Today I began to repurpose Muddyclaw’s design to be less of a Wing of Fire oc and to make him easier to animate.
First off I took my old design as well as a reference sheet I commissioned from an artist and took the fundamental points of the design into account. I noted where all the specific colours where and specific markings I wished to keep. I also took inspiration from a design for a dragon that I saw recently that included adding feathers on the edges of the wings and some fin-like spines down the back and fins on the tail. Next I went to research into how I wanted Muddy to move. I first looked through reference for cats but felt that, because he’s so big, it would be difficult to make that look authentic. Next I looked at wolves and dogs and felt that, if I slowed down the timing a bit in the walk cycles I would get the outcome I wanted. At this time I had also found an artist to study, Milt Kahl.
I do still think that the first character needs to have a look at in terms of colour, but I did like the basic colours I’ve come up with. However after some experimenting I came up with a more contrasting colour palette to Muddyclaws’ design and named him Forest. I also didn’t realise this until now that Forest has brown on top and Muddy has brown on the bottom.
I also started looking at different artists and animators that I could research for inspiration. I already had one animatic in mind for an analysis, The Church by EmptFeet on Youtube. I had bought their concept design booklet from it and went to print it out but unfortunately the printer ran out of ink. I also looked at an animatic called Shut Eye by Raquel M Simoso which is based around the artists comic book No North. Again I purchased the book of the art surrounding it ready to use for an analysis.
After this I then looked at one of my favourite Disney animators Milt Kahl as I had previously rewatched both 101 Dalmatians and Lady and the Tramp. After watching them I felt very inspired and will also rewatch the Aristocats, a Disney animated film that I want to take inspiration from for the use of sketchy lines in the animation that I absolutely love.
JEvansAnimation 