To develop a character by concepting.

I am the one responsible for bringing the character of Gurkin to life with a story. One of our teachers adviced us to write a character bible. This document contains all kinds of information about Gurkin. If he would drive a car, what kind of car would it be? What is his first memory? What is his biggest fear and what is his most valuable possession? Some of these questions might seem irrelevent to the story. But the more and (seemingly irrelevant) questions you can answer about a character, the more you will be able to relate to him. This will make it easier to animate him more believably and really bring him to life.

I enjoyed getting immersed in an non-existing world and write a story about a non-existing character. Here's a glimpse of the history of our green little bugger named Gurkin Pickles. This bit is a part of the character bible and not a part of the actual animation.

"Gurkin is a small green monster with a gherkin-ish physique. He's friendly and also a bit clumsy. Gurkin is the only one of his kind in the forest he lives in and as far as he knows, he has always been alone.

His mom is the queen of a green planet called Pickles. His dad the royal castle's jester. This could turn out to be one of the biggest scandals in history. No soul on the planet of Pickles was to know about Gurkin's existence for it might have resulted in a devastating war. Even though it hurt both Gurkin's mom and dad more than they could bear, they decided to send off newborn baby Gurkin to poor but friendly relatives of the jester on the planet of Troolaloo. Mother rocked Gurkin to sleep, placed him in a space capsule and launched him into the treacherous night sky. Well on his way, the capsule was intercepted by a comet taking sleeping baby Gurkin to the horrible and dangerous planet of Atrocitos.."