The Familiar Secondary Character Designs

Throughout my time at ECA I've always had deer and forest imagery within my work and this film is no different. I know that within the film I want to include the Familiar as a deer, walking in the forest with the witch. I want to carry on with the same colouration as the cat form to make it easily recognisable, but I want to simplify it so it's easier to animate instead of having leaves and foliage growing from it. I also need to do other character designs for the other forms it takes, however, I need to storyboard my film more and really flesh out what is going to happen in it before I do this as I need to start being more time efficient and conscious of how long I have left.

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- Although the Familiar is male (that's how I think of him) I'm not sure whether to include antlers or not.

- Another form the Familiar will take is a deer. I always like to include these in my films and they are a very regal forest animal.

- I'd perhaps like him to be a bit more stylised.

- I think his colour will be black with light eyes or dark grey.

- Without antlers the Familiar will look more androgynous - this is an element that I actually like a lot and helps to refute the idea that the Familiar is a real animal.

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- I really like the Familiar in this form, he looks like a fawn.

- This will be the form that the familiar mainly takes when they are walking together in the forest.

- Still not sure about antlers, he is very sleek and feminine. I may experiment on Photoshop.

- How large is he in deer form? Can she ride him? Is he small like a fawn?

Familiar Character Sheet 3

After scanning the images into my laptop I edited them on Photoshop and cleaned the drawings up so that I could start adding colour and experimenting with his deer form. I really like the style of the Familiar like this, he's very sleek and in some drawings he almost looks a little canine.

Familiar Character Sheet 3 (Colour 1)

I used the watercolour Kyle Brush 'Small Round Basic' to achieve this look and texture which I prefer over flat colour. It will make everything longer and harder to colour frame by frame but this is what I want to go for. I do think that he looks a little dark and would like to possibly add markings or colour differentiation to him such as a lighter body with darker extremities, for example, darker ears and tail etc.

Familiar Character Sheet 3 (Colour 2)

I'm really happy that I decided to add the colour differentiation to the Familiar. I think that it accentuates the design and style of him in a really nice way, it almost elongates him and definitely gives him an other-worldly quality. I will use this colour scheme with the lighter and darker colouration for the rest of the of film and the other forms that he takes. I also like the white eyes because it makes it harder for the audience to decipher his emotions and feelings and as the witch also has white/light eyes it shows that they are linked in some way.