Characters' Creation Tools: Resume

The use of a program or application in the creation of characters can make this task much more attractive to the children. Besides they are dealing with a platform like a tablet, the options would be far more diverse making the character more and more unique and more easily to be identified with the child who created it. The various features to choose from would make the process much more fun and the child discover new attributes, characteristics and forms.

The research shows creation of characters such that even with simple lines and a language beginner can obtain good results (as in dopelme.com), whereas variety of attributes and characteristics (such as faceyourmanga.com) makes the end result more like the wealthy and desired, and that mixing characteristics of humans with animals or imaginary beings / magical (as in site buildyourwildself.com) can arouse more interest and creativity of children and reveal unexpected results and only ones.

All sites surveyed reveal the same form of creation and the hierarchy of creation, in which the character is divided into parts and each part is presented a variety of options in which the child can select and test until achieving a satisfactory end result. Each sample has a different focus and serve as a model in some way to the final design to be developed.

Character's Creation Tools 3 : New York Zoo

The tool of the New York Zoo: Build your wild self-<http://www.buildyourwildself.com/>, is divided into 4 main parts and is able to add highlight body parts of animals to a human character initially. All options are shown while boxes and sections are divided by different colors.

The first part consists only in choosing the sex between male and female.

The second part of this on attributes (even humans) such as hair, eyes, mouth and clothes.

The third part begins the creation of the wild character. Horns, ears, wings and tails can be entered as well as different types of eyes and mouths, presents a final unusual creations. It certainly makes the children release their imagination and have fun making new trials.

Finally, the fourth step is to select the background between different climates and regions of the world such as forests, deserts and caves.

The tool for creation of characters from the New York Zoological is well designed, has traces and simulates artistic drawings in pencil and crayons, in a smooth and delicate.

Character's Creation Tools 2 : Face your Manga

Face your Manga <www.faceyourmanga.com> is a well drawn avatar creation tool with a huge variety of options, different layouts and details to make your characteras close as possible to the desired. It basically consists of 17 steps starting with the gender choice. In the first section you can start to "carve" the face: a lot of skin colors and face shapes. You can choose between ears, eyes, eyebrows, noses, mouths, different expression lines and face signs as healing and scars. The second section is attributed to the hair: you choose between long or short, the color and the type. In the third you will made the clothes. You had sections of basic, classic, extra, jackets, ties, scarves, hats, ties and items, each one with a lot of different options to choose. After you is the step to customize the clothes. You can select between the images that they have and after color it, or write your own phrase or word, where you can choose color and typography too. The fifth step are the accessories step: eyeglasses, necklaces, earrings, piercings, tattoos, gadgets and masks.
For the background you could choose between filled, pattern, theme and weather and for last you could choose make-up for the eyes, face and mouth.
Face your manga have reasonable drawings with some shadows and depth simulation, but have a very attractive interface and dozens of different options and sections that makes a final result very interesting.

Character's Creation Tools 1 : Doppel Me

Doppel me <http://www.doppelme.com/> is a very simple character's creation engine, where you could create your own character in 12 basic steps.
The drawing are very simple in one dimension, just in frontal view with simple traces and forms. In the first step you select the gender, skin color (8 options) and eyes color (8 options). Next you have the option of face expressions that changes at the same time eyes, mouth and eyebrows where you have 16 different options. The following option is the hair with 65 different types and more than 30 colors to choice. Then eyewear with 12 types of glasses in a lot of colors. In the hats where more than 60 different options including headphones, masks, balloons, veils and burqa. The next 3 steps are tops (the shirts),  the bottoms (panths and shorts) and shoes. As extras, the next step, you have moustaches and beard. In accessories there are cups, goblets, balls and baseball bats. And the last stage you have the backgrounds as cityscapes, field, sky, hearts, space, beach or in a football stadium.
This is a basic tool, with some nice and creative options where was used simple line drawings, but with it all together, you can get reasonable results.

Character's Creation Tools

At this stage of the project were analyzed websites, games and other tools available to create a character digitally. 

With it 's possible to select ideas and relevant method as such characters are built.

Character's Style Comparison

Children's Characters Part 1

This stage of the project aims to collate and recognize children's characters and draw a parallel between their characteristics to form a profile of the character to be developed.
Were first analyzed cartoon characters. In the first stage were seven:  64 zoo lane, Abadas, Alphablocks, Arthur, Charlie and Lola, League of Super Evil and Tilly and Friends. This first post makes an introduction to the style of each one of them made ​​with screen shots.

64 Zoo Lane:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0078vng/64_Zoo_Lane_Series_2_The_Story_of_the_Monster_in_the_Forest/

Abadas:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b036bfwp/Abadas_Series_2_Tobar_A_Well/

Alphablocks:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b036mwgh/Alphablocks_Series_4_Birthday_Girl/

Arthur:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b008hyyj/Arthur_Series_12_Brains_Shocking_Secret/

Charlie and Lola:
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00bt9nh/Charlie_and_Lola_Series_3_I_Am_Making_a_Craze/

League of Super Evil:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rqlwf/League_of_Super_Evil_Series_1_Voltar_Squared/

Tilly and Friends:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01qh8sn/Tilly_and_Friends_Hector_Wants_to_Win/