Animation Practice: Anti-Hero and Character Research

Anti-Hero:

Wikipedia defines an Anti-Hero as: "a central character in a story, film, or drama who lacks conventional heroic attributes."

An example of an Anti-Hero would be Han Solo. Han Solo is a sleazy smuggler, a criminal in the eyes of the Galactic Empire who isn't unused to killing people like Greedo. For the majority of A New Hope, Han Solo isn't driven by a sense of doing the right thing or helping others, but simply payment for transporting Luke. Later in the story he becomes motivated by a desire to do the right thing, while still retaining some of the elements that make him an Anti-Hero.

Han Solo is the perfect contrast to Luke Skywalker, the traditional hero of Star Wars. Luke is driven, self-less and fights because of his sense of justice and desire to do good. Whereas a hero like Luke would help out if possible and avoid conflict or killing, an Anti-Hero like Han Solo would be more interested in how these situations would benefit him.

One of the most notorious Anti-Heros in cinema history is Escape from New York and Escape from L.A protagonist, Snake Plissken. Multiple times throughout both movies Snake witnesses a helpless person being attacked but he does not help, whereas a hero wouldn't waste a minute to consider it. His motivation in both movies is one of survival and self-interest, forced onto an almost suicidal-mission to save the president. While a hero would be doing this for reasons such as saving lives and stopping criminals, Snake's sole reason for this is because if he doesn't complete his mission, a bomb in his neck will detonate, killing him.

In conclusion, an anti-hero is defined as a character who, while a character we would typically want to succeed, has some qualities that would be considered non-heroic or good. A typical expression for the attitude many of these characters would have is 'The End Justifies The Means'

Character background:

Silent, lacking morals and vengeful, no one knows the name of this stoic warrior of the post-apocalyptic wasteland of London. Once a average girl trying to survive in her small settlement, her life was ruined by raiders and bandits attacking the village and taking her and other hostage. The only one to survive after they began torturing and killing her and her fellow villagers, she took her killer's jacket and weapon, roaming the wasteland to kill anyone who with any connections to the raiders who raided her settlement.

Drawing elements heavily from Mad Max and Fallout, two series based in post apocalyptic areas, the character and her environment are based on elements someone would see in those.

Sandy and desaturated colours are common in Mad Max shots

The character takes a lot of survivalist elements from characters in the movies.

The thrown-together and survivalist look of characters from post-apocalyptic media servers as the basic for my character's outfit with some changes made to reflect the character herself, such as her scarf covering her mouth as a way of representing her muteness. The abundance of red also hints to her vengeful nature.

LINK TO MOODBOARD

Progress:

Originally I was going to start working on the character using ZSpheres but later decided I should create a basic, low-poly mesh in Maya instead. ZSpheres are incredibly effective for getting basic proportions and for quickly converting them into a mesh, but for this project I think I will get more control and quicker results once the low-poly mesh is finished. The ZSphere test turned out too masculine and made me decide to try going back to modeling instead.

This is the current progress on the low-poly mesh which is obviously unfinished. Extra care has been put into the topology to make sure it will deform and sculpt properly.