Context of Practice 3 - Practical

For the practical of my essay I created animated responses of hero characters that go against the conventional depiction of present day heroes.

Using mythological, conventional and unconventional heroes I used what is stereotypical and reference inspiration from heroes that already go against the conventional depiction of present day heroes.

These heroes I have explored through:

- Joseph Cambell's 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces'

- Vladimir Propp's 'Morphology of The Folktale'

- Arthur Cotterell's 'Mythology of Greece and Rome'

- Rachel Storm's 'Egyptian Mythology'

- Films and series that present hero characters

(e.g. The Hobbit, One Piece, etc.)

Doing separate heroes I took the opportunity to use different styles to demonstrate the range in which I draw characters. It's also appropriate to the type of characters they are.

Below I have designed and animated a female hero in a anime style to emphasise her beauty. This is then covered up with a hard helmet which reveals her baggy outfit. With this I wanted to portray how a beautiful looking female character doesn't necessarily need to dress up in a sexualised manner such as characters like Wonder Woman. That their outfits can be anything besides revealing, that they could be appropriate to who they are or what they do, e.g. my character's outfit could be for the purpose of being fire proof.

My 1st character, Covered Girl:

Key frames of her movements

Final Animated Looping Gif

Another hero I made represents how the looks of a hero shouldn't matter, that they are a hero for what they do not for how they look. For this I created my character to have a huge muscular body but has a silly unusual face compared to his physique instead of the handsomely chiselled face of Superman.

Reference I used for this is Saitama from One Punch Man as he is a good example of an all powerful hero who looks simple and dull. I also used a more pixelated art style to give it more of a retro feeling in reference to how long Superman has been around for.

Saitama from One Punch Man:

My 2nd character, Colossal Man:

Key frames of his cape flapping

Final Animated Looping Gif

Reveal and Zoom in on his face exaggerates the silly
appearance compared to his physique

For my final character I made him in reference to a Shrek type of character, a character who was defined by how he looks. In the case of mine, my character will look like an evil monster at first before revealing he is actually a nice guy stopping a criminal. This will portray how you could judge him as evil at first before seeing the context towards the end. For the art style used I made it look more cartoony to emphasise his friendly appearance when you see him stopping a criminal. I also animated a zoom out effect.

My 3rd Character, Gurg:

Key frames of his movements

Final Animated Gif