Character: Monster

Here are some early designs for the monster character in my story. These images do not reflect the aesthetic I would like for my final film, but are focused more on form. They have too much detail at the moment but optimising the final designs for animation with the excess information in hand should ensure for a more thought-out character even after being simplified.

In the story the monster is created or rather grows out of the tears of the protagonist. She (the protagonist) is crying over the death of her father. The monster itself therefore is the manifestation of the pain and grief she feels over the loss of her dad. Because of this I thought it would be appropriate to have the monster character built out of the things that killed her father, in this case it would be built out bits of aircraft.

The huge wings are the most important part of the design for me and will probably be present in the final drawing- along with the monster's enormous size, you can see the comparison in the top image. I wanted to have other aircraft elements decide the form of the monster, but I think it will be easier if I decide the shape of this character beforehand and then assign various bits of machinery to the design to make it work. In the image below I drew the shape of the head before fitting the aircraft elements in. I really like the idea of the turbine mouth, so when the monster roars it roars literally with the ferocity of a jet engine.

Originally, I just wanted to animate a robot, but now the monster has taken on a deeper meaning and plays a much more important role in the story. I don’t think any of the theory behind the monster’s design will be so evident during the film’s showing but it will certainly help to develop these early sketches into a much more appropriate antagonist.



I am worried that the monster in the sketches above looks too human to be considered scary so I will be looking into animal forms to help rectify this issue. I’ll be checking out the Solid Drawing blog by John K for some useful tips on character design as well (thanks Rob!). The link is under 'technical links' on the right if anyone else is interested.