This was the 'test day' and I actually really enjoyed it! I went in dreading the idea and actually had the most fun I've had all term. The idea was that we had a client to design for and emails kept coming in randomly throughout the day (voiced by Justin). I worked in a group with Chelsea, Ted and Tom. We were given the show: Rusty Rivets (Nickelodeon) to work on, so we worked on a slightly older based spin off series!
We started by each picking what character we would design out of: Hero, Sidekick, Mentor and Villain. I picked to do the sidekick for the hero. But before we really got to any designing, we had to design a playset- so I had the idea to have a toolbox that folded out into a play-set, set that could be compatible with other toys we would sell. This set would tie in with the story we made up about the villain losing a science competition to the hero, who would win by building their sidekick with help from the mentor! We felt it was important to establish a narrative as soon as possible so that a) everything would tie in together nicely and b) that we could design our characters with this in mind. It would be difficult to produce character designs with no idea what they'd do. I also had an idea for the sidekick to be built out of easy to assemble pieces.
Then the next email came in and we had to get some thumbnails for our characters down, I chose to work alongside the hero character (designed by Chelsea!) and have them build a little goofy dragon robot. There were a few designs for this, but they felt a little bit too mechanical when really they should feel a bit more 'fisher price toys'. So later on I rounded him out a bit. (We named him Axel)
Then the next email came in, to design a toy that would be a prop within the show- so I worked with Chelsea and we created a toy that would work for both of our characters and adapted them slightly differently (if this were real I'm sure we'd settle happily on something that would work for both of our characters). We worked on the idea of a spanner, for my dragon this would be a spanner that functions as a bone for him to play fetch with. But in regards to the hero, it would be a multitool as well. I also cooked up a little logo for this, based on the fact that the hero would most likely end up with an atom logo.
The next email was to adapt our characters into race cars for a childs racing game, like Mario kart. Mine could be adapted in a few ways, it could also be better- but the designs do have a cute aspect to them that make me laugh.
Finally, the most important thing that I was wizzing back and forth to all day was the turnarounds of Axel the robotic dragon. I'm really pleased with his design, rounded him out a bit so he felt more 'cute' and almost cuddly. I looked at the dinosaur from Rusty Rivets to create him and I really like him. I'm super pleased that I managed to get everything done to what I feel is a decent standard, and contributed in a group!
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