Finals

Rationale

I had South African, Durban 2022 common wealth. My first thought for choosing which animals to represent the country was to avoid the obvious choices like the Cheetah as the runner or an Elephant weightlifter etc. I also found there were just too many animals to choose from with that in mind so I narrowed it down for myself by giving it a ‘deer’ theme. I chose to use a Springbok, a Gnu, a Kudu and a Dik-dik. I made the Springbok the supporting character as it’s a very energetic animal that jumps around so I felt it fit as the excitable fan. The Kudu is the female athlete, being tall and graceful I made her a runner. The Gnu is the male athlete, I decided to really emphasise the mass of the animal in contrast to the others and make it a boxer. The Dik-dik is the paraplegic athlete and plays ten-pin bowling.

All of them are different ‘skin’ colours and are all wearing the colours of the national flag to emphasise the overarching country values of unity through diversity.

Adding colour

Developing Springbok and friends

As she is she's too similar to Springbok, she needs to be more feminine and distinctive.  I've exaggerated her ears to look almost like a bow/ribbon and made her limbs and neck long and her hips wider. I took a lot of influence from the character Gazelle from Zootopia to help emphasise the feminine (though I don't want her as sexual like Gazelle is)

I find the Springbok a challenge, to make him tall, slim and masculine but keep it clear that he's the supporter and not an athlete. I've possibly made him too stoic, maybe I need to make him more joyful and excited

 The little Dik-dik I'm finding the easiest to create, it's such an adorable cute animal it's easy to hone in on those traits and exaggerate them. I took a lot of influence from Bambi for the cute deer look but made her round and squat to fit the contrast of the other characters

Photoshop Practise

Change in Direction

I feel like I need to give my self a theme of animals to choose. As it is I'm finding it too difficult working with all the possible animals of SA and that's a lot of animals. As the Springbok is their national animal I'm thinking of theming it 'Springbok and friends' - as in making them all part of the deer/antelope family.

I'm basing the initial shape dynamic loosely on the Gorillaz characters. The big one, the little one and the two tall slim ones, though I'll be careful to make more variations and insure they're distinctive from each other

Zoo trip

It was really great going to the zoo and actually so helpful in understanding how the animal moves and how they are in reality rather than just from images. Life drawing is always beneficial

Anthropomorphised Animals (examples)

Disney's Zootopia does some great stylised anthropomorphised animals

Disney has a pretty great history of anthropomorphised animals actually

The degrees in which animals are anthropomorphised vary drastically. From the hyper realistic to the super stylised

Animal sketches