Little Monster
When I first came up with an idea for the project, I liked the idea of creating an animation based on my life with Diabetes and what I have to do each day because of it This would include injections, watching what I eat and the struggles that I can encounter. The first step that I took in order to help me with trying to write how I feel when my blood sugars are high and low is writing down the emotions on a bubble map. This allowed for me to visualise my emotions. I also looked at how I feel in general with having diabetes.
Script #1 When creating my first script I spoke about how me and my family found out that I had Type One Diabetes. I also went deeper into my Diabetes and spoke about how I feel when my blood sugars are high and low, how I used to feel a lot of anxiety around my diabetes when I was younger, how my confidence with my Diabetes has increased as I have grown up and how people react to be testing my blood sugars and injecting myself with insulin in public (although I do not display the fact that I am doing either).
Script #2
After writing my first script I then moved on to write a second in a similar style but as though I was telling the events of how I found out that I had Diabetes like a story.
Script #3
I was then told to approach the script as though it was a monologue. This meant that the script should sound more like I was having a casual conversation with somebody about my Diabetes and as though I was naturally talking about my experiences.
Script #4
After receiving more feedback I then came to writing this script. I believe that it is very successful as a script in the style of a monologue. It outlines what happened on the day me and my family found out that I was diabetic without going into too much detail.
After speaking to Alan and Phil about what I had written as a rough script I was told to look at trying to personify diabetes as a character. I came up with some rough sketches and decided that I would look at the pancreas as a starting point for character design as that is the organ that fails to work correctly. I tried to incorporate the pancreas as a mouth in different characters. I then spoke to Alan who suggested looking at the shaping of the character and looking at how to personify diabetes more but drawing it as I believe to see it. I started off sketching basic shapes to see whether I could come up with any ideas.
After looking further into incorporating the pancreas within the character design I decided that doing so could make the character look fairly scary and that the pancreas would be a hard shape to subtly incorp[orate as it’s shape is very specific. After listening to some advice, I then decided to look into the emotions that I felt when thinking about Diabetes to see whether the overall outline of the character could be used to express them. I started to look at the basic shaping of the character using shapes such as squares, circles and triangles. Although it did help me consider the shaping of the character, I believe that ha[ving the character’s body shaped so obviously like a square, circle or triangle, was not the right way to approach designing him.
This then led me into also researching how other people feel about Diabetes and how they believe Diabetes would look if it was a monster.
This research included looking into how people feel about having both Type One Diabetes and Type Two Diabetes. This is as they are both similar and each person reacts and feels similarly in having it.
I also believed that looking into how many people in the UK have Type One and Type Two Diabetes would be useful, as it enables us to see why it is important to understand.
For the research I decided to look at a website that I have used myself to research into diabetes. The website is Diabetes UK. https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about_ us/news/new-stats-people-livingwith-diabetes
From the research into the Diabetes monster character I created these drawings. I decided to look at their body shapes, starting with more circular shapes and then moving to more angular shapes. I also decided to look at the character’s jaw. I believed that the monster having a large jaw gave the character more personality and also made the character look more child friendly.
Alan then suggested taking the idea of how I believe Diabetes should look, further. Looking at the Disney Pixar film Inside Out as a reference to see why the characters are shaped like they are. I also then considered more about the character’s shape and colour and what could effect both.
While researching the inside out characters, I found that each character is shaped by something that either symbolises the emotion that they are, or relates to how the main character in the film, Riley, reacts to certain things, for example, Disgust is shaped like a broccoli because Riley is disgusted by broccoli. Anger is shaped like a fire brick because he is hot headed and fear is shaped like a nerve ending because he is always nervous.
I also found that Joy is shaped like a star when her arms and legs are spread out, this also relates to the characters colour.
Sadness is shaped like a upside down tear drop. The character also adopts the colour of a tear drop which also relates to the phrase ‘feeling blue’.
Normal colour
High blood sugar
Sugar crystals
High blood sugar with sugar crystals
Sugar crystals practice texture
I then looked into texture and how the monster could be textured to help represent how I view diabetes. I looked at perhaps having the character textured to look as though it has sugar granules on it, this is as diabetes does revolve around blood glucose levels (sugar). Alan and I then spoke about the monster looking like a sugar cube or a bag full of sugar cubes which linked to the Disney flour sack. Character. I also decided to have it so that the colour of the character changes when my (present and past me) character's blood glucose levels are high or low. I like the idea of the monster being blue when my blood glucose levels normal, the blue colour starting to drain from the character when my blood glucose levels are going low and then red when they are high. This is as these are the colours which I believe represent the way that I feel when I feel high and low. I also like the idea of the colour fading to help suggest feelings and to give the character more personality.
This research then lead me onto drawing blood splatter shapes as I believe that blood relates a lot to diabetes as that is what is used to measure the amount of glucose in the body. I decided to look at a variety of different splatters to see whether any shaped popped out to me that I could use to draw a character. I was then advised to revisit one of the designs that I had created earlier and adapt the design to look more like the Disney Flour Sack, which I began to research.
I was also advised to decide what my style influence would be and what my natural style is like. I decided to draw in the style of the cartoon television series Adventure Time and similar animation design to the company Pictoplasma. The screenshot above is from their portfolio page called Pictofolio.
Disney Flour Sack – Character Design Research After looking at multiple versions of the Disney Flour Sack concept, I find this concept easy to understand. The flour sack shows that even simple shapes can be animated and given character. It can also be used as an example to show how small details can help suggest the character's personality, so I tried to incorporate the shaping and style into the design of my character.
Possible Diabetes Monster Design I decided to stick with this character as a final design. This is as I found the monster to not be what I find diabetes to look like. I also like the idea that the monster is not too complicated and that it is easy to draw as this also fits into the Adventure Time and Pictoplasma style.
Other character design research I then decided to look at what other characters I would need to design for the animation that I am going to create. I knew that as the story was about me, I needed to create a present day character version of myself, and as I was going to talk about when I found out that I had diabetes, I also needed a younger version of myself from when I was about 5 years old. In order to research, I found some old pictures of me and started to draw the pictures in my own style and the style that related to both Adventure Time and Pictoplasma.
Research for my character – Me (Present self)
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From the pictures shown above I prefer image 3, this is as I believe that the character looks more like me. It also seems to include my characteristics without being too obvious.
Research for my character – Me (past self)
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Out of the three images shown to the left, I believe that the first image is the best. This is as I believe that it resembles how I looked when I was younger, with the slimmer face and the ponytails. It also looks similar to the design that I have picked of my present day character.
Possible Character Designs for past and present me
Created by Tia Whitehead