Character Design

I found designing the main character interesting because you can completely make up a persona for someone. Had I been drawing my character I could have also designed the look of her as well. However, as I decided to use live action and stop motion photography I needed to use a real character. I felt this would also be an interesting contrast in the make believe, magical wood she was in. The character’s exact appearance couldn’t be decided until the week before the film shoot as I needed to find out which one of my fiends would be able to spare a day to model for me. Other than that, I was able to decide her personality (scared and confused but inquisitive) and her costume. I new that she would be wearing a long black dress, and other objects from the wood which would gradually attach themselves to her outfit.

Character Drawings

By Rak

These things were, barbed wire, a rabbit, vegetation, and birds. Initially, I wasn’t sure how I wanted these characters to appear. I thought about drawing them for a while, but then with the look of the real character, I decided it might be more fitting if I used real objects and made them come alive either through stop motion, editing on after effects or making puppets. The design of these didn’t become clear until the eater holidays when I started purchasing and looking for props. I decided to buy fake barbed wire (so the model wouldn’t get injured), a rabbit mask (more practical than to animate one on) and a toy flopsy bunny. I thought at this stage that the birds would be crows and when I looked for these online, they were all massively expensive. Instead, I found some cute and colored birds which were actually more fitting to the look of the piece.  I decided to leave the vegetation until nearer the time of shoot, and the stag could be made during the edit.