Research and Refining First Character Design

I found this character sheet from Lilo and Stitch quite useful when thinking about the shape and design for our 'main' character Gloria. By simplifying the design into key shapes the character can be blocked out and their key attributes highlighted.

Lilo and Stitch Character Design

For example, using round shapes adds to femininity - such as large hips etc. This is something I am trying to apply to our character Gloria by giving her the classic 'Hourglass'. However proportion wise she is mostly legs, illustrating that she is slightly out of balance and quite likely to fall over. It also allows us the chance to add comic effect to the Character's interaction by creating a large height difference between Gloria and the Boss/Inspector character. Using this idea of shapes it seemed natural for the Boss character to be opposite to Gloria - therefore  squarer and stouter, implying he would never fall over. (More of his development will be blogged later!) 

Our Character Designs thinking about Height 

Style wise I've noticed an upcoming animation from Walt Disney Animation Studios called 'Paperman', it's interesting as it blends 3D animation with 2D. I find the character design of the woman interesting and useful in terms of the fact it's quite simple/cartoony but effective, and her face has the balance of feminine and innocence that I've been trying to achieve with Gloria. Though we probably won't be having our cut-scene in black and white, the simple tones and lack of incredibly detailed/realistic texturing on the characters is useful to keep in mind.

Paperman Character Designs

'Meg' from Paperman's Hair also is quite of interest to our character design, as though it seems quite natural it also has a structure and simplicity to it - it's mainly made up of a few key shapes. 

 When thinking about our character's hair I have to take into account the fact that she will be wearing a hat for most of the time (until it gets knocked off), so have tried to make the top quite flat, only allowing curls at the bottom.  Luckily the style around the 1950's is quite 'set', so hopefully when this is modelled her hair can just be solid shapes that are later textured slightly/given a shine.