Concept Drawing

I have produced a mixture of concept ideas for my character, because I felt the need to do lots of sketches in order to get an idea of what would work best for the persona of my Character. From quite an early stage, I knew what style of hair the character would have, but thats it, so I have played around with potential ears, facial features, body shapes and tails.

After sketching out some potential ear designs with annotation, I decided that some of them may have been a bit too complex because I am not hugely experienced in Maya, and I think it is important to be realistic with myself when it comes to time management. After showing my designs to Ollie and asking for feedback and ideas, we both came to the decision that the first design I have sketched out will be the most appropriate to use because it is less complex, but still fits really well with the over all design of the character. 

I knew that the face shape of this mermaid will be quite petite and heart shaped, and since their is no dialog, we knew that a lot of the emotion and communication would need to be portrayed in the face. The eyes are exaggerated because it gives her an element of attractiveness, but if the eyes are slightly pointed at the corners it will add further femininity and mystery to her character, which is what we want to go for. I know I want the nose to be quite flat, because after some of the research I have carried out, I have some to the conclusion that it will make her look quite "cute" and it will also bring the emphasis to her eyes. 

I had another possible idea of having fins down the back of the head in a mohawk alignment, however after discussing this will my pier and sketching out new ideas, I decided that it looked slightly too threatening for the story. We decided that the tentacle style hair was more appropriate. 

Whilst producing these concept drawings above, I have been thinking about the following:

• What body shape will be most appropriate? (elongated or shorter and fuller)

I have decided that I like the idea of quite a slender body, but not overly skinny, I want her movement through the water to look quite effortless.  I don't want the body shape to be overly skinny or sexual, but more muscular than anything. I will incorporate breasts into the anatomy but they wont be overly big, just enough for it to be clear that she is female.

• What shape will the tail's fin be, and how big? 

I like the idea of having quite an elongated tail with a large fin at the end. Out of the drawings I have produced, I particularly like the design where the tail is long and slender and the fin on the end is very big and quite triangular, but with a slight inwards curve at the corners to add more geometry. I would really like to add some extra fins to the side and back of the tail, to give it a slight edge.  (However I think it would be more appropriate for these fins to be more curved than spiked, because I don't want her to look too threatening)

• Will the whole body we one colour, or should there be a gradual change?

The body as a whole will be relatively simple, because I need to be realistic with myself and I want it to be animated effectively. At this point I imagine there will be one main base colour for the body, however the tail will fade downwards to a new colour as it reaches the fin.
(colour is something I will experiment more with once a final design is settled on.)