Concept Development 01

Week 1 - Day 4 (I'm so good at this daily posting thing...but I swear I'll do better? In any case, prepare for an information dump.)

We watched some iconic scenes, did some brainstorming, tried the old switcher-roo to twist the original genre to fit another one and this is what I got:

Idea 1: Cakeburster! (Dark comedy)
A woman bursts out of a cake, at a funeral!!! Talk about awkward...?
Idea 2: Chestburster!! (Totally original)
A doubloon digs itself out of a pile of treasure to the disbelieving eyes of pirates.
Idea 3: Beerburster. (I don't even know any more)
A beer bottle is being shaken up and a fountain of bubbles burst out of the lip.
Idea 4: Chestburster. (Total crack)
A chest hair (aptly named Chester) makes his grand appearance in the middle of a body builder's chest.

Idea 1: Cakeburster!

Idea 2: Chestburster!

Idea 3: Beerburster!

Idea 4: Chestburster!

I personally preferred the first idea , and it was well received with my peers. I worried that the idea would be too offensive - for making light of a serious situation - to which I had another idea to fallback on if needed but it seems the humor was too good to pass up. Here is the character bio as well as a summary for the sequence I'll be using:

Character Bio

I looked through a few artists to find a style that would be simple to do on a 3D program that tests my boundaries without over-complicating it. I like Skottie Young's style of drawing, especially with the long limbs, definable joints, and curvy bodies. Here is a compilation of some pieces I drew inspiration on:

Skottie Young Inspirations!!

Character Research

I also tried to draw inspiration from other cartoons that was family/comedy oriented and mostly got examples from Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, Jessica Rabbit. I'm aiming for something feminine, voluptuous and simple! Simple is the keyword here.

And this here...is my attempt at trying to mimic the style to something I can easily work with, keeping in mind simple basic shapes and trying out different styles that's outside of my comfort zone. Let's have a look!!

Basic Body Explorations

The first one was a bit of a...uh...well. It could be better, let's just leave it at that, The second attempt was closer to what I was looking for but was too skinny and too long and too...something that I just can't describe. The third one looked the best (yes, I'm aware the legs look a bit weird but I'll fix it next time), with a nice combination of curvaceous in her hourglass figure and long limbs.

These are the exploration of facial and hair types. I preferred (4) over the others but I asked a few of my peers to see which one they liked overall. See below:

Facial Types

Now that I've, more or less, figured out the look of my character, I decided to pick out some generic color schemes and also a few that were suggested by my peers. These are the results:

Color Scheme 01

Color Scheme 02

In the first picture, I preferred (1) and (4) while in the second I preferred (4) and was sitting on the fence in regards to (3), I've asked my peers and gathered a few of their personal opinions, which you will find scribbled on the same pages. (Good luck reading my chicken scratch.)

Sam also mentioned that the character looks very easy to do on a 3D modelling program. I'm going to take his word for it and I hope the 3D version of her will look similar to her 2D drawings. FINGERS CROSSED.

I'll have to do some research on backgrounds later so I can figure out a better color scheme to use with the character and the cake prop. I'm thinking of using a desaturated background (it's a funeral, come on) with hues of browns and greys so that the character will stand out like WHOA! As much as I like my original choice in coloring, I don't think she'll stand out a whole lot, so I might have to choose the most popular pick of the blond girl with the racy red get-up. Ain't that stereotypical, though? In any case, nothing's set in stone yet so things might change in the near future. Stay tuned to find out more!


INSPIRATION OF THE WEEK: Shia LaBeouf - "JUST, DO IT! YESTERDAY, YOU SAID TOMORROW!"

You have NO idea how often I've heard that voice going on replay in my head. It is both motivational and laugh-inducing. Great fun.


P.S - CAN YOU SEE MY WORK PROGRESS YET?!?! This is the accumulation of an entire week's (3 days) worth of work. I'll do better about posting my progress next week rather than dump everything into a single post.

Cheers!