I wanted to talk a little about character design from the grydscaen anime “A Storm’s Coming” using a scene from the anime trailer. The two characters in the first trailer are Rom, the homeless teen with psychic power and Xander Storm, the Zone Police officer. In designing the anime we did character sketches working with the production company.
The scene below is Rom panhandling in front of the Tram eatery in the Red Light District of the Echelons in Haven 15. This specific scene is a mirror image of the scene from the “A Storm’s Coming” manga on which the anime was based.
Figure 1: Rom panhandling from the A Storm’s Coming anime
Working with the production company for the anime was along the same lines of working with the production company on grydscaen book trailers. In this case there were interim steps like creating backgrounds like we see here of the Tram eatery and creating the character designs based on the manga. Once the character designs were down it was time to colour the characters. This step took multiple tries because the manga was black and white so the production company even though they had instructions needed a little more direction. When it came down to it I had to provide colour swatches to them to ensure Rom’s coat and pants were the right colour, including his hair. We went through about 5 different colour changes for his hair until I settled on the final version.
Xander Storm also required some back and forth on his clothing. We had some initial front view and side view drawings from the manga but I needed to see his uniform a few times in different colours before we settled on the light grey and the black vest.
Having the manga which acted as a story board for the anime was very helpful. The production company was able to take the pages from the manga and make the animation and action for the anime.
Luckily I had character designs for Rom and chapter openings from the manga. There were many pictures of Rom from different angles so I think it was easier to get his character design down.
I am in the process of starting to work on the manga of the story “Rogue” which also features Rom. Having the “A Storm’s Coming” manga already available and the “Rogue” story totally written, it will only be an actuality of getting the drawings going. Since I know what Rom looks like and I can draw him relatively easily this will be easier for “Rogue.” One of the things that is important is that “Rogue” includes 11 chapters so this manga will be longer than the previous one. I like Rom as a character because he is a 16 year old homeless youth. I write grydscaen to give a voice to the oppressed and those that are often silenced. Rom being a big part of the grydscaen manga is my way of giving back to the LGBT community.
When designing a character you need to look at backstory as well as traits and personality. The character’s clothing needs to represent him or her in such a way that they are relatable. Rom wears a ripped shirt and pants with holes at the knees, as well as combat boots. His boots have a hole in the right foot and his socks also have holes when he wears them. He has a long dirty tan trench coat which he picked up at a homeless shelter that he wears. The trench coat and his unspiked up mowhawk are his signature traits which need to come through in all pictures of him.
I spent a significant amount of time working on Rom’s hair to get that right in the manga. Rom has his hair shaved at the sides and long hanging down in his eyes at different lengths over his shoulders. We finally settled on the colour of his hair after 5 rounds of design.
Once you have the outward vision of the character and his personality in an anime you need to give the character a voice. I had someone voice over Xander Storm but I played the voice of Rom. Since Rom was a 16 year old teenager his voice needed to be a little higher than mine actually was, so we recorded it a few times and used the higher pitch. In contrast to Xander’s deeper voice, Rom came off as younger and more innocent. There is also a slight hint of sadness in the voice. The animators then used that voice for Rom when he was speaking. For remaining trailers in the grydscaen anime, the voices will have to be more manufactured using a VoiceBox filter. This will cut down on cost for production as it is expensive to hire multiple voice actors. The “A Storm’s Coming” anime has possibly 6-7 different voices which will be needed. So we will have to start from there.
All in all I think the voice over for Rom came out exactly how I wanted it to. It was fun working with the production company using the designs from my manga.
Look for more from the grydscaen anime on the Natsuya Uesugi youTube channel in the future. There will be more trailers and if we get “Rogue” illustrated as well then it is also a candidate for its own anime.
