[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Female Epytian Woman Character Design

For my final character design I decided to look at the Egyptians, originally with the interest in their warriors but after my lesson with Jane I was inspired by the idea I would like to follow for my dissertation. 

The beauty of women in different cultures and I thought about how women in Egypt either had no power or a lot of power like Cleopatra, but I was really inspired by the goddess  Isis,  the great mother goddess and also known to be Osiris counterpart putting her very high up. 

Here are my my set of starting thumbnails:

I got a bit stuck after I did the thumbnails so I did some random sketches to help myself get going, and I really ended up liking the shape of the body, having these big hips, good for child birth linking to Isis the mother of all. 

[YEAR 2] Lip Sync Pose Test [Version 3]

Im really struggling with this....so much, I just dont know what to make them do in the pauses and in some of the really fast speeches.

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Male Samurai Character Design

To be the counter part for my Geisha character I am working on this make Samurai to be her partner. 

Here are my reference boards to help me develop my ideas.

Here are some thumbnails, I went for a mixture of full armour and the lesser armour looks so I could see what I like better. 

I decided I liked the cloth looks better so I picked 3 to do a quick sketch over.

Now for the weapon: 

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Female Geisha Character Design

Japanese culture has always been of interest to me and inspired a lot of my work,

so I thought developing a set of characters from this would be very fun for me, so here is the development so far for the female, the male will be on another post! :D 

Here are some of the images I have collected to help me along with the designs. 

Japanese women are meant to be gentle, elegant and graceful so I wanted most of the designs to try include triangle shapes but with a softness to them for the feminine touch. 

These 6 thumbnails I liked the best and would like to develop them further so work out with character shape I want to continue with.

Here I have briefly tried to work out a good head shape for my geisha girl, so far I'm think a diamond shaped head would be best to capture the cheek bones but also work in the idea of triangles elements. 

Continuing with the idea of triangles for elegants, I'm really liking this look so far, it looks classy and elegant but has a style to it still. 

Moving on to the hair, I tried to think of a few hairstyles for the character at the moment I'm liking number 5,2 and 8.  

For some extra development I decided to look at Japanese vases and look at the same for inspiration for further designs as the current shape I have is very generic. 

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Animal Character Development [1]

I have decided to look at two different dogs for my animal characters, this page for my pug character development.

Here I have some mood boards for reference purposes.

Since pugs can look quite silly and soft I have decided to mainly build the character out of circles to express that. 

Here are some thumbnails for the pug: 

Here is my first version of the pug, I used a similar shape to the 11th thumbnail, very round, really just two balls on top of each other and gave him really small toes to give him a 'derpy' look. 

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Male Viking Character Development

Here is the reference board for my male viking character, I was thinking that he could be the father of the female viking I'm also working on.

 I mainly went for square shapes to go with this bold, strong look. I also had the thumbnail of the girls body so I could see what they would look like together. 

These were the two bodies that I liked the best and then I added some clothes but I felt when I hd comepleted the first clothing sketch I felt that the one of the left looked too young to be a father to a 14/15 year old girl. 

So deciding on the bulkier build I had another go at roughing out some out fits. 

[YEAR 2] Lip Sync Pose Test [Version 2]

--> http://emmamaltbyanimation.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/year-2-lip-sync-pose-test-version-1.html <--

I tried to cut down the poses from my original set.

I used 5 and merged the short phrases into long ones. 

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Female Viking Character Development

These are some female warrior thumbnails, I tried to do them so its a woman and then a young girl or teenage in the same sort of pose. 

I tried to build the bodies mainly in triangle shapes to show a swift, sharp look but it a curve to give it that young, delicate feeling as well. 

I drew this out to express what I would like to achieve with the character's look. 

So I was think along the lines of layers, hoods and furs.

Here are some concept sketches:, to help with my development of the character.

I really wanted to go for the classic Scandinavian girl look, so it was a small nose, round face and big eyes.

Here is my two favorite hair designs on the basic body, I have given her a 14/15 year old body so she has small hips and chest since she is still in development, next is to work on the outfit. 

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - The Character and The Story

I want both my character and story to link together as then I feel I can develop the character further and the story development process will have a direction.

The story idea: 

I want to base it around this idea of a young girl being lost with maybe an animal companion (so that I can show my animation skills of animals) looking for her family or something. The two run into trouble and she must face this problem and be a hero/ warrior to herself. By confronting the problem she and the companion make it through and reach her family/village or whatever I develop it to be.

I just want the piece of be of this young girls growth into something strong.

I did this quick drawing to show what I want to achieve as I found it original hard to put into words what I want to explore.

[YEAR 2] Show Reel Development - Character Design Development

Character Design/Concept/Developement: 

I decided to give myself a theme for my character as I was just finding it way too hard just to be like CHARACTER BAM! 

Here is a scan of my original character design brainstorm and I ended up picking warriors because I feel like everything that inspires me in my work fits with warriors.

I did a lot research into warrior armor and different cultures/ countries 'warriors' and I ended up picking Viking/Saxon designs.

I ended up looking further into things that inspire me in the 'warrior' genre so I looked into my favourite game League of Legends. I find this game to have such lovely, detailed and strong female characters and I find their designs very unique and inspiring especially the characters who have the Viking, Norse inspired theme to them. After looking through all the female characters I was pretty decided on the fact I want to develop a female character because all there characters were strong but it so many different looks and styles.

My next thoughts were what other females are strong....Wonder Woman, she is a sexy and strong female to look at. This then led me to discover the art of Bruce Timm and he has done many strong females such as Hawk girl and Harley Quinn. His style also has a lovely graphic look to it which I find very inspirational to look at.

After looking at these classically strong ideas of female warriors,  I thought of looking at female characters that contrast this idea of classic idea of what strong woman are. This led me to look at Japanese 'mahou shoujo/magic girls' which I would say fall into the warrior category because their goal is the same...JUSTICE! So I picked Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura and Rayearth, all the characters here are young girls/women but it doesn't make them any less powerful!

So after all this research I have a rough idea of what character and story I want to create, but I will save that for another post!!