You will read the metamorphosis of the design from a rough to the final draft on all of the character’s in the PH2PC animation short. Some of the decisions that where made, why they were made, and how they have played out since the decision.
Daniel “Zanqdo” Salazar was one of the first people who came on board on the project. We had our discussions regarding they art style of the character’s and the project in general. I (Mark) wished to just was not very keen on creating a new style for the world to follow, but to do something that is visually appealing and cartoony. Both Daniel and I like the “Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who” style and colors, even though I have yet to watch the movie. A week later Daniel sent me his friend Luis Gadea’s portfolio and I loved his style and he liked our project. With him on board we knew that the project will have a great start.
Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who (c) Blue Sky Studios
The instructions to Luis again, just like Robin, were minimal but clear. On the project we wish to have characters faces with big eyes, and cartoony, something similar to his own style. The quality of the character design, will have to be match that expected on the Hollywood 3D movies. We knew from the very beginning that the visual masterpiece of the animation short will be the peacock and the other character’s are going to be main one’s moving the story along. Hence in the script, you will notice the peacock character is not well developed. His presence is just for the visual and the other characters have to be appealing and engaging.
Another discussion we had was on the hands of the characters as all of them are birds. How do they “hold a phone”, “drive a car’, “hold a coin” etc, while making them believable? We decided on cartoony hands, 3 digits and a thumb (though, I would have liked to push the envelope here) . In the essence of time, we decided to go it.
Feathers for all the characters were going to be close to photo-real but also try out best not to copy nature all the way. Another thing, we had decided was the no stublity in the characters’s, they have to play to the cliche’s of the general audience. So we have to use the world’s definition of ugly and beauty.
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