Pre-production, Creating environments Based on the characters

 "Games Night" Environments
In preparation for animating next semester my supervisor advised I start thinking about floor plans and where my animation & story beats take place. But when discussing the placement of the animation for "Games night" had me considering using both character homes and seeing how it might affect the characters within the room.

Lilly's Room mood board

The first area I focused on was creating Mood boards for the rooms. I aimed to have the rooms reflect the character personalities and help describe this, comparing it to other times I have had to design environments when I focused on the props first and then what else might be in the room.

Lilly's mood board focuses on furniture that maximize the use of space because I picture her room being smaller than Mary's. One problem when finding reference images for both characters is the fact of the show room feel. A room that looks perfectly clean shows no personality or sense of living and isn't classed as an environment. Though despite knowing this and taking it into consideration the draws still show absence of this because I plan to add them later at this time I aimed for creating a blueprint for what I might or will model.

Marys room mood board

Mary's mood board lacks images, there was a few ways i could approach her concept. She is emotional and quick to act. But ways of interpret her room can consider the fact that she is barely ever there because she loves being outdoors.

The first Drawing was of the outside of Lilly's Home i wanted to establish a look and location for because it could prove useful later if I animate "First Meeting", because the window is where Mary first see's and interacts with Lilly.

Lilly's House

There was a few areas "First meeting" could have occurred and originally did not occur at this place. However, as I worked more on the story beats and characters this location seems more appropriate.

Lilly's Room floor plan

This image acted as a floor plan and considers two room layouts. The window being Lilly's primary location of interest. I opted for the second layout because the size of the room matched more toward a character who's doesn't need match space to be happy. The larger room give the feeling for more activity, compared to Lilly who is more conservative of her energy.

I took the second idea forward and place the furniture that resembles  designs from the mood boards, mainly focusing on item that maximize storage within limited space along with practicality. 

Lilly's Room Top Right

Lilly's Room Bottem Left

I realized  mid way through that some of the proportions aren't right this prevented me from adding certain prop and decided to create the thumb nail bellow indicating some of the extra items that would be present. The second image being the other side of the room considers these items from the start. However, as I said before the room is still too clean. Lilly being more responsible I could picture her having a clean room but she is also spends allot of time in her room. This allows me to consider that she would have a few things out of place such as books, cups, scraps of rubbish or paper and even clothes. This will be brought more into consideration during modelling.

 
Mary's room was a little more challenging because of the lack of relevant references.

Mary's Room floor plan

Her room's floor plan considers what would be in her room despite being an outdoors character. She has a lot of storage as a attempt to consider that she would like a lot of different sports and clothes appropriate for this because she is more competitive. However, She takes school seriously enough for tests so I added a desk and place she could keep books. Lastly A source of entertainment for her when she is stuck indoors. This being in the form of a audio system and TV. This requires a more creative source of seating allowing me to adding in a bean bag seat, placing this in her room doesn't limit it to a single application but also a extra entertainment device.

Mary's Room top right

Mary's Room Bottom Left

considering the character personality and limitation of the character I aimed to allow the character to improvise with the surroundings. Two areas contain mirrored surfaces so Mary can check her appearance at both source of gaining clothing. I also place Stepped storage furniture to allow her to access both side of her shelf. Like Lilly's room the is a concept of how clean and messy her room might be, I can picture her room being messy with clothes laying around or sports equipment and the occasional book and pencil out. However the lack of her presence in the room needs to be considers along with the age both character are. They are still around the age of being nagged by their parents to clean their rooms.

Having both of these rooms visualized to this stage  will be useful later on in the project. The placement of animations becoming more broad but I will a lot need to consider which I plan to take forward for "Game's night". Though as this project Is based on creating Personality through actions, reactions and interactions, modelling both rooms and having the same concept with slight variations in the characters based on the atmosphere maybe very appropriate.

For the next post I will be aiming to conceptualize more of  characters or begins creating the thumbnails and storyboards for "Games Night".