TV-series development!! Zale's new Design!

Dear Patrons,

Well, you've went and done it! The poll for this month's TV-series development preview ended in a tie, and I guess that means I'll just have to cover both location explorations AND Zale's new design this month. I'll be making more polls for these coming months, but don't you go aiming for more ties! I've only got so much development content I can share at once, so next time I might just flip a coin, hehe. 

This is going to involve a LOT of pictures in one post however, so I've decided to split it into three: Zale's new design now, then the monthly update and location explorations after. It'll probably still be more than a week before I can put together the post for these last two though. Without getting too far into the news, this coming week is the last before a big deadline for the current project I'm supervising, I'm only just recovering from a flu, AND my Cintiq broke, so I feel a tad behind. Still, without any further delay, let's at least meet the new Zale!

NEW ZALE DESIGN:

You asked for it, and I've been excited to show you!! Behold, the new design we've been working on for the TV-version of Zale:

So that's it? One sheet of an admittedly very charming fox character?? Ohohoh, well this is certainly what I'd classify as the "final" design, but it's only the tip of the iceberg, so lean back and let me tell you how we got here.

THE PLAN:

It all started with a plan. With West-Danish Film Fund's funding we had approx. 5 weeks to create updated character designs for the main cast, and define the style of the series in a way that would create a strong foundation for the future production development. On top of that, most people on our visual team were new in their roles or used to very different styles, so in order to reach this goal in time, I felt that the first step was to create a solid vision of the plan for the period:

STARTING POINT:

But before we get too far into executing that plan, I want to jump a bit back in time, to late 2020, when my collaboration with Nørlum (the animation studio I'm working with on the project) had only just begun. We hadn't had time to seek funding yet, and as such didn't have any resources to allocate to the project. But Nørlum did have some students interning from abroad (online, because of corona), who were interested in project development. So I ended up taking on 4 interns for 1½ month to do some initial exploration. You'll see some of it in later categories as well.

Anyhow, to get us started and and the same page, I began with boiling down some style and character references, as seen below:

Working from this, Megan Babchuck, who was one of the interns at the time, would do an insane amount of exploration sketches, and I'd then pick out my favourites and provide feedback and draw-overs.

And by the end of the period, I'd select the sketches that I felt incapsulated Zale best and showed off his design, and do a final stylistic tie-down on it so it ended up looking like this:

For the next year-or-so, this was Zale's most up-to-date TV-series design. But it was still missing that final push. I could feel that as time wore on, as well as see it in the eyes of those who were presented with the design. While this stage was the natural progression of the web-series design, and I certainly found it appealing, there was still an "iconic" quality to it that was missing. Something that'd be able to make me clearly picture the character, even with my eyes closed.

OFFICIAL VISUAL DEVELOPMENT BEGINS:

And with that rummaging in my brain, we now reach 2022. First thing's first - the drawings you see here and below are drawn by the talented Sammy Torres (unless I specify otherwise). If you like what you see here, I highly recommend that you check out her work - especially her comic, The Draconem Nebula.

I'll also be sharing some of my own notes and red-lining, however. This isn't the sort of stuff you'll usually be seeing in something like an art book, but since this Patreon is also meant to document some of my own artistic journey, whether it be in animating or directing, I do feel that it provides a nice insight... And it goes to show a bit of how much consideration tends to go into the character designs you see on screen in animation, especially when there's still style exploration afoot.

Style exploration was a big element in Zale's design process in the beginning. He was going to be the example that the rest of the characters would have to follow. 

Coming off the web-series, I knew that there were elements of the shape language that I wanted to keep and refine. But also many elements in regards to the characters' expressiveness that I wanted to push much more. On a TV-series we won't be able to sit and draw infinite in-betweens, so it's a matter of making the most out of the frames we've got!

During the early stages, when we were still feeling things out, Sammy and I would just sit in a meeting room, looking up inspirations and talking about style elements while drawing traditionally.

Then we'd split up, and Sammy would send me an abundance of exploratory digital sketches. I'd give a lot of notes on these. I really wasn't holding anything back at this point, because it was important for us to sync up and get on the same page at this early stage.

From there, we'd start getting into silhouettes and proportions. Zale's design elements themselves weren't going to change too much, so instead, we'd focus on the specific details.

I picked out a favourite...

...And then modified it a bit to a point where I felt we could use the drawing as a solid model base. I wanted to push the straight vs curve, dynamic lines, and "strit strit" motif in particular.

Using this drawing as our general jumping-off point, we started doing posing explorations of Zale. Some may be inclined to prioritize a classic turnaround, but I felt that a posing sheet would a 100% better use of our time, as it'd be able to communicate much more about the character, as well as the series' style range.

It was a very specific style and appeal I wanted us to achieve, so here toward the later half of the process, we started going a lot back and forth on the drawings.

Shout-out to Nicole Di Fresco at this stage, who was interning with us at this time. She did an absolutely wonderful job in the concept art department, but wanted to try her hand on the characters as well. This was perfect, since I felt we needed some fresh input on some of the fun and pushed expressions that Zale could make. Below you can see some of the redlining I'd do based on her drawings.

Now it was simply a matter of finalizing the last details of Zale's design, such as the compass around his neck.

Pick out the poses that incapsulated Zale's character best and felt fully "on model",

And test out which color scheme worked best for him.

And there we go! I give you: ZALE

ROUND-UP:

Now, I hope you enjoyed that extensive breakdown, because it took way too long to put together. Even so, there are still some steps I've just skimmed over fairly quickly, either for the sake of brevity, or because I wasn't able to find the material at this point in time. But that's why it's nice to share now that I can, you know? That 2020 stage was already almost lost, because we've built so much on top it. And just think, if we start getting broadcasters involved and give up rights to different territories as we develop the series further into the production stages, this process too may otherwise be lost or put under NDA. So better share it while I still can!

I'm going to keep the round-up short though, because hopefully I'll see you again before too long with the next bit of content. What do you think of this new Zale? Which part of the process did you find most interesting? Let me know!

All  the best,

- Sif