character dribbles

Let's take a look at character design! ...er, well, what I've tried to design.

Sticking with the European medieval/illuminated manuscript theme, I've taken inspiration from this:

...I wouldn't be able to tell you what exactly is happening here...

I'm particularly intrigued by the faces. For me, the geometric simplicity defines European medieval characterization: The long noses, half moon eyes, small mouth, either very square or very rounded jaws (depending on gender, I believe)-- y'know, the works!

Our main character is depicted as a child, and let's be very clear about how terrible medieval artists were at depicting children:

They don't really look like children, do they? More like... a shrunken man. Or a baby with a shrunken grown-man's head. It's hilarious, and I love it.

So, the for the first design I did, I drew from these visual inspirations and made this little dude:

Man baby, man child, boy man, he's kind of cute? The problem is, when I tried to puppet-pin animate his limbs to get him to walk, I couldn't really get it to function the way I'd like; the motion was just not right. I could attribute it to being terrible at puppet-pin animation, or perhaps my inability to create functional characters, but I decided to go back to the drawing board to brainstorm more visual ideas!
The first idea couldn't be the best, right?

Ah, well, let's look...

...things got weirder, like, Tomodachi Life weirder...

...I had an identity crisis and accidentally drew Astro Boy...

...then I drew egg-heads...

Then instead of scribbling more gross things, I stopped and searched the Google for some more direct inspiration. I thought of a few games with interesting characters that could fit the style we're going for-- Fantasy Life, LoZ: Wind Waker, Clash of Clans, and doodled up a couple dribbles!

...still pretty weird, but I feel a little more focused now!