Although my film didn't have any main protagonist, it did feature small characters that I wanted to use to show my character animation abilities. One of these was a little victorian girl who would chase the feather through the first sequence to the second. My first task was to do some research and for this I found a range of great books in the university library that I would look through and use as great reference for my little girl character. Using the books meant that I could find historically accurate and authentic period costumes that I could draw inspiration from.
"Victorian Fashions Volume 1 1880 - 1890" - by Hazel Ulseth and Helen Shannon
"Costume 1066 - 1990" - by John Peacock
3. I wanted to get that slightly stumpy feel of a child still in development here and kept limb proportions short. I further simplified the shapes and started to bring the waist in to give her a much nicer silhouette. I also started to play around with bows and adding more nuances and detail.
4. I started to feel like I was lacking on the head design so I focused in on that. I wanted to get a nice Victorian hairstyle. I also wanted to get some kind of decorative head piece as I didn’t want many plain spaces on her design as she was supposed to be the daughter of a rich woman. I liked the flower head piece I made here and the plan was to have these petals made out of delicate copper sheets to add that steam punk element.
7. Here I tried to take a step in another direction to avoid going down a linear path. Unfortunately my design choices here gave her a much more Latin American 1950’s feel, particularly the flower in the hair and was certainly not what I wanted.
10. I decided to try going down a different route again just to play around a bit and try keeping all my lines as one curvy stroke without breaking it up. This led to the long curls of the hair and the fishtail shape to the dress. I like how stylised it became and how minimalist the shapes were but overall I think it’s too far for this film and doesn’t reflect the qualities I wan the little girl to have. It seems too adult, too fluctuating in shape, her pinched in waist and delicate details actually kill the innocent childlike quality I wanted.
13. After looking at some more Victorian hairstyles online I did a more literal study of the hair. I added some very true Victorian loose curls to the sides of the hair. I liked the design and it felt very Victorian but I didn’t like that it made her look very plain and actually suggested a lower class of society, not the rich upper class I wanted her to have.
14. I revisited the idea of the “Alice-band” again except this time I made it more subtle and intricate with a line of flowers. I like this because it felt very delicate and gave the girl a much nicer naive quality and a quiet timid look. This did contrast with the tom boyish attitude I wanted to instil once the feather was part of the story though and so I felt I needed a different direction yet again.
16. My favourite aspect of this design is the hat. I pushed the size of the hat and used lines to suggest the puffiness of the material giving it an almost comical quality. I feel however that it really suggests that idea of being dressed up by the mother and being dressed like a doll as they all had these over sized and over the top elements of clothing. I decided to add even more and put a bow on the back of the bonnet which would give her a nice detail on the back of her. I also tried to get across a bit of a sense of mischievousness and that moodiness that can come with small children by adding these little defiant flicks of hair from under the bonnet either side.
20. I went for a front on shot as I hadn’t’ really explored any angles of her except the three quarter. I felt like this was as strong drawing. It had a nice silhouette with the puffed out dress which also had that Victorian extravagance. I also managed to capture her character quite well in the face as she looks nice and cute without being over the top. The overall shape language works well too being mostly round shapes and I’ve used a rounded square as the central torso to suggest that at her core she is a rough and tumble child who wants to play and run around and isn’t as delicate as the round and curved elements around her suggest. It’s to reflect the idea of her true childish nature being covered up and forced into the “expected” gentry and “prim and proper” lady that her mother wants her to be and more importantly, wants to show the rest of society that she is.
23. This design is quite similar to design 22 however I tried to embellish a few things and change some I didn’t like. My first change was taking the bow from he waist and putting it back onto the bonnet which I liked so much in design 16 and having the bow tails long and trail down like in design 5 to add more asymmetry and give her more detail from behind. I tried to add more shape to the hair but it ended up coming out too triangular. I also felt I pushed the bonnet too far here and confused the silhouette too much again and preferred the purer, rounder shape of design 22.
The little girl character is now complete.
