Do you or would you purchase AS characters?

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:49 am

Just wondering if anyone buys characters from efrontier or would you in the future?

I'm currently creating a character that I was thinking about selling. I'm not sure if I'll do it through efrontier or through a company that I already use that takes care of my payments for me.

Anyways, let me know your thoughts on this. Thanks!

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:05 am

In my opinion pre built characters are thought to hobbyist animators. Pro animators make their own characters to give them its personality (almost the main character).
As a hobbyist I want to say to you that pre made characters bore me. Create a character is one of the most important thing to me as hobbyist and also animate it.
So I'll never would buy a character to make a animation. Maybe to investigate how it was done to learn some technique (for instance Rose Agent) but never for animate.

My opinion doesn't would cover all hobbyist preferences. It is only my personal taste.

Good luck.
-G

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:19 am

I'm with Genete - personally i would only buy a character to deconstruct it for educational purposes, never to be used... also, i dont think 'one' can be taken seriously if they create an animation with bought characters which appear identically in other peoples work, suddenly the character has no personality of its own, but whatever personality each user decides to give it - which makes it not a character anymore but a simple puppet to be used and abused... and character design/creation and the learning process associated with it is half the fun!

I would suggest you use your characters, if they are built to a professional sellable standard, and create an animation which you can sell on DVD or merchandise... or even host somewhere with a donation button

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:09 am

if you make it affordable, i just might buy them.

i'm serious.

though, you will have to make these characters come to life.

remember, i'm only a hobbyist. not a big company who has deep pocket.

ingie01 · Post by **ingie01** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:35 am

I recently bought the rose agent. I was able to glean a lot of information from this. I feel more confident now having this model to refer to.
I found the quality to be excellent in the entire package.
More models the better, free would be good tooo!

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Thu Jul 12, 2007 10:48 am

i always share my files for free. well, they are not as good as the rose agent, but i think that there is a lot of technical knowledge that you can get giving and receiving.
i have never felt anxieties of buying a character (i never have had the money either). here in the forum are a lot of files flying of which we can learn a lot, in addition to all the excellent info posted here.

on the other hand, i love to draw. and actually i found moho just because i wanted to move my own sketches. i would never feel comfortable using some guy else character.

p6r · Post by **p6r** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:49 am

@ J. Baker : Very interesting question !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I prefer to draw my own characters but...

I could buy a character if I knew I get all the Rights on it !

If someone makes a fantastic character who is perfect for my project, why not ?
But nobody else should have the Right to use it after buying it !

Problem : The price for such a character with all the Rights should be too expensive, I suppose !?!

6R

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 10:59 am

What I'd be looking for would be ideas -- a rig I can manipulate, a body type I can adapt, a colour scheme and textures I can develop...it would have to be an amazing coincidence if someone were to put up for sale a character which I could adopt with no changes!

And yes, if you look at exclusive rights deals for items like images or sounds, you will see that these can be very expensive. It's the difference between off-the-shelf suits and a bespoke tailor...

J

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 6:19 pm

Thanks for your replies! Here's the character I'm working on. It still needs work and I also plan to add actions and so forth. Her tail has an animated sparkle and I plan to add some nice features to her to make her stand out. If I have time, I'll add an action to make her rotate 360 degrees as well.

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:30 pm

Hey J,
with all due respect, i'll be frank... Although she looks like a nice enough character, i dont really understand why you want to try and sell her, and i think you won't have much luck trying to do so.

Despite the fact i personally dont think she's up to the standard of say 'Rose Agent', the fact that she is a mermaid also greatly limits her versitility of usage... i.e. she could only be used in an undewater story about mermaids.

That aside, i think her tail is too short in relation to her body - she would likely sink with those kahoonas.

I don't mean to cause tension, i'm just keepin' it real... hope ive not upset you.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:49 pm

looks like he's going for it, which is good.

anyway, if you get time to look into my itsy-bitsy character requirement, please read further.

1) a character that can be animated by a music score, classical and contemporary.

2) a unique character, along the lines of popeye, bugs bunny, daffy, elmer fudd, tom, jerry, etc.

3) a loony character, capable of doing tons of gags.

i'm currently into manga/anime and might be stuck in it for quite a while. so i'm probably just going to look outside for retro characters.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:20 pm

Thanks for your honesty funksmaname but I'm not quite done with her yet. Although I was trying to keep her somewhat basic, so she's easier to animate. I could go out and do some extreme shading but I thought that would keep some people from using her animation wise. As there would be alot of points.

And yes the Rose Agent is quite nice.

Maybe I'll put the mermaid to the side and work on something that has legs. I can see where a mermaid would't be used as much but I was just trying to create something different.

And no, I'm not upset, at all.

J. Baker · Post by **J. Baker** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 7:36 am

I've updated the pic above. Added some shading but still needs more work.

EDIT: I'm moving this to "Share Your Work" area.

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:04 am

I'm glad you didnt take my comments badly - i just feel that first and foremost art/creativity should be used for your own pleasure before thinking of profiting from it - its the only way to stay true to yourself creatively... I just dont know if its worth giving away your characters for a potentially minute amount of money when you could keep them exclusively for your own use as and when you chose to do so.

I dunno, its just my personal philosophy.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do

Shading looks nice btw, although i still feel her tail end is a little short