colour scheme

After lots of different colour scheme choices i made a board so people could see the different ones and how they work so i could get feedback.
The general consensus of the class was that they thought the grey was best for the story as it is a boring dull colour which is what the bat is unhappy about. And the yellow eyes stand out well but after some discussing i suggested green eyes to portray his envy at the birds colours and everyone seemed to think this was a really good idea. All but one person said they prefer no texture too. A very helpful crit.
So here is the final colours.

Bat design

I decided to colour in my original bat idea as it is the one i feel most represents the characters personality at the moment. I may change bits. 

I have used a texture on the bats body to make him look a bit furry and then no texture on the wings to try and make them look leathery. I have used dull brownish greys as that is what he is in the story and that is why he wants to be colourful.

I feel like this image really explains the beginning of the story where the bat is feeling left out and ugly and like 'why do i have to be grey when all of the other birds get to be pretty colours. I want to look like them' He is holding his wings showing the dullness and he looks sad.

And this image really shows his temper. One minute you can be feeling sorry for him and the next he's like 'fine i don't need your help' thinking he's better than everyone else and getting frustrated that some birds won't give him feathers and then angry again when Quetzalcoatl won't get the birds to give him a second feather.

Quetzalcoatl

Here is a coloured version of one of my designs. I decided to do it in colour to see how it would work as a lot of this character is about its colour. I think it works quite well but it is definitely missing something that i can't figure out yet... I think i will have to show it to people and see what they think. Maybe less of the snake body like shorter? I like how the colours run into each other though think that works well.

I also think that the normal ones eyes need to be a bit less doey and innocent, It loots quite cute like this and he is supposed to be the mentor character therefore old and wise and knowledgeable and these eyes do not say that. They say aw hey look how cute and dumb i am.

I need to work on a better angry snake face but there is still something off about this concept. It doesn't quite feel like the wings are part of him. Perhaps its the shape of them? or perhaps it need less of a drastic line between the red and blue so it feels like it blends and belongs?

Also Im wondering if i need the black like or if it would look nicer without... because i did this from a photo of the bird and i quite like it. But to animate it maybe that would make things difficult. Im also thinking the colours need to be muted a little like the bird.

Bat

With the bat I started off by drawing real bats as it is something i have never attempted before. I wasn't very impressed with this and was wondering how on earth I am going to be able to design a bat if i can't even draw them.

So I decided to look at pre existing cartoon bats and see how other people got around this. A lot of bats were too simple like just their outline or like a round head with wings popping off but i wanted more of a body so my character can act better. I liked the cuteness of a lot of them but my character is a little bit mean so it can't be too cute but also he isn't evil. I want it to be simple enough to draw over and over but i don't like the really really simple style. It needs that little bit of detail to make it feel more real and connect to it.

So i sat down and thought about all the things I like and don't like and the messages i want to put forward. I decided it needed a fairly round shape to show that he is not harmful but he is also a bit lazy. I also wanted to anthropomorphise him quite a lot as i think this works well for him acting.

After a did the initial circles i added in the outlines and refined the shape of what i think he should look like.

Then added the face, a bit sad because he is lonely. I used my favourite nose and mouth from the cartoons i had found online as i thought they worked really well. Then nice big eyes. It seems like eyebrows actually might be quite important for this character because it think he has quite a lot of emotions to portray throughout the animation.

 Then I added the wings. I thought it would look quite cute if he was holding them almost like a little girl holds her dress like 'look at me I'm cute' Like he's wanting sympathy like he is from all the birds.I actually really like this character but ____said not to stop at the first one.

Then i looked into different face shaped because something might work better. As you can see i tried a bit more realistic and cool or a bit goofy...

And here we have the square, diamond, triangle and oval shapes of face. I think the best out of these would be the square. The others just don't seem to fit. I think its because there needs to be more room at the mouth because he talks a lot. I love the oval one at the bottom but it just looks too cute for the character. 

I like how the first drawing is stood too i feel this is very like the characters personality.

Quetzalcoatl

I started off by just drawing birds, real and cartoon. To get a feel of how other people seem to be designing birds. And i find i learn why people do things by copying them to start with. Like i like the wings doing gestures like the bottom left bird on the second page.

I then researched the Quetzal bird as you have seen in the previous post. I started doing some drawings of this to get a feel of the bird and see which bits I would like to include in the design. I found the pattern of the feathers and the colours and the tail all very beautiful and would like to do my best to keep those in the design.

Next I started mixing the snake in and seeing what worked. I don't like the top left design as it reminds me of the first Jurassic park and that was a dinosaur not a bird snake. Im also not so keen on the opposite page. It seems like the wings are just stuck onto a snake and it just all looks rather odd. The bottom left looks quite nice but maybe needs to be more obvious that they're wings?

Then I looked at king cobras and i thought it would be brilliant because of the wide regal neck I thought this would be great to put feathers on as it looks quite like wings. When a cobra gets angry it flares this part on its neck and i thought wouldn't it be great if he stuck his wings out when this happened?! And then puts the wings back like a bird does when its done flying. 

I am quite liking how this is looking so far and i think i may try and draw and refine this on photoshop and get some nice colours in there. Then ask people what they think and make sure the silhouette works. I think it will definitely be very different to the bat so i think it may work together.