Character Model Sheet

Turnaround of Shoo and Molly

Pose and Expression Sheet

Because Shoo doesn't show her eyes for the majority of the time, I had to portray her emotions mainly through her body language. Along with that, I realised the smiley on her shirt can express FOR Shoo instead. (Yes Shoo flips tables too)
Her evil expressions were a LOT easier to work with. I liked how she could be doing something cute (e.g. peeking from under the blankets) but still look horrifying just because of her eyes.

Colour and Texture Swatches

And this concludes the design process of my character and prop!

Concept Development : I forgot to upload my research for environment... -_-

I lied. I'm still uploading a little more for my environment research!
My animation short is set in Shoo's room which I have mentioned to be filled with warm colours mainly consisting of pink and red. There should be a fluffy pink rug and a gigantic bed which would make Shoo look like a soft toy due to the size difference!

I just got a variety of images of different rooms with different layouts.

I especially like the last two images as they seem to show objects which target girl children. They have many round shapes within the furniture designs and patterns which I should consider if I get to drawing my environment in the future. I'll also remember to play around with shapes of EVERYTHING, not just the pattern. I plan to use a lighter pink rather than a hot pink. The hot pink room seems rather strong to the eyes QAQ (...or is it just me -.-;;;) Rooms 1 and 3 show a larger variety of colours, not just analogous colours and this actually makes the room more interesting to look at: I can keep the base colour of the room pink, but include others.

...Okaaaay NOW I can upload my final things! 

Concept Development : Texture Research

The possibilities....>.>

Looked up different fabrics I could use for the textures of Shoo's shirt and socks.
I personally wanted something that would be
-comfortable
-soft
-drapes well

Wool didn't really fit under the comfortable category due to it having the possibility of feeling itchy to many people despite how soft it was. Polar fleece had an extremely soft texture to the fabric but the problem was that it had a set shape regarding how the fabric moved, meaning it didn't drape as well as I wanted. It was also quite thick when I wanted something light and comfortable.
Silk was a material I had considered: it was comfortable, light, draped well. and was soft. The only problem I had was that whatever was made out of it, it would shine.....quite a bit.
Velvet was a material I didn't really think about initially, until I realised that it was soft, draped well, and it was comfortable. The colour also didn't have a shine as strong as silk did. Despite it being thick, the material is quite light in motion.

Socks....Cotton beat every other material for me. Cotton is the staple material for socks and they are comfortable to move in so why not?

Phew! I finally finished my development process so...I guess I can start uploading my final works of Shooooooooooo!

Concept Development - Colour Concepts

I post my colour concepts today!

Shoo and Molly Colour Concepts

The colours for the clothes were quite light whereas Shoo's hair was mainly darker colours along with her socks. I tried to create a light against dark contrast for clarity. The light colours seemed to suit Shoo's age of five.

Molly's colour concepts mainly revolved around quite muted colours for the overall skull with variations for the teeth and eyes. The red eyes were used to show them glowing along with Shoo's later in the animation. 

From many people. concepts 5 and 6 were the most popular while concept B was the "victor" for the skulls. When deciding whether to use number 5 or 6, I remembered that I wanted my environment (Shoo's room) to be filled with reds and PINKS. This meant if I used number 6, even though Shoo would fit well with the environment, there would be the risk of her not appearing clear enough.
Purple however, is an analogous colour to pink, meaning Shoo would still be able to merge with the environment, but still look different because of her colour. 

Tehe

I also had to decide how I would colour Shoo's eyes once she revealed them. Through the four concepts, I knew that red looked a lot more evil in comparison to the yellow: it was a LOT stronger. I also like the blood oozing down her mouth as it, along with the eyes. emphasize the turn in character. After asking individuals, the majority of votes were given to the top right design.

Concept Development - Skull

For the skull prop....(more like Molly), I tried different styles to make the skull fit the art style of Shoo.

I guess you all found out what happened to Molly

An important factor I wanted was to make the skull look "innocent" in comparison to Shoo's evil form. Large eyes usually make a child look innocent and adorable, so I tried making the eyes look abnormally large in comparison to its small nose. The circled skull seemed to have fulfilled my wants, as different individuals commented on how it fit my intentions well.

Someone said it reminded them of Puss N Boots from Shrek... ><

Well the skull drawing turned out a lot better than I had thought! ^^
I plan to upload my colour concepts tomorrow after getting some feedback from different people! >.>
Until then, please enjoy the kitty :3

Concept Development - Developing stages

I've decided to go ahead and post my development process for Shoo and the skull prop!

Development : Hair Styles and Face Shape

In my first page of development, I was exploring different variations regarding Shoo's hair and facial structure. I mainly went for hairstyles that are slightly short in comparison to longer styles due to how mature the character looked with the longer hair. I personally like the bottom left facial shape because of how it includes rounded edges just like the other two designs, but it includes variation regarding size; unlike the first which looks quite bloated whereas the third looks rather plain. 

A classmate gave me an idea about how I could go with the evil grin of Shoo. From her idea, I liked the extremely stretched mouth.

Development : Hair and Size

Throughout the development phase, I tried different shades for the shirt and Shoo's hair. I wanted a contrast between the two elements for clarity of the character and making her more interesting to look at. However, while I was contemplating how I could make her look rather "emotionless" due to her "shy" personality, different individuals asked what Shoo would look if her eyes were covered. I thought this was an excellent idea, as a classmate also showed me a character named Erma who had a similar concept (having her eyes covered most of the time)

Erma covers her entire face so reading her facial expression is impossible. However, her emotions can be portrayed through her body language. I decided to have Shoo's eyes covered by having a shadow be cast by her puffy fringe, which meant even the shadow included round shapes for a cute image. 

Shoo will also have a dotted mouth for the majority of the short...until she changes.

Development - Shirt and EVIL

My final development page for Shoo includes changes with the image on her shirt. Out of the various adorable shapes, I received feedback that the happy face changing along with her "mutation" was a clever aspect in emphasizing how evil Shoo actually is, as well as looking like a cute smiley at the same time. I also explored different ways of showing her little emotions (and cuteness!) through her body language and silhouette. Many people seemed to enjoy the top right image of Shoo with longer sleeves to cover her small hands. (It'd be easy for me to animate too! ><)

For EVIL Shoo, I plan to try different colours for her eyes but am leaning towards a red glow against black. I may also just have a fully red eye instead.

Concept Development

I'm back! (On the same day...-_-;;;) to finally update how my character concepts ended up looking!

Concepts (Shoo) pg 1

From previous research, I was definite with a few facts:
-Shoo's character design would include lots of round shapes
-She would have to look as adorable as she can in order to create a larger contrast between her normal and scary appearance.

I initially started off with eyes influenced from different animations such as Pokoyo and Despicable Me for how the character appeared face-wise. I was not able to enjoy any of them however, because of them either looking far too young, or as my classmates said, "looking rather freaky because of the long face and short body." 

I really liked the concept on the far right due to how she included lots of rounded shapes within her face structure and hair, contrasting from her extremely small limbs. Her expression was actually influenced by the well known "annoyance" Teemo from League of Legends!

This adorable little...devil (some of you will get what I mean)

Along with that concept, I tried to explore different styles of clothing: a puffy shirt, rounded skirt, blouse with bows, even simple princess dresses. Something I wanted to keep was the simplicity within the design: it would be easier to animate with my very INEXPERIENCED skills! >.>

Second Page of concepts!

Hello Sadness

After one page of concepts, you can clearly see I was liking the round face, thin limbs idea for the size contrast. (apart from the first design which has a rounded body in general - inspired by Sadness from Inside Out) The reason behind the rounded shapes was because of the shape language associated with circles: they make a character look cute as well as kind. In this page of concepts, I attempted to try adding a fantasy aspect to the character by adding various animal ears and tails. This was also to make a character seem rather cute. The fox was a favourite out of the animal characters as she looked adorable with her shape and body language as well as looking young whereas the left and right designs look slightly older. Little accessories such as the headband and bows are in shapes which are considered quite feminine such as hearts. This is to show the young girl of Shoo.

...And at the end there is the little "eye trial" (iTrial? Sorry.) as I started thinking of what kind of eyes I wanted for her transformed state.

Concept Feedback!

During the design process, I consulted in classmates as well as the lecturer for different opinions of the designs. 

My main comments received were that many people enjoyed the large round face with a small body which makes the height around 2 1/2 heads tall. This was a common factor within many characters that exist today and was welcomed. 

Some individuals expressed their concerns with the animal concepts, mentioning that it looked rather forced when compared to the environment concept described earlier.
I circled three concepts which I liked but I had the favourite being the right concept on the first page with the girl in the oversized shirt. It made me extremely happy when I noticed my other classmates had also found this design absolutely adorable too! :D

...Well I sure talk more than I want to >.>;;; Hope that didn't bore everyone! I'm going to update my development pages tomorrow so look forward to that! XP