Imagining trolls for a character design exercise

Les étudiants en première année de cursus à l’école de cinéma d’animation MoPA se sont attaqués à un exercice de chara design plein de féérie. Au programme : conceptualiser un troll ! Lumière sur les productions de nos jeunes artistes.

It's impossible to have missed the Trolls trilogy of films, the first of which was released in 2016. A feature-length 3D animated film, it was a box-office smash, with 2.7 million admissions in France alone. A phenomenal success that delighted young and old alike! Directed by Mike Mitchell and Walt Dorhn, The Trolls comes from the famous American animation studio Dreamworks.

The film has a visual style all its own: a world full of colours, saturated to illustrate the ‘good guys’, and dull and dark for the ‘bad guys’. Added to this are all the effects of materials and textures that are reminiscent of the world of scrapbooking, of which the heroine is an enthusiast. But if there's one thing the film is famous for, it's its characters! Based on the Troll dolls created in 1959 by Thomas Dam, they have won over a whole new audience, while at the same time bringing nostalgia to those who grew up with the famous dolls. The Trolls are easily identifiable: small, colourful and with disproportionately large heads (especially their ears and noses!), they have long hair that is combed upwards, which they can wield as they please in the film.

In the first year of their course at the MoPA animation film school, our animation film students are given the opportunity to let their imagination run wild on a given theme through a chara design exercise. Amandine GARDIE, 2D artist and lecturer at the MoPA school, worked with our students and chose the world of the film The Trolls for this exercise. Our young artists had to come up with a brand new troll that would fit in perfectly with the existing universe.

They had the choice of proposing a character that was kind, nasty, funny or serious: it was up to each and every one of them to invent a personality for their troll and create it from scratch! Our students had to respect the recognisable characteristics of the famous trolls, while allowing the personality of their new imaginary friend to shine through in its shape and build... quite an exercise!

Chara design is more than just sketching a character, and incorporates many elements: physical appearance, of course, but also facial expressions, clothing, accessories and even postures. In 3D animation, chara design is an essential stage, since it not only creates characters visually but also, and above all, gives them a personality and a coherence with the universe in which they will evolve.