Creative Block? Two Steps to Translate References Into Stories! - Aunties PSD File + Process Video

Hey everyone,

Some short insights about the "Aunties" process.

Concept

I'm sure you have seen this reference of the two cats "protecting" the little kitty around the internet, I was saving this one for a while because I did not want to make something obvious, and I could not come up with an original enough idea. The two big cats protecting the small one seems obvious to me and therefore I assume obvious to everyone, so in order to make something different but understandable, I needed to capture the essence of the original reference in a way but deliver a different message.

The way I solved this issue was by changing the power dynamic; instead of the big ones having all the control, I split the power by making the little character have some kind of conscious control over the two big characters. My intention for this story was like this, the little girl had a list of targets, probably schoolmates that she did not like, and the two women in the back acted like executioners; in other words, this composition was about revenge.

At first, I thought the little one and the big characters would not be related, like they belonged to different ages, and the little girl in some way woke them from a long sleep; this would justify, in a sense, their supernatural context. Lately, I like to add a supernatural aspect by integrating non-human characters, in this case, I chose "vampires" because I like vampires and they will also allow me to try big complex dresses full of interesting information.

So this "partner in crime" idea was present until the end when I thought of replacing friends with aunts, as aunts often fight the same as parents but not often behave in an "ideal" way; in my culture, aunts are associated with rebels, it's a stereotypical idea.

Execution

It's fair to say that the concept was not clear enough when I started to explore shapes, I focused at first on capturing the gesture both big cats had around the small one, hoping through this way to find out an interesting story to tell, but I failed. So I leaned on the floor for a few minutes trying to think what situation would require for them to be together, what this action would be? I was not interested in a nice family situation, but instead something dark and cute, so that's why I started to explore shapes that suggest creatures around these small characters. Somehow this led to me thinking about Interview with the Vampire, which in my opinion fitted perfectly as a "team". 

Then since the two big cats I thought were females (cats with three colors often are female), two characters with big dresses would be great, as mentioned earlier, those kinds of dresses had plenty of visual information. But instead of making them all from the same age, I thought it would be nice to keep the little one a bit more relatable with the audience by dressing her with an outfit from current times, this will create a contrast by different outfits, indeed can make the situation a bit more confusing but in my head the story made sense, the two vampires woke up after a long nap and found out this little child that in a way controls them both.

After this point, the only challenge was to justify the touching gesture at least between one of the two big characters with the small one, I thought this was necessary in order to capture part of the gesture in the original reference as I did not want to make the three characters inclined like the cats. Eventually, I solved this by making a small gesture from the character on the right, combing the girl's hair and in a way, perhaps not the three of them touching each other but leaning towards the center, this I hope solved the gesture issue.

Last but not least I added a little detail in the background, a little ex-friend of the girl, perhaps this would reinforce the idea of "revenge", as you know it is important to put some extra thought to make the idea clear, I'd like to believe I make my compositions clear for everyone to understand but this is an assumption.

Once I created face and body expressions on the three of them I proceeded to clean the line art good enough to make a definition of shapes, inside these shapes I explored how the end of the whole paint will look like in order to avoid disappointment after spending hours in details, I'd like to think that these messy final looks can work very well in social media as I've seen sketches same chaotic being viral anyways, I think it's because sketch or not the idea is clear enough for everyone to understand that means that all those details and render checkpoints one have might feel relevant to ones only but I'd like to think some people enjoy a clean render as well as me, and that's why I proceed to refine.

The process after is pretty straightforward as you will see in the video, every piece I organically try something different inside the casual process, this is because I often have new ideas and traditional execution like, choosing the same color for the shadow, for example, is not necessary. Feel free to dive in the PSD for more of these insights.

Conclusion

When trying to capture the essence of one reference and the execution does not bring the answer, try this:

1. Ask yourself, what is it that you don't want to do? This will limit your options by knowing what to avoid, which is great when you feel all over the place.
2. Remember a story you like that shares some visual resemblance with the current reference you are using as a reference. "Resemblance" means dynamic between characters through shapes, colors, or values. This will help you spot potential different stories that can serve as a guide for visual options when translating the original reference onto a different idea.

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