Ruby’s Eyes

As Ruby is the prominent female character, I wanted to give her some noticeable female attributes. I done this through the addition of long eyelashes in the experimentation of the eyes. I enjoyed this process as I felt I could just loosen up and draw any type of eye that came to mind, some of which i realised after seemed to of come from anime style eyes!

I then proceeded to draw over my favourite drawings in Adobe Illustrator where I found some eyes came to life more than others! It was interesting to narrow them down in this way.

Ruby’s Body-Shapes

I originally began drawing Ruby.s body in a rounded styles. I want Ruby to come across to the reader as friendly and nice as possible. However, I want to also create the impression that Ruby is brave and confident and will always stand up for herself and her friends. I do not want to make her look too playful and naive either.

Underneath are some of the initial sketches I completed, before I broke down the character into more specific parts.

Ruby – Breakdown of Features

I know that I need to experiment more with Ruby a lot before making my final decision. I broke down the attributes that make up Ruby and decided to focus individually on these features and then pick on my favourite ones at the end of my experimentation.

• Body Shape
• Eyes
• Beak
• Feet
• Wings
• Colour

Gonzo – Finalised Character

The finalised character of Gonzo that I have chosen is similar to the original style that I came up with. However, going back and breaking down Gonzo’s features, allowed me make changes that benefited the character and add something extra.

The main changes made were the addition of the front legs, making it easier for me to draw Gonzo from side angles, the ears, where I added an extended left ear of the character, and the introduction of a tail, making it more realistic and adding to the character. I also made Gonzo a couple of shades lighter, after experimenting with different browns.

 

Gonzo Food Inspiration

Messing around with different ideas led me to taking inspiration from different foods for my main character. I initially made the observation that Gonzo’s chosen body shape resembled an onion, which gave me the idea to illustrate an onion-styled Gonzo in Adobe Illustrator. Again, this gave me more opportunity to mess around with colour ideas.

 

I then continued to represent Gonzo as different fruits, purely for experimentation and visualisation reasons!

Colouring Gonzo

I then began to mess around with some colours for Gonzo. Although creating Gonzo with the use of bright greens, blues and oranges, I felt that keeping Gonzo as a brown or grey shade is important.

I also had in my head that I will possibly be developing the character of Clancy cat in a grey shade, so I decided that brown would be the better option.

 

Gonzo’s illustrated angles

The next step was to introduce my sketched angles of Gonzo into Adobe Illustrator and roughly give myself a better idea on how the character would look. This was exciting to do as I felt as though the character was brought to life in a sense from a digital approach.

Gonzo’s sketches angles

The next thing for me to do, once I decided on Gonzos shape, was to capture this shape from different angles that he is bound to appear in throughout the book. I sketched these angles out roughly first and then traced them again onto a fresh page with smooth edges. I then continued to add some shading to his character.

Gonzo – Arts & Crafts

Sometimes getting creative helps me to visualise a character better. With the use of some black and white felt paper, a black pastel and a4 page, I created a silhouette style design of the type of shape I want Gonzo to be.

Combining Features

I combined two of my favourite head shapes with my favourite body shape. I ended up deciding to use most of the original body shape I chose, with changes made to the legs and ears of Gonzo. I did really like the idea of a square head on Gonzo, but I thought there was too much contrast between that and a roundish body, which turned me off the idea.

The ears I decided to go for was one normal sized ear and one much longer one. It adds to the odd shape of Gonzo and I think it also creates a more friendly and goofy feel to the dog.

The changes I made to the legs meant he would look better in drawings from side angles. It also gave him a slightly more realistic look and feel.