Character Design: The Horse Concept Art

The Horse Concept Art 

Character Design: Expression Sheets

The Son is sad and scared through out the story and I wanted to express this in his expression sheet I have also included his final colours chosen for the son this was chosen because it looked the most innocent. 

 The Daughter is initially friendly but very dangerous and evil and I wanted that to be depicted in her expression sheet showing the progression of going from very sweet in terms of her expression to shifty and then finally to terrifying. 

Character Design: Final Character Line up

The character line up for the Erlking finalised designs.

Character Design: The Horse Colour Test

The colours that I like the most for the horse are A,D and H but I would like for the horse to compliment the son and father. So his colour will be dependent on how well it fits with the colour scheme. 

Character Design: The Son Colour Test

The son needs to feel really sweet and innocent, I really like J, G and D I think that these colours are working the best.  Especially J, I think that the hair and skin tone with the clothing is working all together. 

Character Design: The Daughter Colour Test

The colour test for the Daughter my favourites are A,E,Gand H. A is a bit too dark and we need the girls to be initially approachable, I think that G, E or H would be more suitable. 

Character Design: The Daughter .04

I wanted to develop the crown and the eyes of the daughter after the many test I still liked the initial crown D and C.

For the eyes I like 1,8 and 4

Character Design: The Horse

I have been working on the horse trying to get the right face body and saddle, we decided on making the son and his father poor so we wanted a simple saddle and a friendly face for the horse that could also emote worry while the father is rushing to bring his son home.

After looking at these faces I went back to the face on the top of the the Initial Sketches sheet and lower his jaw  and made his face the find horse face. Also After doing the initial reins in the Horse development sheet we both like the rope reins more so I further developed some more reins below. 

D, became the favourite because it had enough interest in the front and still felt as though a farmer/ peasant would have tied his own rein in that way for his horse. 

The next thing to figure out was the mane and we ended up choosing no.3. 

The body that we liked most was A,which has a short tail and the proportions were just right. 

The Saddle was between G,B,E and H and I went with H Because I liked the simplicity it  had. 

Character Design: The Daughter1 - Colour and Eyes Tests

After designing the characters the time has come for the colour tests. In most cases the final outcome is not going to be only a plain colour; there are most likely going to be textures and patterns applied on top of the base colours.

Different variations on the eyes, all references from animals. 

Character Design: The Father

The time has come to design the Father. Both me and PG agreed on giving him and the Son more peasanty look, and that was the guide I tried to follow. Also the fact that he's more of a secondary character and shouldn't be too rich in detail. 

Few initial sketches; trying to get a grasp on mature male faces and actual tests of how the Father could look like. Number 12 is what has been agreed as final face. 

Few quick ideas for the Father's outfit. Number 3 and 4 have been taken into further consideration. Above, on the right side, a sheet presenting how these would look in combination with the design of the Father. Number 2 being a possible final design of the Father.

Character Design : The Son .03

From the previous post of the Son I combined some of their elements to great this new set of designs keeping the element that we liked about the previous design. Which was the shirt and waist coat and his belt. These set of designs were to figure out the lower body clothing and shoes, we both liked C and I adjusted the pants to allow them to become a little bigger to created the final outfit design. 

Character Design : The Daughter .04

This is the final design of one of the daughters , I worked on the details of the dress and crown from the previous post and combined a few of the details I liked in all of these sketches to produce the final dress.

Character Design: The Erlking - Final Design

After today's tutorial the king was still at "needs few tweaks" stage. The changes that have been made are as follow: the crown has been adjusted and it's more symmetrical now, the beard is slightly longer, the shoulders and overal body mass got slightly bigger. The balance of the neck area has been restored and the king's feet gained shoes.

Character design: The Daughter .03

The Erlkings daughters were designed to be twins but one would be inspired by poisonous plants while the other .The daughter that I designed is inspired by mushrooms and poisonous animals from the forest. The final design is a combination of Sam and my ideas taking the outfits and faces that we both liked from our work and combing them. The outfits for the girls have the same base but we differed them slightly to make the characters have their own personalities.

Character Design: The Daughter1 - Development and Final Design

One of the two daughters of the Erlking. The design is a combination of both mine and PG's ideas. The daughter is supposed to look friendly and nice in the beginning, to lure the son to the forest, however the expression sheet which is in progress will reveal her true, evil self.
(slightly longer legs and neck intended)

Character Design: The Son 02

After agreeing on a head that we both liked I began  developing the Sons clothing designs with a body that we liked , we decided to aim for more of a peasant look after the feed back that we received. I really like B,D and G. 

Character Design: The Elking - Head and Body Test

The further development of the outfit and how combining two promising ones gave out the final result. Also tests of different crowns together with the outfit.

Character Design: Developing the King's Crown

Below is a page of few development sketches. The small drawing in the right corner is the face I would really like to be the king's final appearance. 

My personal favourites are: 13, 17 and 19, especially last two because they give an impression of the king wearing a mask on top of his wooden body.

Character Design: Developing the King's Outfit

 Below is a further research and development of the Erlking's outfit. A little bit less forest-like, more celtic and elvish. My personal favourties are number 7 and 8, however I am not quite sure if either of them is THE outfit.

Character Design: Daughter 01

The design for the daughters are suppose to reflect aspects of the forest, the daughter that I am focussing on personifies the poisonous animals that you might find in a forest. 

For the daughter I like E, I and  H if she had a little bit more of a feminine chin, and I like the markings on B. 

Developed faces 

Initial Faces 

Some of the faces here are a little too young because we thought that to allow the girls to not appear sexual they had to be younger but after discussing it we considered finding the right body type and outfit that wasn't too exposing would also change the sexual look that the girls had in the animatic. In the beginning I thought that because they were of the forest, they had to have every element of them covered with the forest. But the poem is written in the German Romantic era and we wanted to bring in some of those elements in their clothing. The drawings that I am leaning more towards combines the two elements, numbers 8, 10,7 and 4 I believe need to be developed further. 

Initial bodies and outfits