I was brainstorming a little bit when I presented this – although I consider whether or not a story could be told in such a short period of time.
It is also during this time that I consider the passing of the actor Robbie Coltrane – I brought up the idea that he somehow appears in the background of the story. Playing a character that he could be cast for.
Which led to this design, which got very little feedback. However it was still an opportunity to keep practicing colour mixing.
Due to the fact that the new members barely talked to the ones who had been there from the beginning, a meeting was arranged to do some brainstorming. I put forward several ideas – although I was not the one with the marker. I put forward the idea that the main character should be a curious child and to include the use of old astronaut helmets to be the fishbowl helmets.
There was talk about making the main characters androgynous. So while thinking about androgynous aesthetic, never mind trying to create a character that could be relatable to all and easy to draw and animate in general by everybody in the group – I considered the ultimate national melting-pot by looking up Brazilians – and when I did, I found this image of a girl playing football at the beach. It was approved.
I then tried to create concepts for the curious child. Trying to keep the design simple by having him/her as 3 heads tall. Once again drawing inspiration from Ponyo.
Lastly I tried to create the sea person who brings the curious land child into the ocean without consideration that the child needs air. I tried to stick to the ideas of creating simple designs that were easy to animate – but even this design idea was nit-picked.