The Environment

I've been thinking more and more about the final stage in my story design, the environment. I wanted to include asymmetry and top/bottom-heavy shapes. The house itself is top-heavy and covered an unnessasary number of windows and doors, but that adds to its' horror house charm. Also, setting it at night sets the environment as dark and dank.

Lucy-Complete Character Profile

I have completed Lucy's character profile now. I've done the same thing as with Stitches. Front and side views with highlighted features, and a range of expressions that correspond with the range on Mr Stitches profile. I have also put some expressions into the context of the story, and i'm sure you'll recognise Kiki the fire-sprite has joined in with Lucy's bemused look.

Lucy-Profile Experiment

Left: I'm not going to use this character design of Lucy. The gothic outfit is too complex and she stands out too much. She needs to be 'plain' and this outfit draws too much attention to her. she is also too curvy, in fact her entire profile is very far from what i actually want her to look like.
Right: This character is more like what I want her to look like. She is simple and straight, with her characteristic gothic boots. They are oversized purposefully to make her look diminutive and innocent. Her clothing is also much simpler. I needed to keep in mind her actual role in the story. She is a simple questionary, an innocent inquiry is all she needs to provide, so she need not be high maintenance and I don't want the attention to be drawn away from Stitches.

Basic Body Shapes-Finding Lucy

I've experimented with some basic body shapes to try to narrow down the perimeters of what i want Lucy to look like. i've highlighted some of the key areas on each model and then explored the use of different curves on the overall image. Lucy needs to be slight and 'plain' with no real outstanding body features (such as her chest or hips).

Character designs-Lucy

I'm now designing my female lead character, Lucy. I adopted some anime features such as the hair and large eyes, but as you can see the eyes are all black, essentially to maintain the 'creepy' aura. I didn't want Lucy to be sexy or outstanding, more 'misunderstood' or 'individual' so she will probably have a plain Gothic style. The hair is a big factor in her character design and i'm particularly drawn to the very long style. the only feature i really want to experiment with is her fringe, whether to cover her face or just frame it, or both. i did some younger designs that were much easier to draw, and as you only see young Lucy for a brief period of time i don't need to be too detailed or scrutinuss over her design.

Mr Stitches-Colour Profile

I've experimented with some colours here on Mr Stitches. I kept the palette quite minimal, three or four colours is more than enough for character clothing or costumes, unless the particular outfit calls for a purposefully overzealous colour scheme. I combined blue, green and yellow in a patchwork jester style.

Final Character Profile: Mr Stitches

This is the final character profile for Mr Stitches. I've included some close-ups of his finer details as well as a selection of expressions. There are also a couple of illustrations to put the expressions into the context of the story.

Primary colour sources

A first generation colour mood board, created using primary colour sources such as magazines, material and colour samples.

I decided that it was important to establish some boundaries for my colour palette to help maintain the dark essence of the story. It uses mainly blacks and greys with some deep tones of reds and blues to add some contrast when important features of illustrations need to be highlighted.

Kiki the Fire Sprite

This is Kiki, the fire sprite. He is the pet given to Lucy by Mr Stitches when she was seven, a slightly bittersweet gift to be honest. On the one hand he is cute and fluffy, on the other he is mischevious and was spawned in hell...

I enjoyed adding the concept of this little 'mascot' character to my overall design idea. He will be there to help the storyline along by acting as an emotional release when the charcters are alone, as opposed to using thought bubbles.

Toy Examples

These are some examples of the types of toys that Mr Stitches would give to children on their Birthdays. They are wonderfully hand crafted and Stitches put a lot of love and attention into making them.

The toys are all simplistic and modest, but beautiful, however in a modern climate such as todays children are unappreciative of these simple gifts...

Here are some expression designs for my main character. He is miserable most of the time but we are treated to a couple of different expressions later on in the story.

This is essential character development, and has helped me to illustrate Stitches personality. The visual representation of a characters emotions helps the audience to empathise with the character...it makes you happy to see him happy!

First Character Design of the Term!

Character Design-'Mr Stitches'

My first module assignment has produced the novel idea of adapting Birthdays into something dark yet comic, with an ultimate sense of repression and disillusioned innocence. What better way to create a foreboding atmosphere to a joyous occasion than to introduce

'Mr Stitches'

a melancholy and surly individual who's persona is greatly mismatched to his profession.

In short-He delivers Birthday presents, but doesn't enjoy it at all.

I've decided to record this as my first initial idea and character design, and to announce that with this first illustration I have kick-started my year at Uni!