For the design of this character - especially since I wasn't too sure where exactly to start, I relied a lot on Facebook for instant feedback from my team so that I would make changes as soon as they were suggested instead of going off with an idea but having everyone else disagree. This is the first time I realised just how convenient using Facebook is for projects like this; the only thing that would have been better would be if they were present as I was drawing, but that wasn't possible. Still, the whole process went much faster than it would have done if we didn't use face book.
I had a few really rough sketches in my sketchbook of a few body shapes/styles from other CN shows but none of them felt right, which at least gave me a few to eliminate straight away. I ended up using a style a little closer to Motorcity's than anything else because it really made the limbs that much sharper, and adding to the angular effect that Cara and Rebecca wanted. Still, I struggled a little bit at first - I haven't really had to opportunity to design many adult or male characters for animation, since I hadn't really thought about designing for animation instead of illustration before this course. Still I feel like once I got to the second page of designs I got into it a lot more, especially as I started to figure out what sort of design I wanted to go for and which parts to exaggerate.
After the comparison, I was a lot more confident with the shape - it is close enough to Johnny's design (the child) so that it works, but different enough to show his personality and, of course, age. I do actually like the design for his face/head, but not for this project - maybe if I was making more of a stuffy, rich older man character then I would use it, but this wasn't what we were going for with the cake guy. I feel like these designs helped to pin down his personality a little bit more as well, since so far most of our planning was on the plot/how to get this animation factual enough for the module, otherwise we would just go off on one with characters and narrative stuff.
It definitely helped having a few more sets of eyes to help me decide what amount of exaggeration was needed, and what bits may or may not be needed - this was one of the most fun design processes I've been a part of for a while, and it made me sad that there aren't more characters to design for this project, although I don't think I could have got things finished for the pitch if there were. I also feel like the designs develop very coherently - I feel like even without commentary you can tell why/how I have gone in which direction, which I think is a good thing. I do agree with the friendlier looking characters being better, even though he started off as a much crazier, eccentric guy, but this is probably better for the sort of audience that we has. Instead of being obsessed, this guy just really loves cakes.
The last thing we talked about was the chins - a lot of the differences are only very subtle, but I'm glad that we thought about it. The rounder chin does look even friendlier but considering the amount of angles on him, I think that squarer was the better choice, although the round chin and rounder jaw look interesting - I might consider using a design like that in another project down the line. I think that we have a very fun, friendly character here though, and he should be pretty simple to animate.
Finished design! Now for thinking about colour.
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