Character design

I wanted to keep the line and fill of my character fairly loose to keep it alive and not as smooth as it could have been if I wanted to use tweening in flash. I will be using frame by frame techniques, undoubtedly the line will jostle from side to side, but that is the effect I wish to create. I want it to look hand made, not computer made. One of the ideas was to have the animation techniques visual and show some of the procasses behind it.

I experimented with different fills but thought a patterened fill could work well in producing that 'handmade' feel, perhaps the texture of something like cloth.


In the tests though, the line and the fill seemed too exact, again as though a computer had done at least the filling in the outline. I like the style of quentin blake's illustrations and how childlike they are with the fill sometimes being incomplete and the line being loose and expressive, mistakes uncorrected.

I think it could be intresting to try and replicate his style and translate it to animation, only smoothing out the lines a little but allowing for movement from frame to frame in the way that his still illustrations are alive.