Monday, June 30, 2008

Some Visuals: Character Designs

As promised, here is some of the initial character designs and art that I generated for the film.
Here's the first drawing that started it all:


I really liked it right off the bat, but forced myself to create a few more designs:




Good thing too. I wanted him to look human but to have some ducky attributes. I have since decided that I like the idea of him having large paddle like feet and possibly a larger head. Also, in my last pitch to the committee it was suggested that perhaps duck boy was part of some scientific experiment. I liked that idea and have since decided that his leaf/dirt diaper will actually be made of feathers. I even considered the idea of giving him duck feet but I think that would be a little too much. Here is what I envision as being duck boy's final design:



I'm still working on some different style boards (next post) so the art style might change but the basic character design should stay the same.

Also here are some ducks:



Weekend after 4th of July I'm hoping to go on a duck research outing in a park or pond (or maybe just the Zoo). If any one would like to join me and draw ducks you're more than welcome to. AND if any one has a video camera I can borrow that would be awesome too. I'd like to capture some video reference of ducks in action.

In other unrelated news, I just purchased ToonBoom and am very excited about its capabilities. I think it will work well for my film. It has all the advantages of paperless 2d and it doesn't look too vectorized like flash. Plus as I learned from Shawn, it has very good coloring tools and some compositing abilities. I'm trying to learn it as fast as possible.

My parking meter is about to run out so I'll wrap things here for now.

3 comments:

Victor said...

The design with the big feet is nice. Do you have any animation done, yet?

Sheila said...

I like the idea of having his leaf/dirt diaper made of feathers as well as the big feet. It might be a good idea to finalize his character design and perhaps make a model sheet?

Good luck with Toon Boom!

Jake said...

I also enjoy the big footed one as well as the decision to make his lower torso more duck-like with feathers. Just a thought: would a young Duck Boy's hair match his feathers and 'molt' into the adult hair later, rather than being dark at the beginning?

Looking forward to your storyline!
Jake