Research and Reference

So, here's a bit about what sort of things I've been looking at to help me with my final animation.

Well first of all, obviously, there's the painting itself. This was the basis for the whole story. A fancy young fashionable rich girl who looks like she loves a good drink.



As I'm basing the film on It Girls like Paris Hilton I've had to bite the bullet and spend a lot of time reading about the delightful girl. I've read Heat, OK, Hello and lots of replica celeb gossip mags. I've also scoured the internet for stories about her pointless lifestyle and have tried to get an idea of how she spends her time.





I also looked at the film Clueless as the characters and lifestyle portrayed are exactly what I'm aiming for.




As for my character design, I had already bought my main character from the internet (as I knew my modeling and rigging skills weren't up to making a decent and useable character within the tight time constraints) so I didn't have any say in how she looked. However I think she really works well with my story. I was a bit concerned that she was wearing school uniform, but then I thought about Britney Spears dressed as a schoolgirl in her first video, and also did a bit of research into fashion designers who'd made collections inspired by schoolwear. I think the outfit fits with "cute" Beverly Hills type look I'm going for.



I also realised that my character looks a lot like one of those horrible Bratz girls. They have the same huge eyes, huge mouth, huge head and tiny clothes. I had a look at their website and watched a bit of their cartoon and found that not only did they look like my character, they also shared the same outlook on life...




As I worked on my project a very interesting story was unfolding in the media. Paris Hilton herself had been arrested and sent to jail! This was excellent news for me as it inspired me to finally come up with an ending for my film, which I'd really been struggling to do. Thanks Paris!



I'd decided to end my animation with my character being arrested, so I needed to design the last scene in which she has her mugshot taken. I did some research into examples of celebrity arrests (so back to those celeb gossip websites) and believe it or not there is actually a website called celebritymugshots.com. Who starts these things?! I couldn't find the actual Paris mugshot, but once again Ms Hilton had obliged by posing for a fake one.