Greetings, welcome back to my series on animation. Unfortunately, the “This is Halloween” project is currently placed on hold. and perhaps next year, it will make a comeback.
Despite this, I still want to continue my venture through animation.
Now, while I did discuss the process of making an animated music video, I never talked about the process of making an animated series.
To clarify, I’m beginning a new object show called “Party.exe”.
Party.exe is an old idea I want to circle back to, it was based on the Roblox game by the same name, and I just never got around to making something for it.
Luckily, I have the perfect opportunity to do so now.
The original game has multiple endings, some of which I haven’t even explored yet, it’s a very well-built game and, honestly, very unsettling. Due to the multiple endings, each “chapter” of this series will focus on a character, in total making 11 characters and 11 “chapters”.
This might sound similar to the previous post that I did about character designs, but instead of focusing on the designs, I want to focus on their personalities.
Since this is an object show, the designs can be fairly simplistic and I don’t need to focus too heavily on them.
To clarify, an object show is a show centered around inanimate objects. The format for an object show follows a competition for a prize (dream island, cash, wishes, and anything else that the creator can think of.)
However, this show will be putting a twist on the format and is rather focused on being story-based as compared to being a competition.
I wanted to start with the most common ending, and for most, accidental ending. When you log into the game, if you turn to the left, you’ll find a “tix” laying on the ground, when you touch it, it transports you to a tunnel. At the end of the tunnel a little “tix” is sat on a little stool, when you walk up to it, you’re stopped and a Roblox guest avatar appears. It then cuts to black and then explains how “tix” were removed from Roblox and shows a sad cat next to the text.
I chose a design related to the ‘tix’ concept for this ending, so I designed the character as a Roblox item that had tix involved with the design.
This design is definitely due for some touch ups, but I want to get a feel for how this character looks, since it helps put into perspective how he acts, his personality.
I want something that will click with other characters well along with his environment in a way that isn’t bland.
You can start by calling him generous and loyal, but what’s beneath that surface level persona he might put on? Perhaps he doesn’t do well with actively talking to people and just wants to be left alone. Not in a way where he’s inherently being selfish or rude, but rather introverted and quiet, though due to this, he does tend to act quite sarcastic and uncaring towards others, making him pretty unpopular. What if he was a conman despite this? Hence the name “Conner”? Perhaps he had this end because of him conning others and needing to make retribution for his actions. He is quite clever and cunning, and bargaining is just his natural talent.
I wanted to touch base with these ideas, because I believe that personality is what makes or breaks a character, and in order to have a good character, they need a dynamic personality. Having a character that escapes the typical “frightened protagonist in a new world” is something that I believe can add a lot to the story.
When making an animated series, you should think less of the generic and surface level traits, and figure out what makes them dynamic and unique. More popular object shows such as “Inanimate Insanity” and “TPOT” do this very well, despite how many characters they have. They set up one personality trait, and from their flesh them out greatly.
