Writing on The Wall: Pre Production Bible

So work has now began on what is being called a 'Pre-production bible'. This is essentially a brochure or information document, displaying concepts, character work, ideas, brief synopsis, episode ideas, turnarounds, models ect ect. It aims to give anyone looking at it, i.e a potential investor perhaps, a complete idea of what this animation is about, exactly how it will work and give a general feel for what the final outcome will look like.

For 'The Writing on the wall' we really only have 3 characters, 1 of which is essentially the same person, with two personas. At this stage we have the a good foundation for each of the characters, as we know what time period we are setting in (18th century) so we can use very obvious character types and dress. The hardest part so far is creating a female character who can be very feminine (Caroline) but also masculine when we need her to be her male alter ego.

As well as character design, we are planning to make this project a stop motion, which requires us to plan carefully how this will physically look, as well as on paper. Therefore we are now planning to create some mock up models of characters and sets, so there is a good solid feel of how it will look at the final stage.

Below are some basic and more rendered Astrid character designs I've been working on.