Submission Requirements

- 1 A4 page of analysis of brand values (can include images + one copy on blog and one can be stuck either on it's own board or on the back of one of the A3 boards)

- 1 A3 presentation board containing four expression studies (A3 print stuck on thick board)

- 1 A3 presentation board containing 'hero' character images (front, side, and back views + A3 print suck on thick board)

- 100-250 word rational describing your process (one copy on blog and one on the back of hero presentation board)

- Digital workbook/blog (put this address on Stream and also write it on the rationale and/or brown folder)

- A3 brown folder (to put presentation boards in for hand in)

Sidekick Character Ideas

In a packet of Pascall's Allsorts you get allsorts, licorice twists, and also a few aniseed lollies. I did not include the aniseed lollies in my character design as they aren't licorice and I wanted to make it entirely out of licorice. I still want to represent all of the products though, so I have decided to make this lollie into a little sidekick for my main character.

The aniseed lollie

I looked at having ears on the character as they are a big part of my licorice character's design, but I feel that the small size of this character would be unbalanced by ears.

Looking at adding limbs to my character.
I want to use arms and legs that emulate the design of my licorice character so that they look like they are from the same world. I also want to give it a tail to further link it to my main design, but instead of having a licorice twist on the end for decoration I looked at using circles to relate to the hard candy coating the aniseed on the real product.

Character Drawn and Coloured in Illustrator

I used Illustrator to completely draw and colour my character. This was the first time I had ever used Illustrator like this - all the other times I had only used it the way James showed us to with the Polar Bear Exercise (importing line art, getting a base colour, and then putting it back in Photoshop and using masks to colour it).

This looked great on Illustrator, but it's actually too dark.

I lightened up the colours on Illustrator, but now it looks too pink!

Good colours

Drawing in Illustrator Process

This is the first time I have ever drawn in Illustrator.

These are a few screenshots of my process.

Expressions

Character's Skeletal Structure

For fun I decided to look at how my licorice character's skeleton would have to be squished and stretched to fit it's cubic body shape:

Final Silhouette

More Character Sketches

New Shape of Character

New shape based on James' critique:

Animated Sidekick Characters

The brief says that our character has to have either a prop, environment, or vehicle in one of our final boards. I had the idea of using the aniseed lollie that came in the bag of Pascall's Allsorts to inform the design of a sidekick character to my brand's "hero" licorice character instead of my character having a prop or vehicle. I asked James if this was ok and he said that he was happy with me doing it.

Sidekick Characters Precedents:

Flounder - Disney's 'The Little Mermaid"

Pascal - Disney's 'Tangled'

Flit and Meeko - Disney's 'Pocahontas'

Abu and Magic Carpet - Disney's 'Aladdin'

Lumiere, Mrs Potts, and Cogsworth - Disney's 'The Beauty and The Beast'

Tinkerbell - Disney's 'Peter Pan'

Timon and Pumba - Disney's 'The Lion King'

Cri-kee and Mushu - Disney's 'Mulan'

Hal the Cockroach - Disney Pixar's 'WALL-E'

Belt - Dreamworks Animation's 'The Croods'

Critique

James’ critique of my current concept:

- Soften/curve the lines where him arms and legs connect to his body
- Try draw him 3D
- Love the colours!
- Can look at the sidekick idea

Week 5 Illustrator Demo

Notes:

You can place an image like you do in Photoshop

Select the image/shape and press 'command+2' or 'Object-Lock-Selection' to lock that bit (so that your mouse doesn’t move it when working on something new on top of it)

Use the pen tool (make sure you're on 'Outline' not 'Fill') and outline the shape
You can then change 'Outline' to 'Fill' to fill in the shape

'Add Anchor Points' and 'Take Away Anchor Points' is under the Pen Tool

You can add anchor points to adjust the outline of the shape
You can use the handles on the anchor points to adjust the curves of the shape

When using the pen tool for outlining, if you use the handles to get a curve, click back on the anchor point you’ve just placed to make the next point come off that point at an angle - not a curve.

'Image Trace (on top menu) - Low Fidelity - Expand' this gives you a vector from a photograph/bitmap image

If you want to remove a shape/section from another shape, draw it over the top and then use the Shape Builder Tool

If you use the Pencil Tool and draw a line but it doesn’t turn out the way you want, you can go back over the line and Illustrator will automatically adjust it for you

You can place an image over a shape, then select both of them and use 'Clipping Mask - Make' to put that texture in the shape

Exaggerated Concept

I coloured this allsort character in Photoshop but I think the finish would look a lot cleaner if I did it using Illustrator. I put the design on a black background to see what it would look like as the packaging of Pascall's Allsorts is black.

Exaggerating and Reducing Features

Madagascar's Mort and Maurice

I feel like my design shares lots of qualities with these lemurs produced by Dreamworks Animation:

These lemurs and my licorice character are all aimed towards a young audience, therefore features like their ears, eyes, and tails have been exaggerated to make them cuter and more appealing.

Nico Marlet

I love these expression studies of Kung Fu Panda characters:

Character Anatomy Inspiration

I took inspiration for my character's current ears and tail design from these three animals.

Fennec Fox Ears:

Chinchilla Ears:

Lion Mane and Tail: