Joey - Final Design
This was the final design I came up with for Joey. He's a year and a half old bear, who lives in a cave close to Sophia's treehouse. He was basically adopted and raised by Sophia after she found him as a cub.
He's not a tame bear, but he is mostly obedient to Sophia, following rules she set in order to make sure that he wouldn't be hunted by other people living nearby.
He's not a tame bear, but he is mostly obedient to Sophia, following rules she set in order to make sure that he wouldn't be hunted by other people living nearby.
Development
Initially tried to draw a basic generic bear, but failed pretty miserably, and wound up with some kind of weird dog thing.
I tried to work out how it would move, flesh out some of the key positions of a walk cycle, but absolutely everything came out completely derpy.
Decided to do some more research on how bears look.
I tried to work out how it would move, flesh out some of the key positions of a walk cycle, but absolutely everything came out completely derpy.
Decided to do some more research on how bears look.
Looked at some bears, and worked out their basic shape, looking at how the main areas of the body needed to work out some basic movement - head, shoulders, abdomen, and feet - and get my head around how it'd move.
First image in the column of bears was based largely on a polar bear, but the following images were using various different kinds of bears as references. I wanted the bear to be fairly species non-specific.
There are also some more detailed drawings in my sketchpad, but I forgot to scan those in.
I was already starting to work out his and Sophia's backstory in my head at this point, to work out what sort of stories I might be able to tell with these two.
First image in the column of bears was based largely on a polar bear, but the following images were using various different kinds of bears as references. I wanted the bear to be fairly species non-specific.
There are also some more detailed drawings in my sketchpad, but I forgot to scan those in.
I was already starting to work out his and Sophia's backstory in my head at this point, to work out what sort of stories I might be able to tell with these two.
I decided to make Joey fairly young, but not a cub.
If he were too old, Sophia would never have been able to get him to attach to her, and there wouldn't be the sort of sibling/parental relationship that I wanted them to have. But he needed to be old enough to be viewed by people other than Sophia as a threat, so as to have a possible source of conflict around which to base a story.
Another issue I had to work out was what colour he was going to be.
He had to be either light enough or dark enough to contrast well with Sophia.
In the end, I went with colour scheme number five, choosing for him to be darker in order to create contrast.
If he were too old, Sophia would never have been able to get him to attach to her, and there wouldn't be the sort of sibling/parental relationship that I wanted them to have. But he needed to be old enough to be viewed by people other than Sophia as a threat, so as to have a possible source of conflict around which to base a story.
Another issue I had to work out was what colour he was going to be.
He had to be either light enough or dark enough to contrast well with Sophia.
In the end, I went with colour scheme number five, choosing for him to be darker in order to create contrast.