Character Design and Creation - Animating with Blender: How to Create Short Animations from Start to Finish - page 60

Figures 5.5A-5.5B The fi nal production model of the Beast

seriously ugly, but the addition of the single tooth and the large eyes gave me something I could work with
when going for a sympathetic facial expression. In Figure 5.5, you can see how closely the fi nal model fol-
lowed the sketch.

From a practical standpoint, I had to decide how to clothe the little monster. The diaper was obvious, but
how did the theme affect the rest of his outfi t? Obviously, I decided against giving him anything else to wear.
One of the character points created by the theme was the interplay between the Beast and the mean dog:
While one is ugly and the other is “well put together,” they share their traits of meanness and quickness to
hostility. The theme dictated that, because they were different parts of the same idea, the Beast should be as
animal-like as possible. So, bare skin.

The Mom

The mother proposed a particular challenge. Some artists
fi nd it easy to create appealing female characters with just
the right look. I, on the other hand, do not. The theme and
story required that she be pretty and dress nicely. At the same
time, I wasn't shooting for a knockout stylization like Jessica
Rabbit or grossly overexaggerated anime females. I was feel-
ing particularly creative one evening and got the right look
on the very fi rst sketch (Figure 5.6).

The line drawing overemphasized the contours of the face to
assist with modeling later, though making the sketch appear
older than the fi nal product. Completing the “put together”
look that worked with the theme, I gave her a button-down Figure 5.6 The original sketch of the mom