All images from Inspired 3D Short Film Production by Jeremy Cantor and Pepe Valencia, series edited by Kyle Clark and Michael Ford. Reprinted with permission.

Be sure to check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of this multi-part series.

How Do You Feel about Your Characters?
Once you’ve at least partially designed your characters and given some thought to their onscreen actions and reactions, it is important to consider how you feel about them. Remember that your relationship with your characters will be significantly longer than that of your audience; therefore, it is especially important for you to like or be interested in your protagonists, antagonists, and supporting players. As the psychologists say, if you don’t like yourself nobody else will. The same is true for your story characters. Try to look at your character designs objectively and decide whether they inspire concern, curiosity, neither or both. If your good guy makes you sneer and your villain makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you might indeed require professional help, but more than likely your designs could use a bit of rethinking.

[Figure 62] Using software to mess around with a drawing or a photo is an excellent method for coming up with a new, caricatured or severely exaggerated character.

[Figure 63] Mixing elements from different genres or species can lead to some interesting results.

Where to Get Ideas for Characters
Ideas for your characters can come from almost anywhere. For example:

• Think of a person or a pet you know (or knew) and then vary, exaggerate, twist or caricature with subtlety or reckless abandon. For design, try using Photoshop or morphing software such as Elastic Reality to alter a photograph of your chosen victim (Figure 62).
• For behavior, consider the feelings that come up when you think about this individual, and use that information to drive the choices your story counterpart will make. Exaggerate what you know or remember about this person or animal. If it was your strict grandfather who liked watching films, have him behave like a drill sergeant and regularly quote famous movie lines. If it was your small and gentle pet garter snake, perhaps make him a rather large and ferocious king cobra instead.
• Combine elements from the genre/style matrix (see Figure 63). Put a tiger’s head on a robot body, bat wings on a swordfish or a pair of space antennae on an old man.
• Anthropomorphize a non-living entity. You can accomplish this by giving character to a non-character or by adding human elements to an otherwise inanimate object, such as facial features and appendages to a traffic light (see Figure 64), or lifelike animation to an office supply (Luxo Jr.). Flip through a toy or gadget catalog for ideas. Or take the opposite approach and make an animal, alien or toy based on a real celebrity or a historical figure (such as Rover Dangerfield).
• Alter, multiply, mix up or omit anatomical elements. Give a human six arms or a giant chin. Put someone’s eyes on the back of his head. Omit a torso and just have the arms and legs emanate from an oversized head (see Figure 65).