Cartoon Design

Moodboard








First I created a mood board of different cartoon characters. I decided that I wanted to design a cartoon animal so I focused it mainly on animals. Finding these images was helpful because it helped me to see which style I would like to use e.g. 2d or more of a 3d, basic and simplified or detailed. I took inspiration for my final design mainly from the 2D images like tweety but I also took the idea of shading to give a more 3D appearance like on the baby daisy duck and tinkerbell.


Annotations

Next I found a variety of different cartoon characters and annotated them with the style, facial and body features and emotional appearance. Doing this helped me to see which styles and I liked best and thought were most effective and gave me inspiration for the different facial features and emotions you can use on a character to show their personality. The biggest inspirations to my final design from the two pages were the shading and highlights on the pink rabbit in the bottom right corner of the first page and also on the simpsons character lisa and blaze the cat. I also took inspiration from the rounded edged bubbly style of tweety bird and the bright colour scheme of mini mouse because I think this helps the character stand out but helps give a softer cuter look to it because of the round edges.

Initial Ideas

First I created a page of initial ideas. I experimented with different styles and body and facial feature shapes before deciding on the giraffe. I chose the giraffe because I liked the bubbly rounded edged style as it gave a soft and cute look to it and I think it was the most effective as it is original and has personality because I gave it a more human style body with it standing up and the clothes and I think it would work well in colour as lots of different colours could be used on the various parts to it.


Development

I then experimented with some developments by changing the pose, outfits, tail and ear shape and adding some tufts on the hair. After looking at these and the original I decided to stay with the original design because I think it was the most effective as I wanted to keep it simpler because the basic giraffe is already quite decorative as they have a lot of features and the spots so I didn't want to add too many elements and over do it.

Next I drew up the design in black pen so that the lines would show up on the computer when I put it into photoshop. I kept out all colour so that I could do all the fills on photopshop because I wanted a professional finish.

One I had got the photo of the drawing into the computer I placed it into illustrator and live traced it. The lines weren't perfect so I filled in any gaps with the paintbrush tool using black.

The proportions of the two arms weren't even so I erased the arm and drew it back in using the paintbrush tool.

I then transferred the image into photoshop and used the paint bucket tool to fill in the outlines with colour. I chose quite bright colours and I think this looks effective because it makes the character stands out and adds more of a fun, happy personality to it because this was the style of character I was going for.

I wanted to add a little more depth and texture to the design so I experimented with a couple of effects on the overalls. First I tired a colour halftone effect but I think this was a bit too much because it overpowered the rest of the design and took attention away from the rest of the giraffe.

Next I tried a mezzotint effect and I think this was effective because it adds a distressed denim look texture to the overalls but is subtle and doesn't over power the rest of the design.

Finally I wanted to give the design even more depth and also give it a slightly 3D look so I used the burn tool on the edges to add more of a shadow. I think this was really effective because it added depth and makes the cartoon stand out on the page. I then added a highlight using the dodge tool to emphasise the 3D effect and I think this helped add more dimension to it and help it stand off the page even more.



Final Design

This is my final design for the cartoon. Overall I think it is effective because I used bright colours and curved edges and big eyes to bring across the characters cuteness and happy personality and I think it also has depth because of the shading and highlights. I think it is original because I incorporated a giraffe with a human style body to turn the giraffe into the style of a cartoon. I think the colour scheme is effective because it gives a happy and fun personality to the giraffe and is bright so would stand off a page.