Refining designs

For the first half of today i continued redisigning the mother character trying too use stiffer shapes and get a nice contrast with the child i decided to call Tubbs for the tine being. i also played a little bit with scale and considered varying the size of her hips. After getting some feed back from some of my classmates i decided that wider hips appear more motherly and add appeal by contrasting with her stiff and slender upper body.

Next i tried to draw the both versions of the ending sequence in which the mother would have to go and save Tubbs. The first scene is the darker tones ending where Tubbs is cornered by a group of older kids represented by shadows in the drawing. I tried to capture Tubbs' fear through his expression and pose. I think the feel of the scene could be pushed further by having an exaggerated high angle shot looking down on Tubbs.

 The next possible ending [reads right and down to left] starts with Tubbs going to heroically rescue a cat from jungle gym, but he gets too tired half way to the cat and ends up slipping to his doom. I thought that this scene could show he has a bigger heart than he does muscle and could be quite cute. It was suggested that it would suit the situation better to save the cat from a tree as to monkey bars which makes a lot more sense. If I was set on the monkey bars it could work if i had his object of  desire change from a cat to something else, like a friends shoe or something similar.

During the second half of the day i began to ctart a mood board for the design of Tubbs and his mum and gather some artwork that i give the sort of feeling i would like to try replicate in this story.

In the first page i explored russell from up as well as some real photos of kids in super hero outfits. I also added other characters that had shapes and proportions i would like to incorporate into Tubbs design.

Next i researched characters that had shapes and designs that gave a good feel for the mother who i imagine looks kind of stern but also kind of blank in expression, so that she sort of gives a sense that she doesn't agree with her son dressing up but she loves him anyway.

I like the summery feeling of these images and think that they give off a kind of youthful and fun feeling. The colors are really nice and i like the characters kind of blank expressions of the kids in peanuts, i feel it matches the vibe of my story, kind of a child's perspective of the world.