Facial Expressions

Every good character has a distinctive face. If we look at any well known cartoon throughout the years, we can tell their faces straight off.

I enjoy drawing different googly eyes and funny mouths. I obviously had to take into account that I am drawing for animals, so I took faces like Mickey Mouse and Scooby Doo as inspiration! I have attached some rough facial ideation below.

I then circled some of the expressions that I favoured the most and drew some rough designs on Adobe Illustrator!

 

Rough Sketches

Sketching is such a valuable aspect of design! For developing designs for children, it is particularly important! It is obvious to most that the first idea is very rarely anyones favourite or best one. Sketching and doodling forces me to constantly generate new ideas. I started to sketch different ideas for my characters as they came to me. I find this to usually be the best way to go about firstly designing a character. I have attached below some of my initial character sketches before I brought them into illustrator. They vary from specific guard dogs to random sketches that came to me.

 

 

Getting to know Gonzo

I want to completely get to know the Gonzo in my mind before I completed my story. This required creating certain headings so that I could develop the character more.

 

Communication Style

Gonzo speaks in what could be described as a goofy tone. He sounds breathy when speaking with loud breathing noises. His voice is often quite wobbly at times, going up and down, usually when he is frightened, not confident or going to cry. When Gonzo gets a fright he often uses the word ‘Yikes!’, and jumps back abruptly. Gonzo has a very unique style of communication.

History

In human years, Gonzo is 8 years old and is considered a senior dog of 61 in dog years. Before Gonzo’s owners bought him, he was living in a shelter for 2 years, after being found on the roadside, which is why he gets scared easily. Gonzo doesn’t know where his real family is currently. Since he began living with his owners, he’s had six very happy years with them.

Appearance

Gonzo is a funky version of a Chow Chow. His owners bought him because Chow Chows are known to be good guard dogs and they wanted a dog to protect them at night. However, Gonzo’s appearance is very deceiving as he is humungous and large, but he is almost afraid of his own shadow! Gonzo has a very friendly face with big eyes and wide smile and a tongue that hangs out of his mouth, but people get scared of him when they see his mighty size and overlook his friendly features. His appearance is a very important ingredient to make him who he is.

Relationships

Gonzo hasn’t got many friends. He has a loving relationship with his owners but he feels like they don’t know who he really is. He often feels that if they knew he was no use to them as a guard dog he questions would they still love him. The other animals in the garden where Gonzo lives often laugh at him and mock him and call him goofy. The most important person to Gonzo is Ruby the Robin who lives in the tree in the garden at home. Ruby knows Gonzo extremely well and she knows when he is distressed. She has always been there to help him. Ruby is Gonzo’s best friend and they have both been very loyal to each other for many years.

Ambition

Gonzo has always had one main ambition in life, and that is to live up to his title of a ‘guard-dog’. He wants to be the brave dog that his owners think he is. He strongly dislikes how little confidence he has and craves for the day he is able to stand up for himself.

Character Defect

Gonzo’s main defect is again his lack of confidence. This is not always a bad trait in people, but it is a part of Gonzo that he really wants to improve.
Thoughts

Gonzo’s internal and external voice is very different. He often thinks sad thoughts of how he hasn’t got many friends and gets annoyed at himself that he is letting his owners down and deceiving them. However on the outside, Gonzo is quiet and reserved, unless he is with Ruby the Robin, whom he can be himself with.

Association

Gonzo is a very relatable character. Everyone has things that they feel less confident about. He is a character that people can read about and think of a time where they felt how he is feeling. Ideally, I want the child to finish the book with the concept of how facing your fears is a productive thing in which everyone should try to do.

Restrictions

My overall goal in relation to Gonzo is really to make the children who read it feel something for him. The more they care about him, the more emotion they’ll invest in the story. The end of the story shows how Gonzo faces his fears in order to protect his friend. He is overcome with pride and realises that he had nothing to worry about all along, that he is well able to stand up for himself and all it took was doing it once to prove this to himself.

 

 

Mind Mapping

 I created a couple of mindmaps on the website bubble.us, which was an excellent online tool. It was a very quick and easy way to jot down ideas while keeping them in an orderly fashion.

I created one for the two main characters in the book, which are Gonzo and Ruby. They both have very different traits that are evident in the mindmaps.

However, from completing them, I realized that the two characters also share aspects of their personality that connects them such as loyalty and affection.

 

Gonzo as a German Shepard

A german shepherd is definitely the most common type of guard dog that I’ve came across so I am strongly considering using the dog as my character. I took inspiration for this rough illustration from a few different photographs that I gathered online. It really is a beautiful dog and I enjoyed drawing it. However, I found it difficult to make the dog look happy, as its features are quite strong. I can always try different ways in the future.

Gonzo looking worried : 

 

Gonzo as a Samoyed Dog

 

One main dog that stuck in my head is called a Samoyed dog, which is a beautiful big dog that I know well of because my sisters boyfriend James owns one. It was the first dog that I illustrated and pulled inspiration from pictures of the samoyed dog which James sent to me along with attributes from other dogs as well. I gave him a beige colour and started on some lighter shading that I need to complete. I feel beige will look nice in print in comparison to white.

Dog Types

As the main character in my story is Gonzo the Guard Dog, I had to do research into what exactly I wanted Gonzo to look like. As I haven’t got much knowledge on dogs and the different breeds, I began by looking up different types of guard dogs and studied their appearances.

German Shepard

Obviously the main type of Guard dog I came across was a German Shepard but I feel that this particular type of dog could come across as too viscous unless I try and soften its features.

 

The Akita

The second type of dog I came accross was the Akita dog. It s know to be a very intelligent and intense breed. The Akita can be very loyal to its owner and very standoffish to strangers. It’s a beautiful dog and is definitely one to consider as it is very big and again could work well if I was to soften some features.

 

Chinese Shar-Pei

This dog is definitely another consideration. While all those wrinkles may make it look cute and cuddly, the Shar-Pei is a serious family protection dog. I think not only would he be suited but would also be very fun to draw!

 

Samoyed

One particular dog that has been stuck in my head since I’ve written my story is the Samoyed Dog. My sisters boyfriend owns this dog and it’s so beautiful and large. It also guards their back garden at night.

Rottweiler

Another guard dog I’ve came across is a Rottweiler. Intimidating to look at, the Rottweiler is sweet and easy going with his family apparently. The only problem is the colour of the Rottweiler might darken the feel of the book.

 

 

 

Gonzos Character

Before I began my drawings, perfecting Gonzo’s character on paper was a priority for me.

Name – There’s so much in a name! Would back to the future be the same without the characters name of Marty McFly? Choosing the name Gonzo was trough trial and elimination. I came up with different names that I felt rolled off the tongue in a nice way. Gonzo the Guard Dog as a title has received great feedback as a story from children who laughed and found it very amusing. Once I discovered it appealed to young children I finalised my decision. Gonzo isn’t a soft and gentle name nor is it a tough and hard name, which suits how Gonzo appears to his owners and to himself.

Appearance – It’s important to know how your characters look. I’ve taken inspiration from various different places when planning on how I want Gonzo to look. I have emphasised that people think he looks scary but yet his character is really soft and gentle. So the challenge was to make him appear both scary and gentle. Ive chosen to do this by his size. I plan on making his body very large in comparison to everything else in the book to make him appear big and scary, but give him soft and gently facial features. I will go into further detail on Gonzo’s appearance in blogs to follow.

Personality – I wanted to get to know your character’s strengths and weaknesses, attitudes, fears, obsessions, special talents and hobbies. I read in an article that you should think about whether he or she might have a favourite phrase or different habits he or she might have Then, try to hear your character’s voice. Pretend you are the character and write a letter to yourself, the author, about what happens in the story and his feelings about it.

Character Appeal Research

The main character in a book, film, play etc. plays a huge role in a persons enjoyment of the story, whether it be a child or an adult! If we think back to books we’ve all read and films we’ve watched throughout both childhood and adulthood, certain characters always stick in our minds. Making my characters appealing and memorable is a very important factor for me. I done some research into how to do this to the best of my ability.

I learned that the best way to do this is to know your characters inside and out. It is not enough to have a general picture of a character in your head when you start writing. I am aware that the book is not long enough for the reader to get to know Gonzo to extensively, but creating the best picture I can of him that I have in my head will play an important role.

The main five aspects to consider are Name, Age, Appearance, Relationships and Personality. I continued on these through the basis of my character in more details in my next blog.