I researched the types of clothes people who live a nomadic lifestyle wear in different cultures, deciding eventually to use loose nondescript garments and a sort of turban/ hat type thing.
I was struggling the most with the design of the face. I think this because once a figure is given a face, that is what people will focus on. I was thinking that giving a humanoid face to the figure would make it too much like a human in general. The song made me picture something a little stranger/ more fantastical than that.
I decided to go pretty basic and refer to the title of the track, 'Moth', for further inspiration. In hindsight this seems a bit lazy, but my ideas did start to pick up again so I decided to run with it.
I used insect eyes and those furry feelers that moths have, but couldn't really figure out the rest of the face and thought it looked a little weak just having them sat on a sort of blank template shape. I did, at this point, start thinking about putting the types of patterns and shapes found on moths' wings onto the clothing as well.
I decided the most important element of the face was the feelers, but that the furry ones were perhaps a bit much. I decided I would obscure the face but leave these insect feelers poking out. I think they have the potential to be fairly expressive in a way, and were definitely the most essential component for me. I wanted to hint at insect traits without having to be too explicit. I also found that blotting ink, and letting ink run in water on paper creates patterns which, again, hint at the patterns on moth wings without being to obvious.
I am happy with how the character has evolved and using cut paper really helped me identify the key shapes needed to represent it's form. I think they will work best for the digitally 'drawn' GIF. I decided having the figure sat on a camel-type creature is perhaps not necessary but I may still experiment with it.
For the hand drawn GIF, I think Ill just have my character walking across the screen, I don't mind if it's a little flickery, as that will fit in the idea of how a moth moves anyway. It will be hard, though, I think to do this convincingly and I'm considering whether having the ink patterns might make it a little hectic if they change every frame, obviously I can't really control how ink runs. So I might have to tone this aspect down a bit. I have also considered having the walking character GIF used for the digital imagery instead of hand drawn, arranging cut paper shapes for the legs might be easier than drawing every stage, and the ink patterns would stay the same.
I made a three dimensional model of my character out of cut paper which I am fairly happy with, but it doesn't move, so I am going to build another one around a flexible wire frame so I can animate it properly. I'm still not one hundred percent sure what I might have my character doing in the three dimensional GIF, but other ideas I have for GIFs in general at the moment are sitting with only the 'feelers' moving around and falling down with exhaustion. I have had the idea to arrange the duvet on my bed to look like a desert landscape with which to place him in however.
I would stick some paper behind to act as a sky, probably black to imply night time, and maybe a moon as well. I intend to shoot i black and white, or rather, convert the images to black and white in Photoshop after taking them.
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