Character Change

Decided today that I don't like my fish characters at all (above)... They are very obvious and boring to look at. Also felt like they stood out too much when placed with the other characters... I want them to look like they all belong together.

Below are my new designs for Wassa and Kato the  fish twin sisters. I much prefer this version because you can see both of their eyes and also the fins and gills are more interesting. I also wanted the face mask on on fish so that they fit in with the other animal characters.

Characters so far in colour: Uganda Project

Have spent all evening adding colour to all of my characters... Really happy with them mostly but there are some areas I intend to change on final images. I also think that the fish could possibly be a little more exaggerated...

Uganda Book Sketches

Below are all the sketches I have been working on today. I have come up with a final design for each of the characters and have also included some development sketches so you can see how I  got to the final designs...

These first images are of the main character, a monkey called Asobora...

Experimenting with different poses and facial expressions

 The above image is how I would like Asobora to look in one of the pages I have to fully illustrate. He has to be listening for Christmas bells.

Below are some of my sketches of the elephant character called Magesi. 

The above image is the last sketch I did of Magesi which I am very happy with. In the book he is described as being grey with large grey ears... I'm going to add splashes of colour to his tusks, feet, toe nails and face so he will fit in alongside the other colourful characters.

Below are some sketches of the two female fish characters called Kato and Wassa. They are twin sisters but have different coloured eyes. I intend to have them exactly the same throughout the book but always reflecting each other and the difference in eye colour.

 The above image is how Wassa and Kato will look in the story. They are described as having shiny blue gills so I have added a flower shape around their heads that I will colour different shades of blue.

  

Below are some sketches of my crocodile character called Buzobosi. After the group discussion this morning I worked on trying to make his design more strong looking. I also needed him to look like he would crawl rather than walk... 

The above image is the last sketch I did of Buzobosi. I'm very happy with it and think it works much better than my first image. He will be the same colours as my first drawing but will have added areas of pattern on his feet.

The next stage will be to have full colour images of all the characters so I can figure out easily which areas will be which colours. I will then work on layouts for the pages I have to produce by next week... Wish me luck!

Uganda Charity Children's book

Last week we were given the chance to chose between 3 different briefs. The brief I have chosen is the Uganda children's charity book. I had already been told about this brief during the holidays so had already gathered a bit of information and started to work on some character designs...

http://www.helpingugandaschools.org/index.html 

Below are some of the images I have used as inspiration for my initial character designs...

I really love the colours and characters in the Lion King. This has been a massive influence on the colours for my characters.

Have also been inspired by African art. They use simple colours and also include lots of pattern in their art.

This is the Ugandan flag and I was very drawn to the bold colours. I wanted to include these colours in my character designs and backgrounds.

 The above images was the main inspiration for my final monkey character. I liked how his hands and feet were darker, almost like gloves. I also liked the dark area that surrounds his facial features. It reminded me of African masks and I wanted to include this mask in my character designs.

The two images above are two different versions of my monkey character "Asobora". I personally prefer the block colour image over the textured one. I think that the colours stand out more and fit in better with the African theme I'm trying to get across.

I intend to experiment with other textures and may also try using the softer textures in the background scenery to make the bolder characters stand out more...

This is my first version of the crocodile character "Buzobosi". I'm not very keen on this design and have since changed it around a little. I'm fairly happy with the colours but may tone the green down a little on future images.

Today we had a tutorial to discuss out progress so far with this project. Some points mentioned were that my monkey character looks very human-like and could possibly be exaggerated more. People in the tutorial seemed to prefer the textured version of the monkey character so I definitely need to find a way of using textures but keeping my bold colours.

The comments made about my crocodile character were that his pose is too extreme for a crocodile and should be reworked and also that the character in the story "crawls" and my design has longer legs so wouldn't be a crawling creature...

I have spent  today reworking my existing characters and also designing the elephant and fish characters.... I'm now happy with all the designs and will be posting some of the sketches in my next post.