Character Design: Week 10 'final exam'

In a group of 3, we were given the animated show 'Trollhunters Tales of Arcadia' as a basis for designing our characters. We had to design a mentor, a villain and a sidekick (for the hero).

I chose to design the sidekick character, deciding that a good sidekick for the hero in Trollhunters (Jim- shown in the middle in the picture above) would be a troll.

In the group, we imagined that the mentor is a new school teacher, who used to fight as a knight, and in this particular episode she is kidnapped by the villain, who is an alien, so the hero and his friends go on a quest to find the teacher.

When they run out of ideas they come across the troll. His lives in a secluded part of the underground troll world in a cave. He is a hoarder, and keeps everything he finds, storing it all in his cave. When the hero and his friends meet him they realise he has the key that will let the teacher free, the troll tells them that he found it and is is his most prized possession, which is why he wears it around his neck.

These were my initial ideas for the troll:

I liked the troll on the bottom left and so I developed it further. I described him as looking unfriendly but is actually friendly and helpful.

These were my initial ideas for props for the troll, that would also be made into a toy for children by the client. I chose the pendent/ necklace that the troll would be wearing around his neck, as the prop that will be developed.

These are my sketches for the environment, which is the cave where the troll lives and keeps all of the things that he finds

I then developed the toy ideas more. My ideas were that the trolls pendant would be a toy for children that would light up and also that you would be able to open, for children to keep things inside. I also had the idea of making the trolls cave into a toy, which would come with something like Playdoh which would allow the children to sculpt their own little objects to put inside the cave just like the troll has.

Then, these are some gesture sheets for the troll. On the first page the poses looked a bit static and so I tried them again on the second page, trying to make them a bit more alive. The pose on the left is when the troll is happy because he is able to help the other characters by giving them the necklace. The pose on the right is when the troll is lonely and sad in his cave.

Finally, this is the turnaround for my troll character: