Reflective Journal: Week 1

Sam's theme:

Aesthetic: Preppy

Live Inspiration: Amphibian

Vehicle Type: Land

 

My theme:

Aesthetic: Patriotic

Live Inspiration: Amphibian

Vehicle Type: Land

Initial Thoughts: 

    Sam and I initially joked our character being two gay frogs (many such cases), one preppy and one patriotic - an opposites attract situation. We realised that we should just stick to one character and one aesthetic to keep things from getting too messy or complicated. We did brainstorm ways to combine preppy and patriotic, such as an American cheerleader/jock vibe, or very British frogs, but the preppy aesthetic itself is much more exciting to us so we're focusing in on that.

Problems We've Encountered and Progress:

    We're finding that there are quite a few different areas to consider and many directions we could go. On one hand, it's good to have so many options to explore and choose from, but on the other, I sense some decision paralysis further along and I know we'll have to be careful not to get too attached to all our ideas at this stage. 

 

    We've been exploring different amphibian forms and attributes for both our character and her vehicle, as well as different preppy styles. We've found that we'll likely end up a character on one of two sides of the preppy coin:

"competitive, energetic, gen z tiktok preppy, round shaped" 

or "uncaring, mean girl type, classical/2000s preppy, sharp shaped"

 

    We plan to have ample research and a good handful of concept sketches by next week, when we'll decide on a more solid direction to go. We also made a playlist for her <3

Research Pages:

Created using Coggle (would recommend).

The Amphibian Research page could use some more work.

 

I did a lot of preppy fashion research 🫡

My Sketches:

  

    I'm trying to focus on body shape and exaggeration, less so on the fashion at the moment. I gave her the same outfit whenever I'd draw clothes to keep things simple but this outfit is by no means final. 

    I'm having trouble finding a good balance between simplicity and realism. I will look at animated styles in the range of stylisation that we might be after and try to veer my concept sketches towards that direction. I think finding an appropriate art style will help me push exaggerated features as well.