Pan Macmillan Storybook - Development of Main Characters

Louie, 5

I began by developing how the youngest character would look since he would be the focus of the story. It was important that he was adventurous and believed he was an explorer, hence how an explorer hat and binoculars has been developed. The proportions of the body was also something I needed to work on and eventually it was developed that the heads needed to be slightly bigger in order to seem more childlike.

 

To make the textures I have tried to use everyday objects, creating a familiarity and friendly aesthetic. The hat has been created from envelope texture, the skin tone has been used from one of the previous texture experiments, the shirt is a scan of one of my own and the shorts are a scan of my coat. All the tones have been chose because they are fairly natural, keeping to the vintage theme and not detracting too much from the moor backgrounds. The only spike of colour is the pink cheeks, which are a distinctive part of the character style. The binoculers were not carried forward for the final artwork as this would mean replicating a complicated shape numerous times which would be difficult within the time frame.

Heather, 9

Heather as a character was meant to be bossy, a bit moody but also imaginative. I've drawn her with shorter hair as this was one of the successful cuts from earlier. The coat is also to reference the colder scenes and the distinctive part of this was the hood - which will hopefully be different enough to the other girl's coat.

 

For the hair texture I have used a scan of my own, this was based off experiments from earlier that seemed to work well. The coat and gloves also use the same textures as elements of Louie's outfit, this is to keep all the characters consistent with each other. 

Mabel, 12

Mabel was the eldest in the plot and it is crucial that this is communicated through her appearance because of this. Her height for one worked for this, but also smaller elements like buttons on the coat, knee high socks and the hair ribbon were to suggest she is 'together' and sensible.

Her hair was developed to use the same texture as Louie's. This was to make sure the characters were clearly recognisable as related. The drop shadow has been applied to the profiles so that the elements of white in the designs don't blend in with the backgrounds. It was also important that the characters appear almost collaged when they are place on top of the collage backgrounds. This so the two different techniques can work harmoniously.