With my family owning a small hardware shop in my home village, my mother has asked me to create a short animation to be displayed in the window this winter. (already having to think about Christmas!) The obvious subject of this animation is of course hardware and needs to come with the typical wintery theme.
Original ethereal ideas just included a boy and his dog but then as our lovely Great British winter weather battered around outside, throwing rain at the window and wind in my face I realised this is our British winter, rain and wind, no snow (but on the rare occasion). British kids can't get the same enjoyment of winter as other kids in the world do because where in Scotland or Switzerland schools out due to a frozen duvet enveloping the landscape and so children can trade classrooms for snowballs, Britain gives children the misery of sitting inside watching the sky issue judgement.
And so this is my story, or I should say every British child's dream when winter approaches.....
Working Title: Snowless
Brief synopsis: A young boy dreams of building a snowman, but when winter weather brings only thunderous skies and lashing rain he decides to build his dream out of hardware.
Initial designs were just a Friday night doodle and when digitised became cute and cuddly illustrations. However I realised once they had been drawn that perhaps they were best to remain as illustrations. This is down to how they would move and I felt that the boy in particular wasn't well enough designed for him to move effectively. I think looking at how this design compares to my improved one, there is definite problems with outline thickness and character make-up. The line work is too thick so the character wouldn't necessarily look appealing when animated and his form I feel is too simplistic to get a sense his body could stretch and bend easily.
Initial doodles
First design concept
First designs- lines too thick and I couldn't imagine him moving.
Initial dog- The dog was fine for shape, just the outline needed thinning out.
Before I realised the boy wasn't going to cut it for style, I did a run test of the dog to see if his body shape would work moving.
And happily I think I've got him moving the way I imagined him too. All it requires is the finer details but seeing as this was just a test, it wasn't necessary at this stage. One tweak I might make is speeding up the run so he can get from one side of the screen to the other in a shorter time.
Going back to the boy, I looked for inspiration that might give me a better style to aim for. The main one being Ame from 'Wolf Children.'
Although anime is for anyone who knows me, a predictable path for me to look down as I completely adore the genre, I see a lot of traits that other styles don't embrace. Children come across as beings that have bigger heads and large eyes because they are growing into those proportions that accommodate those features. And this is exactly what anime reflects and why Ame is one of the best examples I've looked at for reference.
Others include Pride/ Selim Bradley from 'Fullmetal Alchemist' for the baby-fat face
And Hikari from 'Nagi No Asukara' for the stick-out cheeks and small button nose.
Putting all these references together I came up with the current new and improved design which allows me to believe it has the potential of moving. This design may alter in the future, like making the eyes slighter bigger or altering the shape of the cheeks/chin but for now it's where I feel it should be.
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