Applied Animation, Titles - Character Designs

The book I chose to create a Title sequence for is a book by Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines. It's about a apocalyptic alternate future as cities have now been build on giant moving machines where the bigger cities hunt for smaller ones for resources. There are elements of steampunk.

The story starts of on the city of London. Main characters consist of an aspiring young boy and an aggressive girl with a dark past. Two villains in the story is a cyborg (more like an anti-villain) and a well known trusted hero of London.

For character development I decided to make designs for these characters and show them in my title sequence.

The following are mood-boards I put together to give me an idea of how to design my characters:

Hester Shaw - I like the idea of her having red hair to show her fiery personality, so I like how many designs people have done of her with red hair.

Tom Natsworthy - I imagine Tom to look quite "normal" as he isn't someone of high status since he is introduced on cleaning duty. As shown above I looked at a steampunk outfit concept as reference.

Thaddeus Valentine - I imagine Thaddeus to look very distinguished and good looking, as he is described. As shown I also used a steampunk outfit concept as reference.

Shrike - the cyborg anti-villain I imagined to look intimidating. At first I thought of a bulky design as shown on the mood-boar, but I changed my mind after considering these slimmer designs of Shrike. I even used a human skeleton as reference for my final design.

Character Concepts:

Shrike and Hester Shaw

Tom and Thaddeus

Rendered Character Concepts:

Hester Shaw concepts

Shrike

Thaddeus