Further Character designs

Siince doing more experiments with the backgrounds for my animation, I've had to adapt my character designs to fit. This was extremely hard and took a whole day just to make anything even resembling progress.

This was the first set of designs, I began by drawing some thumbnail sillouettes to get an idea of the 'feel' I wanted the character to have by trying out different poses from the animation. Using photographs from the internet as reference I tried to give the character a scruffy look, this didn't really work. I don't really like any of the drawings on these pages at all, non of them seem to work at all. I've decided to change the character slightly from what I originally planned, he's no longer a fisherman, now he's something of a scrawny shy person. I wanted the fact that this shy and weedy person killing someone is something that the audience does not expect, I wanted to make the fact that the character had it in him to kill another human being to be something that makes him afraid and drives his madness.

These pages are slightly better, I've pushed the period clothing more so that the story can be placed in an identifiable time. I've spent a lot of time experimenting with different face shapes and facial features that will help describe my character better at a glance. Allthough these pages are definetly better than the others, the images still arent as effective as they could be. The characters on this page are far too well built to be considered shy and weak.

With the drawings on the left I've tried to make the cheekbones more pronounced and i've tried to make him look physically weaker. I'm not really happy with the drawings on the left because the pointed facial features and the facial hair make it harder for the audience to relate to him as a protagonist. I want the audience to be shocked that he has left a man for dead. I want the audience to invest in the character and then have their emotional connection turned on its head.
The drawings on the right hand page are a lot better, I have elongated the face and added glasses to make him look more studious (the glasses can then be dropped in the water and used as a plot device). These drawings are definetly heading in the right direction and have provided me with a few ways that I can adapt and tweak some of the story elements to make them more effective.