Rubys Tree and Nest

Rubys Tree

It was important to develop Ruby’s tree and nest, which will be present in around 3 of the pages. I had roughly in m  head, the image of what I wanted to tree to look like for a while now. The branch will come out prominently where the nest will sit.

 

I brought the design into illustrator and used the pen tool to go over the drawing. I then added some detail and experimented with colour. The tree will be of different shades depending on how far away it is on the page.

 

The next step was to create a different outline for the tree and making it appear a lot more hand drawn. Shading was also added.

 

Rubys Nest

The nest will be a very very small detail on the pages in the book, yet I felt I needed to experiment a little before I began the illustration process. I began by sketching some rough designs and then brought one of them into illustrator.

I experimented with different variations of brown and added shading after placing Ruby into her nest.

Colour selection and putting Ruby in her nest:

Ruby – Finalised Character

Rubys character is a mix of the individually drawn features created for her. I used a slick stroke along her outline and added some light shading around her, which will change in each scene depending on her place on each page.

Ruby – Combing Features

I like the idea of having an ‘S’ style design to Ruby Robin, that makes the illustration flow. I sketched Ruby robin, according to all of the individual sketches I created separately. I chose my favourite attributes about her, such as wings, beak, legs, eyes etc..

Ruby’s Wings

The wings that came to mind while sketching were quite delicate and elegant in their flow. I enjoyed using different strokes while illustrating.

Ruby’s Legs/Feet

Some funny designs came to mind for the character of Ruby. I wanted to be creative and make the legs different to the typical ones used in common cartoons. Again, I drew out ideas first and dragged them into Adobe Illustrator where I brought them to life.

 

Ruby’s Beak

For designing the beak of Ruby, I followed the same process of sketch to illustration. I took inspiration for beaks from different bird cartoons that came to mind from my childhood and combined different ideas with these. Again, I selected my favourite few to illustrate and played around with some different strokes in illustrator also.

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

Ruby Robin

Although Ruby is not going to be in my prototype, I wanted to begin developing her character as she is of high importance in the book. I started with rough sketching, I showed a couple to my cousin and she didn’t take too well to them, so I decided to take the same approach to the way I drew Gonzo and let my mind run freely.

This resulted in the image of Ruby here below. Ruby will beside Gonzo be extremely small. I drew her face as cute as I could. Like Gonzo, this design isn’t my final decision and plan on making some good changes to her in phase 2 and finalising the design. However, I am confident that I am on to something with this design. I feel that it represents well the Ruby I’ve imagined in my head.

Again, I have put a lot of time into developing this design on Illustrator.