Going Live - Character Designs

As the overall style of the film had been decided, which was based around the Hobbit map, the characters were also going to be in the paper-style. This gave me an idea to make an origami model of the main character - the dragon. This is a gold paper origami dragon I made to help with reference for paper textures and possible shapes for the 3D model. It provided some good reference for the way paper looks and the intricate details:

I also produced character concept sketches for the Eagle and the Dragon, which I then took into Photoshop to test some paper textures and colours...

Parchment colours:

The Eagle on the left I made darker and had fiery golds shining through (as the Eagle is "corrupted by Morgoth" and goes through flame and sorcery to become a dragon):

Light parchment colours, was experimenting with how to make them look similar, as the Dragon morphs from the Eagle:

Experimented with adding flecks of foil gold to the paper texture as this is Smaug The Golden:

Tried a slightly cooler hue as I wondered if the paper Dragon might blend into the parchment-like map background too much in the film, depending on the final look of the background environment:

Turned up the contrast to experiment with the foil gold texture, kind of looks like fire on the surface of the dragon now:

Looking through everything that was being worked on I realized that not very much had been done for the 'Tree-Hand' which entraps the eagle, so I've gathered some research into moodboards and created some artwork concepts.

Tree-Hand Moodboard:

Origami/Paper Trees Moodboard:

Concept Artwork:

I quite liked the idea of the 1st one I drew (top left) of the roots looking like a second hand clawing at the ground - this part wouldn't need animated though, just the main hand part of the branches. With two hands this adds a slightly more human quality, as if Morgoth himself is clawing his way up through the ground. Also the branches and roots look quite contorted which add a sinister and creepy feeling to the tree.
I also tried out a tree with the fingers/branches more closed inwards and claw-like (middle bottom).
Added a few leaves to the tree (middle top) which could be shaken or dropped off when the tree becomes more alive - as if the hand was in disguise.
Also drew a more simplified and origami design for a tree (right) which could be the surrounding trees.

Birds of Conservation Concern and Winter Wear Discussions

For our bird character, originally we were going to go with the Bullfinch species, but after looking at photos of the bird I realized the black colouring around the head might make it more difficult to see the eyes and expressions. I then had a look on the RSPB website and found out the Bullfinch has Amber status for Conservation Concern. For our underlying message in the film, I thought it might be better for our character to be a bird from the Red list. I researched different birds on the red list and came across the Linnet:
Link to RSPB Linnet page

A quick colour study paint in Photoshop

Sketches of different poses of a Linnet

Linnet is the current favourite that I've found - really like the colours, think the orange brown colour on the wings fits in well with the autumn colours, it's grey around the eye so expressions will be easier to see, and the more pink-red hue on the front might be better than just a bright red (which would have blended it in to the background too much with all the autumn colours?...)
It also feeds on seeds and can be found in gardens which is suitable for the story.

Some other suitable species I found were:
House Sparrow
Lesser Redpole
Hawfinch

Had a look over the human character design with Sheng. Now that the owner will be out in the garden with the dog for the duration of the film, her clothes needed some slight adjustment. Such as making her sleeves longer. The scarf has been adjusted so we don't have to deal with rigging a scarf... but we did like the scarf. It was also discussed whether maybe she could have a woolly hat, with maybe cropped hair? Or maybe even earmuffs! Which maybe would help show that it's a colder weather season and also maybe explains why she doesn't notice anything that's going on because she can't hear as well with her ears cover... I think some sketches to explore some winter wear variations is needed...

Ponytails And Fringes...

Been looking over the character designs with Sheng for the 'Tug of Biscuit' film. As the character is going to be modelled in 3D, we changed the hairstyle to a ponytail, as long hair down would just add difficulty to rigging and moving it, or even using dynamics. With a ponytail, we can just use one rig in the hair to add movement and bounce when she moves. However then we tried to decide what the fringe would be like, so I suggested we print off some blank heads of the character and draw some different variations. These are the ones I drew out:

At the moment we've gone for 'The Elsa Wisp' one on the bottom row. One strand fringe which would need a little rig to add some slight movement.