So, I think it's about time to try and explain my idea properly. I know most of this may not be noticeable in the video so getting it down on paper is probably the best way of getting my ideas across.
I'm going to go into each thematic element of my idea in as much detail as I can. The exceptions to this are the elements that stem from my larger mythology: the black sphere and the world the character ends up in. The relevance behind these is not going to matter a great deal to the video and to be honest I could be here for hours trying to explain how the two fit together, so I'm just going to give a brief outline for those two.
Masks: Represent identity. With people the face is always what we focus on, and with my character initially having no face and a shapeless body we don't really know what to think of him. Once he creates a mask (ie: an identity for himself), that is instantly our focal point for the character and he begins to develop a personality. The other masks have relevance as well, the first creature we see being let into the afterlife will have a tired, gaunt-looking mask (he's old, and ready to die); and the bodyless (transcendent) angel masks are much larger and have much smaller eyes in comparison. They are also much more smooth and perfect looking, symbolising a more perfect being. As the character uses the mask, it's going to subconsciously adopt it as it's own personality until the mask defines it and becomes it's face.
Physical forms of creatures: These will be deliberately haphazard and imperfect. I want to emphasize that it is the mask and the identity which defines these creatures rather than shape.
Afterlife and the black sphere: The afterlife in this sense is tied directly to what the sphere is as a physical object. It's like a solidified black hole, you touch it and it tears you apart, atom by atom. It's not actually the afterlife, that's only a social construct on that particular world. It literally just deletes things from existence. Speaking of worlds, the sphere is also the only constant between hundreds of parallel universes, and it's directly linked to each one of them. Before the character touches it he sees a part of the sphere break off, and touches that instead. The sphere tries to destroy him through the fragment but can't. Instead he gets thrown into one of the parallel universes.
-I'm just going to stop here for a second as I've noticed something: As I've been writing this I've gone from referring to the character as an 'it' to a 'he'. It's developing a personality already...-
Anyway the universe he ends up in is going to be a jolt of reality to him. There is no afterlife. That's the main reason I want to use a completely different rendering style for it - to really emphasise that this is a completely different world.
As to the world itself, if I can model it there's going to be a ruined city-scape built on a crumbling metal shell that's held above another city underneath it by skyscraper-high pillars. and there would be ominous-looking black storm clouds in the sky.
I know parts of this are going to change, mostly due to a combination of my ability level and time constraints. But I want to keep it as close to this idea as possible.
Now I just have to get the hang of the cartoon shaders...
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