Idea Development
Usually, this is the part where I would begin writing out a proposal, but before I begin doing that, I just want to take some time to develop some ideas for what I want my project to be, that way I'll have more of a solid footing on what to write when it comes to writing the proposal. The reason for this is because during the proposal phase of "The Grand Lamppost Heist", I was having a lot of trouble figuring out how to write the whole thing out since I had several different ideas I wanted to cram into it, but then once I developed some ideas and picked which one I wanted to do, I had a slightly easier time getting the whole thing done. (plus it ended up forming the basis of a lot of my research) As such, after asking my tutors if it was cool for me to do this, I'll be getting started on the idea development phase.
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When it comes to idea development, I usually like to develop at least three different ideas (even though I don't always come up with three ideas each time), that way I can have a wide variety of ideas while not coming up with too many ideas that I end up having a hard time keeping track of it all. The process itself usually tends to involve a little bit of random thinking until I eventually come up with a scenario I feel is good enough to write down:
Sometimes when developing the ideas however, I do end up having a slight change of mind when it comes to certain elements of a given idea. An example of this is my current second idea where I would have an anime character literally make their way through the development stages like an obstacle course, as originally I wanted it to take place in the same white void as "Super Sheep gets Cancelled", but then I ended up feeling that a white void with objects from my other cartoons scattered about wouldn't make a very interesting set piece, so I'm changing it to be "The Development Dimension" instead, since then I can actually develop a more interesting setting than just, "oh, it's a void with objects in it"
After I come up with all my ideas, I then think about each idea carefully and consider whether or not they have enough potential to become an actual project, although in this case I ended up deciding to combine all three ideas into a single narrative that involves Gerald D. Molition making his way through the development dimension in order to prove he's worthy of becoming a main character and leading his own IP with the help of Super Sheep and Ruff Bup to guide him through, since those characters were featured in my previous final major projects, so it'll be a nice send off to everything I've done in college and allow me to go out with a bang if I play my cards right.
How Was The Idea Development Phase?
I'll be the first to say that this part took just a little bit longer than I thought (and since I started this project without a head start, that's not necessarily a good thing), although in exchange for the length of time, I think the ideas I came up with are a little bit better since I was able to come up with each idea over the course of several days rather than doing the whole thing in as few days as possible like I've done in the past.
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Speaking of doing things in as few days as possible, developing these ideas first will really help make that project proposal easier, as last time I tried to do the proposal first, I ended up struggling to get everything written down within the word counts (since I was trying to summarise multiple ideas at once rather than focus on one idea), luckily I was able to do a bit of idea development first, and that made things way easier, so with this project, I figured if I just did the ideas first, I would be able to make my project proposal significantly easier.