Autumn Studies

Here's another page highlighting this episodes troubled youth. This was done pretty early in the process and was to act as a sort of emotional guideline for me to work from.

The biggest trick to a simple design style, I have to come to find over the years, is that with less detail for our eye to be guided by, the more delicate the design has to be handled. If absolute strict accordance to the design isn't followed, it can quickly turn out looking similar but wrong. Eric Goldberg, the supervising animator of the 'Genie' from Disney's 'Aladdin' made a comment along those lines. The 'Genie' was such an open design that the drawing process was a very careful one. Many extra structure lines were added even in his face to assure his 'look' was always its best.

Ellie and the rest of my characters are the same way. If an ear is too big or wide or eyes are too small or hands too big, for example, then it may rapidly change the look of the drawing. Whereas model sheets are unecessary (since I'm the only one who draws the characters), some pre-production study sheets are always helpful - especially when working on a new character, such as was the case with Autumn. Enjoy!

Aaron