Concept Notes: This concept was based on the generic type of characters seen in various animation shorts. I tried to make the head oversize and the legs shortened. The scale/ratio of head-body-legs was approximately 1-1-1. Each part of the body was 1/3 of the total length.

Initially the head was meant to be thinner, but I found as I continued working on the character, the face and head seemed to get larger in volume.

During development of the body, especially the arms, I found that I had tended to make the arms a little more shaped (almost muscular) than I had initially intended. As the original character was meant to be "cartooney", I went with the idea of having only three fingers on the hand.

Finally, the legs were meant to be short and stumpy, in-keeping with the cartoon type concept.

What I liked about the concept: Generally,the body and the proportions had worked out quite well. However, I was not pleased with the head. For me, it was not as thin or as long as I wanted. This led me to review some of the computer animations I had seen and examining the different styles of heads.

Pitfalls: As I fleshed out the volume on the head, the head size slowly increased from what I had originally intended. This really only became apparent after comparing the original planning layers for the drawing against the final artwork. If you're a software developer, you can compare it to feature creep. The head got bigger without me really noticing. The bottom line is that I should have paid more attention to the original volume and design layers.

Concept Notes: This is the second concept, which was actually the first to be completed. The concept essentially remained with the body from concept 1 but a new head was developed.

The head shape was designed after studying a number of different animations. The head size was increased and rounded out. There was a certain amount of styling that was taken from the "Stewie Griffith" character. The head was widened, with the eyes spaced further apart, and the chin was pinched-in.

What I liked about the concept: I was a lot happier about the head on this concept. It felt like it belonged on the animation and had a familiar look about it. I also simplified the shading on the characer. Initially I had been over zealous with the use of shading layers leading to some very strange effects. I found that simplifying the shading made the model look cleaner whilst still giving some depth ot the image.

Pitfalls: As previously mentioned, there was too much shading on the character. This was eventually simplified. Unfortunately the clothing was not shaded properly and there appear to be no wrinkles or folds in the clothing.

Concept Notes: This third concept was an attempt to breakaway from the original character ideas. This concept was to be thin and lanky, derived from a character not unsimilar to "Shaggy" from "Scooby Doo", and the head was loosely based on "Jon Arbuckle" from Garfield. However, right from the outset, things did not go according to plan.

What I liked about the Concept: Truthfully speaking - not a lot.

Pitfalls: Deviating from the original character features really led me away from what I wanted and I felt that at some point during the concept, both the image and me had lost our respective ways. I think I really suffered from a lack of clarity on this concept.

The character was meant to be skinny which initially worked well at the volume level but as soon as the clothing was added, the whole effect was lost.

Again, the character suffered from too much shading, which I then went back and simplified.

I confess that I never really liked this concept, and it probably suffered all the more because of it. Eventually, I went back to this concept and reworked quite a lot of it. Unfortunately, the reworking had only limited success.

Concept Notes: This concept grew from the idea of wanting to create a non-human character, a small clothed robot. This also allowed me to go back to basics working with some primitive shapes. The concept went back to the original idea of having an undersized character.

What I liked about the concept: Firstly, the whole simplicity of the character and the overall shape. I was also happy with the proportions for the character. The hands and feet were oversized which gave the character a comical look again.

Pitfalls: I felt that the simplification might have been overdone. I thought the concept and the resulting model might be considered too easy for the course. Furthermore, although I liked the mouth shape on the model, I was concerned that it might be difficult to animate for speech.

Concept Notes: Clearly this concept was derived from the previous robot shape. After having created the non-human concept, I decided to go back to a humanoid concept. To give the character a more human look, the nose and eyes were changed. The head was flattened slightly and broadened. Finally, hair and a "muppet"-style mouth were added.

What I like about the concept: Having settled on the shape and the proportions, I was pleased with the way the character became humanoid. I was especially happy with the hair style. To design the hair, I studied some books on drawing Anime, and although not brilliant, I was pleased with the result. Although I reserve the right to change the colour as I am not entirely sure that blonde is the best shade.

Pitfalls: My main concern for the concept is whether it will translate to 3D particulary well. The hair will have to be animated in some way, and the mouth will have to be animated to produced word shapes. Whether this will work remains to be seen.