When looking at more research that Phil showed me, I realised that all the aristocratic men had a large mustaches and bushy eyebrows and a couple had a monocle, plus a few had cigars. So I tried to add that in my characters face. With the bonus of just eyebrows and mustache, it will become easier to use expressions in the face which will boost the expression of the whole body. Throughout the I couldn't seem to get the mustache right and the eyebrows looked more like eyes. Johnny sharples then drew the middle image and suggested that I should use the break in the tree to apply the features. I thought this worked really well and I can hide the feature back into the tree if I ever needed to.
Interim Online Review 23/03/2011
ReplyDeleteHey Chris - obviously, we had a long old chat about your story development and your latest script is much more 'to the point' and 'about' the Christmas tree (and that's a really lovely character drawing of the tree on a previous post - bags of character there!). I know I'm pushing the lady standard lamp idea, but it gives you a nice ending - once the aristo tree has sauntered over to it and made his move, you could simply have the standard lamp switching off, and the animation ending on darkness - and the suggestion of 'romance' with the lights off etc. I think you need to consider your top hat design - you're drawing it very bucket-shaped, and I suggest you go for something much more stylised - much more obviously 'posh' - so, for example:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/8/84/20080524200652!Austin_Lane_Crothers,_photograph_of_head_with_top_hat.jpg
http://www.planetperplex.com/img/top_hat_illusion.png
and the moustache is a nice idea - and jonny's drawing really captures it too.