Team Hero Character Developments

More detailed pictures that I did of some of the characters. These pictures can be seen full size at http://www.zoestarlite.deviantart.com/gallery where there are also pictures of the other characters and possible storyboards.

Team Hero

Volt

Sniper

Siren

Glider

Aphis

Artist

Team Hero

An all female team of superheroes. Their goal, to stamp out evil wherever they go from city to city. They also work on a worldwide scale. Team hero was founded by one of the girls and new recruits keep arriving. They can rival any of the superhero teams around today. Team Hero has an emblem but team members do not have to show this on their suits. The founder believes that each hero should maintain their individuality.

Members

The Artist

Real name – Eva Crowne

Age – 23

Height – 5ft 6in

Ability – Telekinesis - can move objects with her mind, enables her to fly. Power not limited to moving objects, can also manipulate them. Telepathy – Can read the thoughts of others, can project thoughts into the minds of others, can access people’s brains and alter them such as memory loss of forcing someone to sleep.

Synopsis – Eva was born with her ability and has been aware of it since she was a teenager. Afraid of her powers at first, she hid them from her friends and family. As a teenager she had difficulty controlling her powers and accidentally killed her sister. Afraid she fled her home and went to live with her elderly rich grandparents. There she learnt of her ancestry and her family of telepaths. She is the first one in her family to be born with telekinesis.

Personality – Eva is a pleasant girl but hides the darkness of her past inside her. She tries to remain calm and controlled so as not to ever lose a grip on her powers. However she hasn’t let herself get too serious and still laughs and jokes with the other girls. Eva has a very logical way of thinking that can upset the other members.

Recon
Real name - Aoee Soik

Age – 907 earth years

Height – 5ft 9in

Ability -Morphing – Can physically morph into people, animals, objects; anything she pleases. Her skin and bones can take any forms and can expand and contract allowing her to become large and small things.

Synopsis – Aoee is an alien from another galaxy. Her planet ‘Loel’ has inhabited her surrounding galaxy with their superior technology. They are a civilization of peace and have been visiting their neighboring galaxies to observe and study. Aoee was one of 6 scientists aboard one such observation vessel. When her ship entered our solar system it was attacked by an unknown alien enemy. Aoee was the only one able to escape her flaming ship in an escape pod. It will be 5 years since her escape until a rescue ship is sent to look for survivors. She has been hiding amongst the human race disguised as one. Upon joining Team Heroes Aoee hopes to find the unknown alien that destroyed her ship.

Personality – Aoee is very intelligent and sometimes get frustrated with the simple science of earth. She is timid in nature and keeps herself to herself. Sometimes she is taken for being ignorant but Aoee is just very quiet and prefers to observe. However in the heat of battle Aoee’s intelligence allows her to be a very efficient member of the team. Her conservative nature is pushed aside in the interests of victory and she becomes an aggressive fighter.

Physicality – Aoee’s planet is mainly fresh water based with only a few small continents. Her people spend much of their time living underwater. This makes Aoee a powerful swimmer with the ability to breath underwater. Being from a fresh water world she has to morph into sea life to swim in our salty sea. Like the rest of her race she is also physically strong in order to survive the great pressure at the bottom of her oceans. Her race communicates using clicks like a dolphin underwater.

Aphis
Real Name – Amelle Stark

Age – 20

Height – 5ft 1in

Ability – Time traveler – can shift through time and dimension. Allows her to become essentially invisible to others by travelling in and out of different time periods in the same place. She uses futuristic weapons and ancient terrifying creatures to help her. Also takes her enemies and leaves them at the hands of savage warriors or puts them between planes where they can do no harm.

Synopsis – Amelle was the last child born to a dying world in our galaxy. Her parents had survived genocide at the hands of a ruthless citizen who wanted to control the planets unusual time shifting properties. When her mother gave birth to her Amelle had inherited the great planet’s power. They sent her away in an escape pod and suffered the planets fate along with the evil citizen. Amelle was sent to a nearby planet in her solar system and raised there. She came upon earth during her travels and decided she enjoyed the strange nature of these earthlings.

Personality – Amelle is an adventurer and is always looking for somewhere new to go. She wears a collection of her favorite time eras throughout earth. She can be very strong minded and doesn’t like working in sync with the other girls. Even though she is stubborn she appreciates the stability of the team and holds all the girls dear to her.

Glider

Real Name – Erin Brooke

Age - 27

Height – 5ft 7in

Ability - Super speed - Can reach almost the speed of light meaning she can’t run without being detected. She has tried to break her speed limit but failed. She can also swim fast and generally do everything in life fast. This means her body recovers quickly and she has a very fast immune system. During battle she will spin whirlwinds, attack opponents with multiple blows and launch herself with great speed at an attacker.

Synopsis – Erin was born with her speed ability. Her parents tried to exploit her ability by making her a world class athlete. When a fellow team mate discovered Erin’s powers she exposed her to the press and Erin’s athletic career was over. She later joined the team under a new guise with contact lenses and new hair. She fights for justice with the other team members.

Personality – Erin isn’t very trusting of people. She still feels betrayed by her former athlete. She sees her powers as a freak of nature and dislikes them. However she uses her speed to the best of her ability to do good. She hates confrontation with people and finds it easier to run away. During battle Erin will go in first to stun an enemy so the big guns can step in later.

Siren
Real Name – Mia Jones

Age - 29

Height- 5ft 8in

Ability- Sonic Voice – able to create different pitches and frequencies with voice. Allows her to sonic blast at enemies. Can shatter scream to frequencies that will cause peoples ears to bleed, can disrupt electric signals and frequencies and communicate with animals by calling them to her; such as bats, dolphins etc.

Synopsis- Siren got her power when she was infected by a rare strain of laryngitis made by a crazy scientist. During a routine check up at her hospital the test tubes got mixed up and instead of being immunized with the flu virus she was given the super strain. She was given the only viable sample of the vicious strain. The scientist has been in hiding since trying to replicate the virus. She had been living a normal life until she discovered the team. She has joined it in hopes of ridding the world of evil and preventing the scientist from recreating her virus.

Personality- Mia hates her condition and how it has affected her life. Before her incident she was hoping to settle down and have children. She has become quite a grumpy person and gets easily annoyed and the incompetence of others. However she still has a kind nature and cares greatly for all of her team members. She tries to be a reliable force within the group.

Sniper

Real Name – Lucie Marshall

Age – 18yrs

Height- 5ft 3in

Ability- Mysterious 3rd eye – Her 3rd eye is capable of gazing upon people and shattering their molecules. It provides her with telescopic and x-ray vision. Her powers are useful for long range attacks as she can home in on her victim and shatter them from a distance. Her eye is capable of a stun effect that leaves her victim paralyzed for a few moments. X-ray vision is useful to her when she is sizing up her opponents.

Synopsis- She got her power when she was visiting a space research lab with her high school. During the visit she and her class mates were being shown the latest star gazing technology and telescopes. An earthquake caused the facility to be evacuated but she was trapped under a giant telescope. Electrical fires tore though the building and a great current ran through the telescope and burned into her chest. She was not killed but instead left with the 3rd eye in her chest.

Personality- Sniper received her powers during her life as a teenager and she has found them quite a novelty. She is a cheeky kind of girl who likes to use her x-ray vision for her own purposes. She is always looking to have fun and keep everyone’s spirits up. She can be quite immature and hasn’t yet learned to be an adult. This can annoy the other team members. On occasion Sniper can lose her courage in battle, she likes to attack from a long distance.

Volt

Real Name - Aerra

Age – 3 earth years

Height- 6ft 1in

Ability-Elementals Fire and Lightning – Her skin can combust or electrify at will. She can create surplus amounts of each energy. She can then project her energy to burn anyone and anything. When using each power her whole body becomes engulfed. Her lightning can jumpstart equipment as easily as it can disable it. Her fire can move at great speeds and also take any form she pleases. The force behind her fire allows her to fly like a human fire ball. Her lightning allows her an almost teleportation ability as she turns her body into pure electricity and re-materializes.

Synopsis- She comes from another dimension where all of her kind has elemental powers. She was thrown from her dimension during a great cataclysm that befell her world. Before she was thrown into our dimension her element was lightning but when she landed on earth her other side emerged along with her other element. Unable to get back home, she has lived on earth as a circus performer. When she heard of the time traveler in the team she decided to join so she could speak to her. The time traveler has been unable to locate her specific dimension. Until the time traveler can take her back to her own world, she fights with the team for a planet she can grown to call home.

Personality- Aerra has a split personality that she believes comes from her being thrown into this dimension. One side of her is kind natured and regular but her other side is wild and lives only for joy. Aerra knows when her personality is changing and she tries to keep a hold of her temper when it’s not needed. Her wild side enjoys using fire and her regular side tends to use lightning. Even when she is feeling wild and carefree she never completely loses control of herself and is always a valuable member of the team.

'Pomme' short animation

This a piece of animation done for our Creative Animation class. It was done as a group and the concept was to have a robot fall in love with an apple. It was made using cut paper and i thought it was quite successful.

Ideas - Pink Cat and Piki

I was thinking about the kind of daytime cartoons that I used to watch when I was very young, and wondered if i would be any good at creating a character that appealed to young children. Pink Cat and Piki is the story of a naughty little boy cat called Pink Cat and his best friend Piki. Pink Cat is.......a pink coloured cat who goes on many adventures . His best friend is a white marshmallow called Piki. Sometimes its hard for Pink Cat not to eat Piki because he loves marshmallows, but its his best friend and losing Piki would make him very sad.
The idea would be that the two of them would go on many fantastical adventures by leaving through a magic door in their back garden. The character designs would be very basic and made from simple shapes, almost looking like cut paper. The stories would teach kiddies about all the general values in life.

Week 2/3

Toonboom is a software package that allows you to animate in 2d. The package operates in a similar way to traditional methods of animation. The exposure sheet allows you to draw out each frame individually. There is also a very handy feature called 'onion skin' that allows you to see the previous or next few frames. This means easier animation. During the days of hand drawn cel animation, each drawing would be laid ontop of the other which would give the animator a good indication of movement. The Toonboom package also contains a handy camera function which allows you to move in and out of a piece of animation. The software also offers a nice range of drawing tools.
However the software is not perfect and through personal experience I have found that is does not work entirely well with graphics tablets. Even when the click pressure sensitivity is turned down the pen will draw all over your work. Speaking to other students I have founf that i am not alone in this problem. To solve this problem I have been using a mouse to animate instead. In some ways this has made things easier. By creating characters made with simple shapes it made the whole animation process easier.
Flash is another animation package that allows you to animate in 2D. However i have found it to be alot more technical in approach, compared to Toon Boom. The 'motion tween' function provides you the means to fill in the process of motion between key frames. This makes the animation process look more professional and less stunted, but can be difficult to master. The drawing tools are not as advanced as Toon Boom and so it is harder to be more creative visually. Flash is not akin to old fashioned animation techniques and tries to bring the animation process into the 21st century. The software works in a similar way to new 3D packages and the 'timeline' function helps prepare you for more difficult animations.
With its vast array of drop down menus and functions Flash can be confusing. Toonboom provides a more straight forward user interface. Flash is a more technical piece of software that may well have more functions and tools than Toon Boom, but i prefer the more hands on approach that Toon Boom offers.

Week 1

I have just finished setting up my blogger account for my Computer Animation - Planning and Application Class.