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Seeing Joe’s More Kremlin Cats post last week reminded me that I had a few character design sketches of my own to show. I drew these along with the costume concepts I posted about earlier. Both were so much fun to work on, especially at the same time as it got so many cool ideas flowing in my head.
At first I played around with styles that I felt would fit the characters. I was immediately drawn to the idea of Puss 'n Boots, who is a heroic and cavalier type that I saw many parallels to with The Kremlin Cats. I felt that the silhouette of the characters would play a big role in telling all the cats apart, so naturally I tried to find as many different body shapes and sizes.
I had the most fun playing with Chelsie, the only female cat. I wanted to keep her feminine curves while making her seem like a cool tom boy.
You can also check out the final designs here! Copyright © Two Animators! LLP
As promised, here are some more sketches I drew while working on The Kremlin Cats. While these aren’t the final designs, they definitely helped me work through some possible looks for the characters. Plus, I really dig how they all turned out.
First up is my initial take on Manny and Nikki, done in more of what I would call the "2A! studio" style… cute, short, round-eyed little guys. I’m always amused at the odd times I’m inspired to draw. I can’t remember where I was, but as you can see in the upper left corner, I drew Manny with a pen on some notebook paper. I’m guessing I wasn’t in the studio. ;)
Next up is my second pass on the character designs. While everyone liked the first round, the characters came off as being too young, so I was asked to age them up some more. This time I went for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, action/adventure feel. The cats are definitely older here and ready to start some trouble.
Below is a sheet of Manny version 2, from pencil sketch to Flash color mock-up.
Again, everyone liked my second round, but thought I may have gone a little too old. So back to the drawing board I went to come up with the final designs which you can check out here.
Also, be sure to check out Sarah’s costume designs here. They're sweet!Copyright © Two Animators! LLP
I love doing costume design, so Joe naturally turned to me to help out when 2A! was asked to develop the look of The Kremlin Cats’ costumes. Before diving into concepts though, I had a few interesting dilemmas to overcome.
First, the script called for costumes that looked both futuristic, yet historic at the same time. Second, the descriptions included a mix of styles that seemed to pull from many different cultures. Third, was the functionality of the clothing, as each outfit was supposed to be full of hidden buttons, traps, and gadgets for the cats to use during their adventures. Finally, we wanted to make sure the costumes exuded a cohesive “team” feel that was easily recognizable.
I started by pulling references and inspiration from Russia, Cavalier-era France and Art Deco flight suits. I wanted to capture a sense of romance with the costumes, while making them feel heroic and a bit “steampunk” at the same time. Below are just a few of the concepts I mocked up.
In the end, elements of each of these designs made it to the streamlined finals, but I feel each one stands pretty solidly on its own. Plus, I was really able to play with the costume design for The Kremlin Cats, so it was a total blast for me to work on!Copyright © Two Animators! LLP
2A! was recently asked to help redesign some of Debby Carman's characters... more specifically the feline characters from her book titled, The Nutcracker Cats of the Kremlin.
Our main goal was to take her colorful, child-friendly style and age it up a bit for a slightly older audience. We also wanted to unify the costumes, making for a more cohesive team, while also pushing the cartoony fun of the character's themselves. Below are my color-mocks of the five main characters: Manny, Chelsie, Rikki, Sox, and Nikki.
As you can see, I first focused on nailing down the individual character personalities and looks. Once that was done I could move onto designing the costumes, which I turned to Sarah for help with. Once costumes were designed, I then started rotating the characters. I did this in the same way, where I turned the characters around first, then went back and overlaid their costumes afterwards.
After all the design work was done with the characters we could have some fun playing around with possible scenes. The rough layout and background paints for this shot were done by Sarah, while the colored character art was done by me.
Be sure to check back tomorrow to see some of Sarah's costume design sketches! Plus, I have more Kremlin Cats development sketches to post in the near future too. Copyright © Two Animators! LLP
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