My Style Variations...

Val wanted me to present her some styles so that we could decide on a style quickly and not have to worry about it. After looking into a lot of pictures and artworks I decided to go with the retro theme that was so prominent throughout much of the work already researched. I felt that the designs should mimc Brighton's quirkiness and colour, it should reference its history - Brightons Rocks Mods and Rockers instantly sprung to mind. I wanted it to look and feel fun and cool. Val had already stipulated that it should be sleek which I have chosen to interpret as less fussy than my normal style. I came up with 2 main style presentations with a 3rd idea that utilised the artwork from the 2. I also created some additional cartoon faces just incase the styles presented weren't what Val was looking for.

 I made the overall figure in Illustrator using flat vectors and careful lines to produce the shapes. I realise now that I need to refine the moped a bit- the white circles in the wheels look far to bright in comparison to the rest of the design. I primarily used the pen tool to generate the lines of shading - It was a guideline I set myself in order to keep the design smooth and sleek. Although I broke this when shading the eyes and mouth.

After I finished the Illustrator graphic I then decided to experiment with texture in Photoshop- a simple drop shadow helped to raise the figure off the background whilst an additional film grain gave the character a paper like feel which I think will help me because it situates it in a raised layered world which provides depth but also keeps it simple.  I also then altered the contrast a little bit just to give the character a sense of darker tone, and placed it on a orange circle background just to see how it would look with additional detail behind it.

 The red black and white style- was brought about by the Latest Tv colours, I wanted to see if it would look any good in black and white and though I definitely think the grain texture and drop shadow should be added to it in order to make it stand out a bit more- the combination is surprisingly effective- I actually really like the skin tones in monochrome since they look very soft. I do think I prefer it in colour but I think I will make that decision after talking to Val.

The screenshots above are what I produced as one style, I experimented with texture colour and shading in order to really see what would work best. It is primarily based off the artwork below (British Artist Peggy Wolf). I wanted it to have a 60's retro feel and I think I have managed to create this through the overall styling. 

Since my first style had a more realistic appearance. I opted to create another style with less going on- I stripped the features away to the simple shapes made sure to use no brushes whatsoever and decided to use a simple white line stroke to separate the limbs- the black outfit a reference to the leathers used  when riding an actual motorcycle helped to refer to the Rockers aspect- whilst the scooter and the bright styling the Mods. I integrated goggles because I didn't want to fuss too much over features. Practically I have no idea what the presenters look like and I didn't want to make them look too similar because I thought that a more generic person would work better.  Once again I added a similar film grain and drop shadow in Photoshop simply because it was so effective in my last moped girl attempt.  

 I incorporated a fuzzy brush to help incorporate a sense of outline- the girl is framed by the white and it helps to texturise the background- In the actual animation if this speckled brush was used I would use it to line the edges of the buildings and the background.

I experimented with red backgrounds since thats the Latest Tv colour scheme and actually liked sticking to the black red and white shades- It would be cool to create the whole world in this style although of course I would like to integrate some vibrant electric blue to introduce points of contrast. The styling is similar to my last one but it is a lot more basic- It was also less time consuming to draw due to its overall simplicity.

I wanted to try introducing a photographical element to the overall design to see how effective it would be, that way photographs of the presenters heads could be carefully cut out and placed ontop to give them a comical and collagen feel. I'm not entirely convinced that it would work - and Im not sure if this is really what Val would be looking for. Having said this It would help to create the cutout theme which I am leaning towards. 

These are some quick additional cartoon faces that I produced just incase Val wants a more hand drawn style than she thought. I did them very quickly so they are by no means perfect but I thought that I would include them as an extra just in case.