginary Neptune colony.  If you get stuck, ask follow up questions to the answer to your questions.  Once a page is written, post it in the comments section of this blog post.  Once you have done this, enjoy the pleasure of illustrating your character.  Consider the medium of animation when developing your character and that you will be most likely drawing lots and lots and lots and lots of little pictures of said character.  Therefore, you may wish to keep the rendering and excessive details down.  Consider how you can express your character with:

*  Fashion Decisions
*  Posture 
*  Facial Expression


When drawing your character, use the above handout as a model.  Draw your character from the front, a "turn right" (3/4th view), profile right, back right, back.  If your character is not symmetrical,  draw the additional figures so that the character makes a full 360 rotation.  This will prepare us for our first in-class animation, a character rotation GIF.  Here are some examples drawn by Middle Schoolers.












I strongly believe in developing characters and environments before script writing.  You can't write a script or draw storyboards based on characters and worlds you don't understand.  

Next week we will go over - 
Master Requirements
Cinematic grammar
Aspect ratio VS. resolution
Long shots, medium shots and full shots 

12 comments:

  1. Austin Oliver

    CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT Q’S: PUMP CHUNGUS

    What does this character look like, briefly? –

    Pump is a portly gentleman, and he lost an arm in the early days of the rodent uprising. Tall, about 6’3”.

    Does this character have any fashion motivations? –

    He wears a nondescript, tattered navy blue shirt and army green cargo shorts. He is wearing what he wore when the rodent uprising happened; a porcupine ravaged his dresser and shredded all of his clothes. The cargo shorts are good for carrying twinkies and a yo-yo.

    What is this character’s default demeanor, and why? –

    Pump is usually always hungry and sleep deprived, as this environment makes it hard to get much of those. Because of this, he is usually cranky and irritable. He’s overall friendly though, and apologizes for being so cranky. He didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.

    Friendly overall? How can he stay so amicable in such a trying time? –

    The Chungus family always teaches good manners and politeness. His mother, Spum Wungus-Chungus, always told him, “Pump, sweetie, say please and thank you”. So, Pump cherishes polite interactions and civil discussions. Even though the world has ended and he has few companions that survived with him, he still must remember that hatred and bad impressions will get him nowhere in terms of survival. Thanks, Spum. Oh, I’m sorry, I mean Mrs. Wungus-Chungus.

    Why the strange names? –

    Pump comes from a small town by the name of Funkley, Minnesota. And by “small”, I mean ridiculously small. Pump’s family of four contributed to the population of 6 when they were living there, leaving only the mayor, Pongus Funk and his dog, Brumpy-Pungus Funk III, as the other two residents. The history of Funkley is filled with names of this type. Notable former residents of Funkley are Lump Skump Dunkus, the man who invented music, and Crumple Sprump, the world’s first person to do a thumbs-up. The Chunguses have been keeping this tradition going as a nod to their deep Funkley heritage.

    What were Pump’s parents like? –

    Spum Wungus-Chungus, Pump’s mother, was a lovely lady, with a demeanor as soft as her perfectly round face. Spum is short for Spumoni, the Italian ice cream dish. Pump’s dad, however, was not as friendly. His name was Chunk. Chunk Chungus. He was a very conservative man, he feared god, and enforced hypermasculine traits on Pump all throughout his childhood. Pump didn’t think much of it though, and seems to be relatively unaffected by his father’s manly-man exterior.


    ReplyDelete
  2. Haley Hien


    What is this character’s motive: to win at sports ball

    How is he with people?: He kind of follows the stereotype for big burly football players, he's overly confident and has issues working with the team and is a tiny bit self centered. He needs to work on teamwork. He wants to get along with everyone, but says things without thinking, more often than not.

    Does he have any pets?: No, but one of the spider footballs lives in the locker room with him and his team. It's not a pet so much as a pest.

    Where does he live?: with the rest of his team, in the locker room. The locker room is really really big, and has several rows of bunks. All sportsball teams remain on the site of sportsball at all times, except for weekends, when they're allowed to visit town. It's reminiscent of a boarding school in concept.

    Where do people that are not involved in sportsball live?: people that are not involved in sportball live in mundane living conditions and work in factories to do things like craft golf clubs and make soccer balls. Everyone is involved in sportsball. Since things are techy, even mundane living conditions aren't actually that bad. They just seem bad in retrospect to the high life of sportball.

    What is his team like?: His team is very high energy, but somewhat scattered. They need a strong force to bring them together, and act as a team captain. Otherwise, they will lose the sportsball tournament, and be ‘eliminated’ from the games. Elimination comes after the amounts of losses surpasses the amount of wins. Thus, it’s more likely for new teams to be eliminated rather than older ones who have had time to build up their score. It’s kind of stacked and unfair.

    What is his name?: Johnny Orc.


    What is his biggest fear?: He really doesn’t like spiders, so he’s not very fond of the spiderballs. He’s also afraid of losing, for obvious reasons.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sabrina St. Germain

    Name: Monty Perez
    Age: 18
    Height: 5ft 7in
    Gender: Male
    Skin tone: Tan
    Eye color: Pale pink
    Sexuality: Bisexual
    Born: May 8,1920
    Sign: Taurus
    Favorite music: Listens to anything that has a good beat, anything he can dance to
    Favorite Colors: Greens, earthy tones, oranges
    Favorite foods: Beef empanadas, asparagus, spaghetti and meatballs, eggplant parm, enchiladas, most soups
    Favorite drinks: Coffee, hot chocolate, milk, chocolate milk, coke, grape soda
    Favorite desserts: Tiramisu, cheesecake, churros, chocolate eclairs, flan, fried ice cream, milkshakes, fried dough
    Personal Interests: Drawing, cooking, loves food and desserts, political science
    Aesthetic: Loves plants and gardens but often forgets to water them so they die, discovered succulents, enjoys bright colors but dislikes anything neon, space, favorite planet is saturn, wears alien shirts that say “I Believe”
    Personal/Ethnic background: Trans boy, Latino, bilingual, grew up in the 1920s, comes from a large family, eldest child, worked with mother at a dance studio, parents died when he was 18, he took care of his siblings till they were taken away, suffered through anxiety disorder, died at the age of 18
    Geographic location: Somewhere in America, a small house that’s a little worn for wear
    Motivations: Can be persuaded easily with food, loved ones, cute animals, equality
    Personality/Nature: Extroverted 60% of the time, the other 40% his anxiety gets the better of him, family oriented, scatterbrained, easily excited, can be very focused and determined when their goal is important to them, develops new interests based off friends and significant others interests, is held back by past occurrences, loves shit posts, sarcasm is often lost on him, good with kids, is patient, curious about other cultures, stubborn, obstinate, loves animals

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jacob Seal
    Character name: Ara Nace
    Age: 27
    Occupation: Guard of the Provincial Palace
    Questions:
    Q What's this guy's current motivation?
    A Advance in the guards, undercutting his current rival for promotion in the process. Eventually have a family once he's gotten a comfy position in the military elite.
    Q What's this guy's background?
    A 4th son of a minor estateholder, saw military service as his only path higher in life. Trained in some minor skirmishes with neighboring provinces, and gained a post in the guard due to his family's connections.
    Q What's this guy's general personality?
    A He is generally diplomatic in person, especially in interactions where he feels he can advance his goals in the internal politics of the guard. However, this is tempered by a burning disrespect for those of lower social station, such as non-landowning farmers and conscripted soldiers, as well as a tendency to say exactly the wrong thing when stressed. He cultivates a close circle of friends and allies among the guard and tries to kiss up with those higher in the landed elite.
    Q What does this guy do in his free time?
    A Usually he spends a couple hours training with his official weapons, either alone or with friends, then retires to his quarters for a mix of rest and socializing until he goes to sleep. Rarely he will take a day off to visit his family in the countryside.
    Q Where's this guy in the chain of command?
    A He oversees one of the 4 squads of the Provincial Guard, commanding 10 relatively elite guards, who usually protect the palace common areas during events, or the gate when the gate force is needed elsewhere. As such, he lives a life of waiting and restlessness, though still one of prestige.
    Q How is this guy in a fight?
    A He's pretty good, best with his spear or staff, but his sword has seen use too. In the army proper he led a squad, and has killed in combat. Due to his patronizing views on the lower class, as well as towards the neighboring provinces, who hold a different faith than his home province, he is able to get away from any major trauma from killing by dehumanizing the enemy.
    Q What's this dude look like, anyway?
    A He's about 5'9", which is close to average for a man in his culture. He's got slate grey skin, mid-length black hair he usually wears back and in a bun, in military style, and no facial hair. When on-duty he wears the official decorated armor of the provincial guard, but when off-duty he wears casual linen robes, decorated with a mix of patterns and religious symbols. He wears sandals.
    Q Anything else of note about this guy or the setting?
    A There's a good bit of sectarian conflict in the region that the Exarch of the Province, his boss, rules over. His province is at the border between the three competing faiths within his culture, and thus tensions are high. The current Exarch is a fair ruler, but the system itself is not very equitable, comparable to Russian serfdom or Arabic Iqta systems, where the farmers often don't own the land they work, and don't have very many rights or opportunities to advance.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jas Comerfield

    What is your character’s name? Does the character have a nickname?
    Flume. They cannot remember their original name, same as everyone else, but they do remember fire and thick smoke. It’s said if you say their name enough, you might taste ash.

    What is your character’s gender? Body type?
    Flume is agender, going by they/them pronouns. They’re tall, just breaking 6’, and built like a brick wall. They have thick arms and legs, but move with surprising levity.

    What is your character’s hair color? Eye color?
    Flume’s hair is dark and heavily tangled. The right eye is dark while the left is milky with a broken pupil, presumably from the scar slashed over it.

    What kind of distinguishing facial features does your character have?
    Two facial scars; one cuts from the bottom right side of their face, up over their nose and through their left eye to vanish into their hair line. Another scar runs jaggedly from their left midcheek, over their mouth, lower right of their chin and joining with the scar zigzagging messily around their neck like a collar.

    Does your character have a birthmark? What about scars? How did they get them?
    No birthmarks, but besides the scars littering Flume’s face and neck, many more vanish under their collar. Horrible, bubbled over scars strike the middle of their hands and feet, assuming a crucifixion. Flume cannot remember the exact reason for any of their scars. They do know some of them are from their days traveling Europe, and a few fresh ones from transformations.

    Where was your character born? Where have they lived since then? Where do they call home?
    Flume was born in the early 16th century, far east near Indonesia. Since then, they’ve traveled to nearly every continent, save Australia. They cannot call anything home, but they are distinctly adverse to Italy. When they are able to leave, they like to travel China.

    What does your character like to wear? Do they prefer comfortable clothes, or dressing up?
    Flume wears airy yukatas for optimal mobility. They’re cheap and easy to mend if and when ruined by transformations. Flume has still yet to find a successful way of patching a space for their wings to burst through. Needlework is not their strong suit.

    Where does your character go when they’re angry?
    Flume has long since claimed the upper rafters of the downtown shack. They will roost when they’re especially annoyed. True anger results in transformations, and at that point, it’s everyone else’s responsibility to get the hell out of the way.

    What is their biggest fear? Who have they told this to? Who would they never tell this to? Why?
    Flume, like many, fears remembering. While Flume’s position calls for knowing and understanding more for the sake of guidance--a role they did not choose but cannot recall being appointed to--personal memory is strained and veered away from. They have told this to no one but Linus when Flume finally meets him. Flume makes Linus swear to never tell Rooster.

    What makes your character laugh out loud?
    Flume is typically light-hearted and presumably unfazed. They make jokes and use humor to cope with heavy situations. It’s part of what makes them a successful leader.

    When has your character been in love? Had a broken heart?
    Flume has a vague understanding that love is the very reason they were hushed away in the Gap. Thinking about this brings the smell of fire and guilt to their throat. They’d rather not think about it.

    What does your character understand about the Gap?
    Flume grasps the basic logic of the Gap. Flume knows some, but far less in comparison to what they don’t. They know they can leave, but not why. They know when to come back, but it’s not sure for how long they go. They know each being in the Gap has a purpose.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jad Jabak

    1. What’s his name?
    a. Mika
    2. How tall is Mika?
    a. 5’5”
    3. What is Mika’s character?
    a. Adventurous, naïve and cunning
    4. How old is Mika?
    a. 16 going on 17
    5. What does he do for a living?
    a. Looks for parts of the world hidden away by the sand in hopes of adventure
    6. What does he hope to accomplish?
    a. To become recognized as a great man like his brother
    7. What is his family structure?
    a. His mother is alive and living in a small town, his brother died, and his father went missing before he was born.
    8. Where does Mika live?
    a. As a boy he lived with mother and brother before he died and now he lives wherever he can get into
    9. How does he procure places to stay?
    a. He usually pawns off items that look ancient to make fast money or he stows away and hopes he doesn’t get found out, which almost never works.
    10. What is the nature of the world he lives in?
    a. Harsh but charming. Filled with combinations of multiple time periods and races spanning across the entire continent. The town heads have a lot of power and some abuse this power.
    11. What kind of world does he live in?
    a. A world that was consumed by desert hundreds of years before Mika was born. Resulting in much of the past to be buried and prime adventure material.
    12. What are the politics like in the world?
    a. The continent is ruled by an empire and the continent is broken up and ruled by sections and governors as well as each town has an overseer. Just like reality there are some who are corrupt and some who want to good by the people.
    13. Does he care about people?
    a. He has a strong sense of justice that comes from trying to be adventurous
    14. Where does his sense of justice come from?
    a. From trying to live up to his brother’s greatness
    15. What are the color of his eyes?
    a. Green
    16. What disgusts him?
    a. Ugly people, corruption, fish
    17. What does he do when he’s not adventuring?
    a. He roams the area he is currently in until his luck lands him in trouble.
    18. Does he drink?
    a. He attempts to during parties but can’t manage his alcohol well and easily get drunk.
    19. Does he have any powers?
    a. He is an average human.
    20. What color is his hair?
    a. Dirty blonde

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jesse Moran

    Name: Shukra Fei (2055-)

    Etymology of the name?

    'Shukra' is Sanskrit for clear and lucid. In Vedic astrology, it is used to refer to the planet Venus.

    Sex: Female

    Age: 17

    Appearance: 5'11". Short dark hair. Hazel eyes. Appears to be of Greek/Mediterranean descent.

    Fashion/Clothing?

    Her attire consists of a deep blue tank top, grey pants, and black combat boots. Notable components include her beige, hooded longcoat (the right sleeve appears to have been torn off) and a prosthetic middle and index finger on her right hand (amputation caused by an accident with a soldering iron).

    Personality?

    Shukra is an angsty, brooding individual (which many see as odd, given she is quite financially fortunate for a citizen of Habitha). She typically wears her hood over her head, accompanied by a seemingly unending scowl. Of course, this is attributed to her contempt towards the high class of the city. Despite this, she is quite sympathetic towards the less fortunate, and most of the people she truly cares about are those who dwell in the slums. Following years of late night missions, she has become practically nocturnal; the lack of sleep attributes to her frequent crankiness in the 'normal' period of her days.

    Backstory?

    Born on Earth, Shukra was pulled away from her parents and shipped to the High Province of Venus at the age of 5. While she only holds vague memories of her time on Earth, she refuses to forgive those who took that life away from her. Since then, she's lived a relatively comfortable life in Habitha, watched and tutored by a government-installed robotic guardian, NASD (Naturalized Adolescent Servicing Device; Shukra nicknamed him 'Nate', which he accepts). However, her abduction, and witnessing secondhand the rough, depraved lives of the less fortunate, have soured her attitude towards the bigwigs, and was later inducted into a resistance group. As such, she's spent her adolescence walking the high streets, and the nights as a guardian of the inhabitants of the slums as a sort of freedom fighter.

    Notable skills and talents?

    Shukra received general education from 'Nate', who describes her to neighbors as a quick learner. She is fluent in both English and German. Outside of her duties of a vigilante (though they do go hand in hand often), Shukra is an avid, impressive mechanic, having created her own prosthetics and secretly rewired 'Nate' to allow her to venture out into the late hours of the night. While she was never instructed in any form of combat, Shukra learned conventional self-defense and the operation of firearms from her closest allies in the slums.

    Residence?

    Venus, the copper planet made habitable through years of artificial terraforming. Likewise, the world has long been under the brutal regime of a corporate empire. For most of her life, Shukra's lived in the capital city of Habitha, a bright-yet-dim region eternally divided between the wealthy and the poor, a salad bowl of Earth's cultures. Shukra lives supervised by Nate alone on the top floor of Pepsestates, a high-end apartment complex in close proximity to The Headquarters, the heart and residence of Habitha's leadership (oftentimes, the first thing she does waking up in the morning is walk to the window that displays The Headquarters in the distance and silently curses it).

    Companions?

    She is pretty nonchalant towards 'Nate', given he's "merely a program in a metallic husk". She considers her only friends in the world to be the members of the HRI (the Habitha Resistance Inquisition). Notable members include Fred, her mentor and a respected official, and Amai, an optimistic (and strangely philosophical) girl the same age as Shukra and her partner in crime; these two were the ones who inducted her into the group in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jason Perry, 1/29/17

    Character: Jane Alice Rook
    Stats: female, Caucasian, black hair, blue eyes, 5'2", 20 years old, right-handed.
    Abilities and skills: immortality, quick healing (over the course of some 12 hours), some special forces weapons training, sometimes a vague and selective intuition about some paranormal beings catalogued by the Institute such that she knows at least how to not die around them (often followed by intense headaches). Weaknesses (physical): can be incapacitated for indefinite amounts of time, is very sensitive to pain, may need surgery depending on injury to fully recover normally.
    Weaknesses (mental): feelings of intense anger and fear due to her traumatic experiences. However with training by the Institute, she learned to use these emotions to her advantage. Although due to her hatred of the paranormal, the Institute leaves certain helpful paranormal beings out of her knowledge and sight.

    Common outfit and weaponry: as a Private of the ISTF (Institute-Sanctioned Task Force) Zed/Eta-13i "Black Smoke," she owns some of the standard-issue ISTF tactical gear often used by on-site facility guards, as there's no use in letting Jane sustain painful tissue damage even if she is immortal. This includes the standard off-white protection jumpsuit (padded with demi-particulate plasto-torsionite putty laced within some ortho fabric), black ballistic vest and helmet (both laced with anti-myriad obsidian quazinite), the latter of which is sometimes fitted with a yellow-tinted visor (made from an amber-plasmic holozite nucleo-glass, for optimal ease on the eyes). For weaponry, she has a beryllium-bronze-laced blade and a standard Black WYVRN "Penlink" rifle.

    Species: human with a fraction of something else.

    History:
    Jane's mom Isabelle Rook was personnel of the Institute, so baby Jane was known about and immediately taken for surgical removal of some extra fingers, toes and inhuman organs (some of which were put on ice), then doused with enough growth suppressants that she wouldn't grow too much taller than other human children (as the anomalous genes would otherwise make her much taller as she grew). This was all done so that she could one day live among the rest of human society without any highly noticeable physical differences. As a result, she grew up a bit of a runt, but with grade-A intelligence, health, endurance, stamina, etc.

    As a young child, she was under the care of the Institute for extensive testing, especially in regards to her mental faculties. She was exposed regularly to amnestic drugs, which jumbled much of her memory in the long-term, specifically when it came to her early life under the care of the Institute. Wanting to free their child, Isabelle and her husband Greg conspired with friends Nathan and Margaret Woods (outsiders to the Institute who have had extensive experience with the paranormal) to relocate young Jane by staging a containment breach. Due to the child's anomalous ancestry, her presence in fact attracted a lot of paranormal activity. Greg, Isabelle, Peter and Margaret were able to exploit this in order to more easily induce a containment breach, retrieve Jane and relocate her to Arkansas under the care of the foster parents and former Institute agents Bruce and Paula Richardson, who moved to Massachusetts immediately afterward.

    Throughout childhood, Jane never sustained any injuries or illnesses. She only sometimes remembered her experiences within the Institute's facilities as nightmares.

    Over time, as she grew in this town of [classified], MA, it became a hive of paranormal activity. Not knowing of her own paranormal nature and ancestry, she and her friends were fascinated by a lot of it, so she often joined with them on expeditions into the woods in search of paranormal entities. The urban legends of this town were much more recent, having begun around the same time Jane and her foster parents had moved there.

    [to be continued]

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. [continued here]

      One vacation week, her and her friends Ben, Erica and brothers Jeffrey and Louis, decided to take a trip into the woods. During one of these earlier nights, they came across a strange pale creature, which terribly frightened them. While trying to escape the forest, Ben had fallen into a river and died. Over the course of the following months, everyone except Jane were experiencing declining health and sanity, claiming to often see the pale creature stalking them at night. Much of these problems were chalked up to trauma and guilt from the death of their friend Ben, by therapists and the like. It all culminated in Jeffrey committing a mass killing spree of hundreds of people throughout town in one night, including setting many public buildings ablaze, then running off into the woods, never to be seen for many years. Jane was one of few survivors of this incident, but the only one to survive directly amidst it all (as she was trapped within the high school as it burned down with everyone inside it). She was blamed for everything, as she sustained the least amount of harm and her story seemed completely crazy with claims of paranormal nature and such, yet she wasn't deemed mentally ill either. There was no evidence for any contrary or alternative story due to the immense fire damage to the town.

      Sentenced to death row, she was coincidentally found by the Institute again, as they often take in some death row inmates for experimentation with paranormal entities and objects in containment. They didn't recognize her at first since she was sent to a wholly separate facility from the one in which she was experimented on as a child, but as she was about to be used for experimentation, one of the Institutes biggest containment breaches of the most dangerous paranormal entities to date had occurred (coincidence? Unsure.), and she managed to escape the facility alive solely on her wit, only to end up running into guards on the outside who said they wanted to ask some questions. Taking her in for questioning on the experience plus an intensive psych evaluation, they deduced she was the missing child from years prior. The Institute's head, the Administrative Director, saw how much she was able to survive all of these experiences, and promised her that life will drastically improve. The AD gave Jane the chance to join them as a super soldier, knowing she was superhuman and unable to be conventionally harmed. Due to her hatred of all things paranormal due to all the bad things in her life having been caused by them, she agreed. She is now among the Institute's most valued assets, brought into situations of extreme danger whenever a situation calls for it. When she had asked about how she was able to survive such great odds, the Institute lied, telling her it had something to do with her experience with the pale creature. As Jeffrey had also seemed to avoid death by conventional means, so too she must have been affected to be so good at self-preservation. Meanwhile they secretly keep her origins and true nature a secret.

      [to be continued]

      Delete
    2. [continued here]

      Likewise, Jane views the Institute as a tool to her advantage; she knows that with the privileges granted to her by the Institute, she can soon unravel the mystery of what the pale creature was, what happened to her once friend Jeffrey, and more importantly, how to destroy them forever.

      Not every anomalous hybrid child (of human and whatever else it was that bore Jane) is naturally immortal like Jane; being in the presence of the mysterious pale creature seems to have exposed her to a sort of particle radiation. The Institute having discovered these particles within her flesh, they are on independent missions out of Jane's knowledge to find the pale creature, extract more of these anomalous particles, and apply it to Jane. They figured that the particles are the X-element they need to fully realize their original plans for Jane.

      What is she terrified of most?
      Once having had a fascination with the paranormal, she's seen how dangerous and murderous some paranormal beings are. She is now terrified of it, but she's learned to transform that fear into hatred and anger which she can now channel into strength. She knows she can't seem to die.

      Partners?
      • Commander Galen Witwer (39 year old man), her supervising ISTFC (ISTF Commander). His story spans decades, won't go into it now.
      • Private James Ashmore (22 year old man), youngest male member of ISTF Zed/Eta-13i.
      • Other people too idk

      [done I guess fuggit]

      Delete
  9. George Hurley
    1/29/2017
    Animation Seminar
    Animated World Questions
    1.
    Q. What time period is this earth set in.
    A.Thats a tricky question because its sort of all over the map. The characters of the story travel all over the world and some areas seem much more modern while others seem more dated. For example they may land on an island thats a satirical representation of san francisco, then we could land in India and its a much more traditional version of India. Or we land in England and the queen is still the highest form of power.
    2.
    Q.Where does it take place?
    A.It takes place on earth and the humor of the show is that it’s linear and they always seem to have a new home by the end of the episode. Their ways of transportation is always changing but for the most part its always going to be on the water.
    3.
    Q.What kind of people live there.
    A. Everyone on earth lives in this world, but many more pirates. Then we have main characters of course which are Jamin, Rashes and their two dogs Moop and Beans. We also find out things later on like who their parents are and some other mysteries about their family. We also meet friends of Rashes and Jamin, and we are constantly moving along in the story to different locations meeting new people.

    4.
    Q. Are there super markets
    A. There’s stores and super markets like there are on earth.
    5.
    Q.Who’s the weirdest person in this world
    A. Theres going to be some dude named Garth and he has a secret identity where he thinks he’s a cat named Nightflame.
    6.
    Q.What are the major diseases?
    A. Scurvy!
    7.
    Q. Any celebrities?
    A. There are some famous pirates our characters run into and we will also run into some famous historical figures on occasion, or parodies of historical figures.
    8.
    Q. How crime infested is it?
    A. Our main characters are pirates so they are the crime infested. Still, there will be more bad guys that our characters will run into.
    9.
    Q.What are the schools like?
    A. Our characters did originallyy go to school till something happened which sent there life on a course of adventures exploring and meeting new people..
    10.
    Q. How old are the usual people?
    A. In the show we meet kids and adults. But as for the main cast, Rashes is 10 years old while Jamin is 16. Moop is 5 years old and Beans is 2.

    ReplyDelete