Initial Ideas
When we were first tasked with this pitch bible, I was really excited and had a bunch of ideas that I could have done but as I sat down to write them I found that some of my ideas were far too brief or I just couldn’t envision them. I eventually listed a few of the ideas that I liked and then expanded two of the ideas but the more I thought about them the more I realised I wasn’t overly interested in the ideas anymore.
By this point in time, we had a class discussion on about our potential ideas and I came up with a story about grief and loss but even that wasn’t working for me so I went back to the drawing board before I finally took a step back and realised that maybe I needed to choose a less restrictive approach so I decided to go for a children’s show that follows an episodic format. This helped immensely when it came to creating and settling on the idea of making a children’s show that follows the adventures of little frog characters. The idea was also stirred from the colours on one of the Canva templates.
Mood Boards
Once I had my idea, I created a few mood boards using images from Pinterest, Google and other TV Shows and Media that I found fit what I wanted to create.
Story
—Audience & Animation Style—
Before beginning to plot the story, I knew it would be beneficial to figure out who the audience is going to be and the style of animation this show would use. Looking back to my mood boards of art styles and pre-existing media I was able to do a bit of research into what they use to create their shows. I found this video talking about Bluey to be very useful as it talks about rigged characters, animation principles and what system they use to animate their rigged characters with.
After researching similar shows to what I want to create, I chose that 2D rigged animation with a story that is aimed at 3-10 year olds was what I wanted to create.
—Synopsis—
I knew I wanted this show to have messages behind each episode so that they could be used as a learning experience for children. This is a common theme behind a lot of children’s shows like Bluey and Peppa Pig which made figuring out what lessons I wanted to teach children a bit easier.
Characters & Concept Art
When moving onto creating the characters I wanted to feature in this show, I knew I wanted to give them simple but easy to understand flaws like selfishness, jealousy and being hot headed so that children could more easily relate to the characters as well as being able to learn from them.
—Biographies—
I knew I wanted to give each character a hobby/occupation so that they could each have an accessory that related to them as well as a flaw to make the characters feel a little more three dimensional. Once I figured out their personalities, I chose their names based on their interest or as a frog pun.
—Concept Art—
When designing the characters I knew I wanted to create a simple style that would be easy for children to draw themselves. I was heavily inspired by the art styles of Peppa Pig with the simple shapes for the characters and Bluey with the coloured and clean lineart. I also really like the use of line work and their lack of in the Gravity Falls backgrounds as well as the colourful art in Adventure Time.
-Characters-
Taking these inspirations on board I drew up some simple character explorations following the aspects I liked from the shows mentioned above.
I really liked the teddy bear shape of the second one so I cleaned up the shapes and proportions a bit before exploring a few different art style possibilities; lineless, coloured lineart and brown lineart. I really liked the coloured lines as it softens the art, I really want the characters to look huggable so style 2 was perfect.
Now that I’ve figured out the art style, I move onto creating some different frog types to experiment with colour schemes and how different accessories will look like on the characters. I really wanted these characters to be almost ‘cookie cutter’ like with the only difference being their colour, size and accessories like in Peppa Pig.
Next, I moved onto creating the character turnarounds using the mood board I created for the characters interests as inspiration and reference. I also decided to make some of the characters taller to add more difference when the characters are lined up.
-Line Up & Group Shot-
After I had the turnarounds for everyone done, I created a line up to get a better sense of what they all looked like together.
I really like how all the characters turned out. I think they’re really cute and have enough differences to be easily differentiated by children. After making the line up I decided that making a group shot of them all interacting would really help to show their personalities so I first sketched the general idea I had.
Once I was happy with how it looked and that everyone was interacting and showing their personalities, I chained it up and coloured it. I did have to rearrange some of the characters a bit but overall I really like how the group looks all together!
-Environments-
When creating the environments I looked at the way other children’s shows had approached their backgrounds and took reference from that.
I knew I wanted to continue with the coloured lines and flat, bright colours that I used for the characters as well as create some locations that I plan on using in the episodes, these include; The Hat Shop from episode 3 and Prince’s House from episode 2.
I really like the idea of the frogs creating their homes and businesses from things you would usually find around a pond like fallen trees and lilies on top of lily pads as well as using lily pads as stepping stones when crossing the lake.
When creating the environments I knew I didn’t want every blade of grass outlines so I chose to line some of it and use abstract lines and dots to represent the rest of the details and I really liked how it turned out. I also like the idea of all their lily houses having a colour at the top to represent each character as well as Prince’s house having a crown shape at the top to nod to his own crown.
Overall I’m pleased with how the backgrounds came out and I feel that the characters fit really well within their environments. I do wish I had made the line art thinner on the log hat shop and the lily house but I really like how the environments can out.
Episode Synopsis
Keeping in mind the characters and their personalities I started by writing down four lessons children could learn from the characters and then created some brief outlines for what I wanted to happen in each episode. Due to this show having an episodic format I didn’t have to worry about having an overarching narrative that carries over each episode which allowed me to focus on covering the lessons that I wanted to in each story. Furthermore, I chose to use the episodic format for my episodes as this is commonly used within other children’s shows with the same target age.
The final plots for each episode remained very similar to my outlines with a few small changes to make the message clearer.
Production Plan
When creating the production plan for this project, I did a bit of research into 2D rigged children’s shows. Using this research, I created my own production plan.
Pitch Deck
—Assets—
When creating the pitch deck for this project I wanted to stick to the frog theme so I decided to create boxes out of lily pads, make the background a pond and add a few flies for decoration. I also used the font ‘Go Frog’ that I downloaded from DaFont for the titles and the font, Chewy from Canva for the rest. The final pitch deck was assembled on Canva.
—Title & Tagline—
It was at this stage that I finally decided on a title for the show and created a logo for the cover page.
—Cover Page—
Next, I created the art for the cover page of the pitch deck by using the group shot and rearranging it to surround the title. The title with the tagline was too big for this space so I decided to remove it and just have the title on its own. I moved the logo onto the synopsis page.
—Final Pitch Deck—
—Reflection—
Overall, I’m really proud of this little project. I really like how the characters and art style came out as well as the general look of the pitch deck theme. If I had more time I would have created some illustrations showing a scene from each episode but overall, I am happy with what I was able to achieve.