FYP - Furniture Design Sketches and Final Illustrations

Greetings, peeps! As promised in last week's post (FYP - Character Bookmarks (Rough Edition), and the Final Year Quest), I'd be showing sketches and final illustrations for my furniture designs this week. Since the chairs are the more technical part of the table/chair set (the table being circular, after all), I decided to focus on them this week. If you want a recap on what I had done before, and where I first drew my inspiration, please check the FYP - Children's Furniture: Chair Designs post.

So, without further adieu, I present character chair designs!

FYP - Character Bookmarks (Rough Edition), and the Final Year Quest

Heya! Hope you all had a great and productive/restful weekend! I hope so, because it's time to get down to business - at least for me. =) Over the last week/weekend, I've been tweaking my character buttons (FYP - Buttons Test-Run and Feedback Poll); I'm happy to say that the animal characters at least are ready to be printed, but I've decided to rework Charlene's button illustration. After some time had past, I realized that her expression and overall pose didn't say anything about her personality, nor did it entice the viewer - which is one massive oversight on my part (FYP - Button W.I.Ps!).

Anyway, enough about the buttons! Time to move on to the bookmarks!

FYP - Button W.I.Ps!

Still brainstorming for the furniture, but I've just finished sketches for half a dozen character pin-back buttons.

The Whole Gang!

From left to right, we have Ramesh Goatee (Goat), Pree (Parrot), Countess Whiskeria (Cat), Growlford Barkley (Dog), Lizzy Rexxy (Lizard with the shades), and our main girl Charlene 'GirlChile' Robinson. :) I might tweak Pree some more, but I'm satisfied with the designs overall.

What do you guys think?

Edit: While looking at furniture, I see that many manufacturers are still stuck on the 'pink/pastels and princesses for girls' mantra. The unisex ones (according to my Google-search anyway) tend to look bland, while the boy-specific designs are just full of bright colours, great characters, and just plain fun. :(

FYP - Children's Furniture: Chair Designs

Well, lookee here - an update! In order to show the versatility of illustration in my entire project, one of my ideas is to build children's furniture (yes, I'm ambitious). I spent yesterday sketching and devising possible looks and poses for four of my characters (Countess, Ramesh, Lizzy, and Growlford) as chair-backs. The character designs themselves are not final, but the basic poses will likely remain the same in the final drawings.

The gang as children's furniture designs.

The idea came to me when I was looking on Tumblr, and came across this children's table set:

A friend of mine later told me that those characters were Moomins, trolls (they look like hippos, don't they?) from a Swedish book series that was evidently popular enough to even spawn an amusement pack. You know where I want to go someday. ;)

FYP Character Sketches - Ramesh Goatee & Growlford Barkley.

Hey, peeps!

In between commissions, I've been slowly but surely re-tweaking (sometimes outright redesigning) Charlene's roster of animal friends. Rather than wait until I had more finished pieces to display - whenever that would be -, I decided to break the long drought on LangiSketches and upload this little rough-paper bit:

The little goat is Ramesh 'Ram' Goatee, an enthusiastic little kid and aspiring chef - and with eyes as big as his stomach. The dog in the sketch is Growlford, 'G' for short. That is far from his final design, so I'd expect some minor to major revisions to be in place before the finals are uploaded.

FYP Character Sketches - Lizzy Rexxy

I still have Part III of my poster maquette experiment to post, but I wanted to show this first.

Lizford 'Lizzy Rexxy' Rexxington

The hyper-energetic dancer and party green lizard - Lizzy Rexxy!

What do you guys think? No constructive criticisms will be refused or deleted. :)

FYP Character Sketches - Countess Whiskeria

Countess Whiskeria is one of the first animal characters to make their appearance in the book. She's a sassy diva with a heart of gold and an eye for fashion. Yes, fashion as in clothes. Don't let the animal nekkidness fool you; Countess and the gang will be wearing clothes. :)

Countess Whiskeria - Initial Sketch

This was the very first sketch that I did of Countess, and it's quite rough. ^^; Countess would require some cosmetic changes before she was ready for her close up.

Countess Whiskeria - 2nd and 3rd Sketches

The second and third sketches for Countess came closer to being 'Countess' than the first, but they still lacked something that would make me go, "Aha! Now she's finished!". I had been looking at some photos of cat breeds and was trying to incorporate physical characteristics of the Abyssinian and the Colourpoint Shorthair (the long, sleek body, with a bit of the ears and facials features). However, I still wasn't quite feeling it. She looked great here, yes, but was more 'fashion magazine' than 'children's book'.

Countess Whiskeria - 3rd Sketch feat. possible hat, scarf and dress design options

The final is dead close to being Countess' final design. After looking at images of cats as well as my own live-and-breathing house/yard puss, I noticed that their hind legs are thicker than their forelegs. Which makes a lot of sense, since much of their hunting relies heavily on sprinting after and pouncing on things as well as the occasional climbing exercise. She has no bust, since I'm not going that anthro/furry route for this project, but I did play up her feminine traits with her hips. Since cats also walk on their toes, so does Countess - which is why her feet aren't flat on the ground as one would expect with, say, a human. She's still smooth-coated, as I find this type of fur easier to work with in a project of this scale.

FYP Character Sketches - 'GirlChile' and Pauline

Just to set the record straight - my main character will not be called 'GirlChile' forever! Nope. No way. The problem is that I have quite a list of potential names for her and none of them seem...right. I knew I couldn't possibly plot out the story by calling her 'She' throughout the whole thing, so the 'GirlChile' nickname was born.


But fret not. She will have a proper name one way or the other, even if I have to host a poll right here. *hint hint*

In the meantime, I'll show you the initial sketches that I made for 'GirlChile' Robinson and one of her best friends, Pauline Richards done up in Col-Erase Pencils*!:
*Makes me feel all...animatorish and shiggity. :D

'GirlChile' Robinson

These aren't the very first sketches I've done of 'GC', but these are the ones I'll show because the initial sketches were some crappy stuff. I consider those my detox excretions, and who in their right minds want to see those? In the book, she's a very tall and skinny little country girl who's bright, highly imaginative and loves life. I did a full body sketch and several facial ones to try and get her character to match the way I've envisioned her. The one with the darker outlines closely represents 'GC' the most, but the design process is far from over. It's getting there, but she's not quite 'GC' yet.

Pauline Richards

Next is the smart Pauline Richards. This is the very first sketch I've done for her...isn't it odd how some supporting characters are just easier to put on paper? Weird. In any case, this isn't her final design either and I realized in retrospect that she looked similar to 'GC' in the face. I'm still trying to balance my characters being distinct yet being cohesive in overall style and design. I've made some notes on Pauline as to how I could distinguish her features more the next time I attempt to sketch her.


So, what do you guys think?