SIMON ARDOIN
Character Design
"Beacon" Character Designs - Top (Summer/Fall 2021)
For my senior film Beacon, I was tasked with designing the Survivor and the Rescuer. If you want to see more of these designs, action posts, expressions, etc., please click here.
"The How Book" Character Designs - Right (Summer 2021)
Over the summer of 2021, I was able to work on a SCAD Animation Studios film entitled "The How Book." While I was primarily a storyboarder, which you can see here, I also drew up a couple character designs and concepts, some of which would be used, some of which wouldn't, and some of which were used as influence for the other character designers. If you want to see more of these designs, please click here.
Joao Character Design (Spring 2021)
For my ANIM 332 character animation class, I had to do a quick turnaround for my character Joao for my second assignment. I've had him for quite a while, but for this class, I simplified his designs down by not drawing all the flecks he usually has (he currently has three under each eye). He also usually has only three fingers due to his frog-like mutation, but my professor wanted me to give him four fingers. He let me keep the tiny thumb and long fingers though! If you want to see the animation, click here.
"Something Forgotten" Character Designs (2021)
To get ready for my senior film pitch, entitled "Something Forgotten", I designed a variety of characters, from the main character Samuel Hall to his dog, Diitsi. Many of these designs show the same character in a variety of ages, and this is because the film follows Samuel over the course of his life. Other characters include his brother, Daniel, his grandniece, Aiyana, and his dead best friend, Charlie Adams.
While the film wasn't greenlit, I still intend to eventually pursue this film, and the character designs will likely change a bit by the time I do.
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI.
Shibe and Grey Character Designs (Spring 2021)
For my ANIM 395 Collaboration class, I was one of the character designers for the team, along with storyboarders, animators, etc. One of the scenes I was going to animate was a fight scene between a cat and a dog using fire and plasma, and these are those characters!
Shibe is, well, a shiba inu who can manipulate fire and Grey, a Russian blue cat, can manipulate plasma. They're opposites in terms of color, personality, and stature. Their face shapes are vaguely similar, and that's mostly because of the fact that the animals actually have very similar head shapes.
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI.
Frisk E. Fox Turnaround (Spring 2021)
Also for my ANIM 395 class, I was tasked with drawing a turnaround for a pre-existing character known as Frisk E. Fox. Simply put, this is that turnaround. I later did some rough animation for the character, but no one ever inbetweened, so it became the final animation.
Art done in Paint Tool SAI.
Bigfoot and Mothman Color Tests (Spring 2021)
Yet again for my ANIM 395 class, I was tasked with trying out a variety of color combinations for Bigfoot and Mothman based on the four for each that we had narrowed down as a class. We eventually ended up going with option number five, which was used in the final film.
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI.
Mothman Character Development (Spring 2021)
For my ANIM 375 class, I was tasked with creating Mothman in his entirely, from development all the way to color. Initially, both myself and another classmate had our own designs, but I smashed those together to create the ten initial designs in the middle picture.
From those ten designs, we voted on which designs were the best, and we had the list narrowed down to four. From those, we picked number four with more vertically shaped antennae.
Having the final design down, I jumped into color and tested a variety of combinations as well as put a blue-green multiply layer on top of him to test what the lighting would look like in the forest where the film takes place.
Number two was the final design.
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI.
Initial Monster Designs (Spring 2021)
For my ANIM 375 class, here were some of the initial sketches of the characters and monsters - some of which would later be used in the film, some of which would be edited, and some of which would be entirely cut from the film.
Unhinged Designs (2020)
For my SEQA 272 class, we were to design four characters that we would use for the rest of the quarter (which I actually didn't know about, but I digress). The characters I created are Igneous, Juno, Kiume, and Fluorosick. While I still love Kiume, I got kind of bored of the other ones. If you want to see the storyboard they were in or further character designs, please click the relevant links.
Art done in Paint Tool SAI.
Eggs (Winter 2021)
For my ANIM 272 Pipeline class, I was takes with designing the cat for the film, Eggs. Eggs is a bit of a troublemaker, but he has good intentions. I was able to to a turnaround for him, along with five action poses and six expressions (though we didn't see many of them).
Art done in Paint Tool SAI.
Spencer and Rory Character Development (Winter 2021)
For ANIM 272, I was tasked with designing two of the main characters, which would later be animated by myself and the rest of the team. Above this were the initial designs for the characters, but we decided to change things up a little bit. Off to the side are more designs for Spencer (top) and Rory (bottom) that I drew up to explore the possibilities.
Eventually, we ended up going with number two for Spencer and number four for Rory. Designs were then fully fleshed out by another member of the team.
Art done in Paint Tool SAI.
Mixed Signals Concept Art (2020)
The revised lineup for the prompt something is in the way, the first image features the three characters who are going to be part of the stroyboard, whose names are Lukas, Aili, and Sho. If you rearrange their names, you actually get ASL, which is short for American Sign Language. It's pretty topical, given that Aili is deaf, though Lukas doesn't know this and tries to tell Aili he likes her. This leads to a lot of miscommunication.
Below the lineup are some of the concept sketches for different items, including backpacks, lockers, art, and, of course, different references for sign language.
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI. When the animatic is done, it will be found here.
Scrapped Lineup (2020)
For the concept development class I'm currently in, we were tasked with creating a character lineup for the project we're working on over the entire quarter. This was the lineup for my original concept following the prompt of something is in the way, wherein my character Rudy struggles with the manifestation of his schizoaffective disorder. However, I came up with a better idea for my plot, so I ended up scrapping this lineup.
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI.
Hachi (2019)
This past fall quarter, my school's anime club hosted a contest to design the club's new mascot. My entry was a character I designed named Hachi, as seen to the right. I have more sketches I was never able to finish, but it's fine. My entry ended up being one of the winners.
Worst Day Ever Concepts (2020)
In the winder quarter of my sophomore year, I took a concept development class. For the final project in that class, we were tasked with developing a character lineup to go along with the storyboard, and these were the three characters I came up with. You is a young boy with fluorosic acid for blood, the doctor has insane intellegence, and Kosei is essentially an axolotl (he can breathe underwater and has regenerative abilities).
Art was done in Paint Tool SAI. The animatic to go along with this concept art can be seen here in the Worst Day Ever animatic.
Shape Cat Concepts (2020)
For a storyboard project in the winter of 2020, we were tasked by my professor to three characters, each based on the three simple geometric shapes: square, triangle, and circle. As a challenge, we aren't supposed to use realism, so that's where these designs came from. Kotak is the square, Kolmio is the triangle, and Aplis is the circle. Interesting fact: each of their names translates to their shape in different languages.
The storyboard of Shape Cats can be seen here.
Concept art for Addicted (2019)
In preparation for the animation Addicted (which can be seen right here), we were tasked to come up with a concept for out main character, the environment, and stills that would convey the tone of the animation. Using my character Sei, I went from my more semi-realistic style to a more simplified style, which would be easier to animate. Clearly, the subject matter was meant to be kind of dark, though this wasn't seen in the finished animation. This was the first serious project I had in regards to concept development.