Specific Characters

Characters

Kage


Name: Kage

Name Meaning: Shadow

Age: 4 (28 In Cat Years)

Personality: Good guy. Dark sense of humour.


Shinu


Name: Shinu. This isn't the name of one specific character however, it is the name given to the race of Zombificated Neko's who roam the streets of New York. They are many.

Name Meaning: Death / To Die

Age: Unknown / Various

Personality: Basically non existant. Is a slave to the underworld and Akuma's bidding.

Only Living Boy In New York

As a huge fan of music, An idea and desire I have is to take a song, convert the lyrics into a literal format and then recreate it visually, ie - into an animation.

One such song I specifically had in mind that would work now that I have designed a few characters is 'The Only Living Boy in New York' by Simon & Garfunkel. Here are the lyrics:


Tom, get your plane right on time.
I know your part'll go fine.
Fly down to mexico.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-n-da-da and here I am,
The only living boy in new york.
I get the news I need on the weather report.
I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.
Hey, Ive got nothing to do today but smile.
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da here I am
The only living boy in new york

Half of the time were gone but we dont know where,
And we dont know here.

Tom, get your plane right on time.
I know youve been eager to fly now.
Hey let your honesty shine, shine, shine
Da-n-da-da-n-da-da-n-da-da
Like it shines on me
The only living boy in new york,
The only living boy in new york.


Now, I don't think the song was about how he was actually the only living boy in new york, it was obviously metaphorical. I would however, make it literal and have Tom being the only one left alive in the city where everyone else has become undead (zombies). This would enable me to fit in the Neko character 'Shinu' shown below. Though in this case he wouldn't be a single character, a 'Shinu' would be 'One of them'.

The only thing against this working is the fact that none of the characters I created are boys (male human), as the song suggests, so I could change it to 'The only living Neko in new york' and replace the protagonist with one of those characters, or I could create a human character and include him.

Whatever one I decided to do, I'd try to follow the lyrics word for word, line for line as much as possible. Literally.

Character Ideas

Ok. Well. I'm a fan of all things Japanese. They've got it right when it comes to animation and the likes, it's not just for kids, it's for everyone. Plus they have samurai and that rocks. As I'm learning their language I thought I may as well put it vaguely to some slight use and so I came up with these wee characters. Ps - I can't draw. At all:

Nekos


As I can't draw all that well I used Flash to create the basic shape which vaguely resembles a cat's head (Neko is the Japanese word for Cat) and used it as a template. I addied bit's and pieces, changed the colour etc to finish with a variety of character possibilities. My favourites are Kage (Shadow), Shinu (Death) and Yuurei (Ghost). Now to find a story and / or environment to place them in.