BA3b - Week 9 Summary

This week I continued working on the furniture designs for my cat characters room. The bed was still looking very much incomplete, so I continued working on it. As it would be potentially considered the 'center piece' of the room, I wanted the details on the bed to be more extravagant. There are mice running up and down the banisters, and a cat head on the top of the bed with a crown. There are also cats sleeping and that are 'holding up' the cloths, inspired by the babies in the bed I have previously referenced. I have also made the ears on top of the bed larger than other furniture. 

I still think the bed needs work, such as for example the cats at the bottom holding the cloth could potentially have very large tails flowing down, because at the moment there are wave inspired forms that hold the cats up but I think that big fluffy tails would work well. I also changed the bedding of the design, and made it similar to a plush cat bed like the one below.

(x)

I decided to try out this design because he is a cat, and would enjoy a cat bed or a bed that surrounds him, as a cat would. I think he would sleep curled up too, so something like this would work better. 

I also have the bed as it was originally (left drawing) as well as the current one compared with some older ideas, with mostly the headboards and the ears showing change. 

The bed is something that is difficult to design as I didn't start with a very strong idea in my head of what it would look like, but I am slowly creating a design I am pleased with. It still needs work however, especially areas like the bottom and the headboard as those have caused my some issues as I have struggled to think of designs or patterns to put there.

I also continued working on the character sheets. The cat character was my main priority, as he was very close to being finished. 

I had some issues with him that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and some of his proportions felt off, so I brought the sheet into Photoshop and drew more lines to figure out if its all proportional. This brought to light some important issues such as the length of the sleeves, which in turn made the hands look even more disproportionate. After sorting out those issues, I managed to work well with the hands and finished that area. I also got some feedback from Merlin about the back of the coat, and how it could be split like a tailcoat instead of just simply having a hole to let the tail out. I thus adjusted it so that it still kept with the curves of the design, but had a split in the middle. I think it looks much better now, and flows better down the character. 

Below is the character sheet in its almost final state. I need to get feedback from tutors first however, but I am very pleased with how he looks. Elements such as rendering of materials/fur etc I struggle with, so I may have to work on that more.

I also worked more on the mouse characters sheet. I have added shading and more details to the first drawing, as well as more detailed lineart work on the side view. Below is the current sheet.

I wanted to make sure her fur feel like mouse fur, and tried to shade accordingly. Her ears caused some issues as from the front they appeared to be simply rabbit ears, but due to the way they would be tied I couldn't think of how else to make them obviously mouse ears. It will clear however from the sideview how her ears are tied up. Her lower body is also proving difficult in the side view, as I don't want the issue of her looking like she would fall over or tip, and I want it to immediately feel like a mouses lower half. The feet especially are proving hard as I cant get them to be positioned correctly.

The colours and details on her so far however I am pleased with, especially how the face turned out. She feels mouselike, with the freckles and the colour of the blush. I am taking these model sheets very slowly, which is going to make the environments harder as I will have less time, but I feel more confident in this area and want to showcase my talents as its what I would want to do in the future.