Caterpillar Design

For the caterpillar I began by playing with shapes.  Before deciding on limiting my project to spheres I looked at different shapes and silhouettes with which to construct the caterpillars shape.

For the neck I wanted to take the shape from the rings of the tribal women. The shape at the begging was looking very disconnected. I then took influence from perfume bottles which had a certain curve and shape to them.

 

 

I liked this staggered look to the neck shape and turn the curves into a contrasting rectangle shapes. I feel this could be animated in a jurky way.

 

All the way through I kept telling myself to go back, to take bits away and keep it simplistic bold and strong in silhouette. This way of under complicating my design makes it really have a distinctive shape and personality.

 

For the Kanga effect on the body I sketched the patterns with children's wax crayons. I then took this into Photoshop and added it to the body.

I decided to give the caterpillar a walking stick just like the members of the maasai tribe. A simple stick gives him so much character, ages him which I wanted to do to make this caterpillar seem like its coming to the end of its life. For the texture I wanted a combination of shiny metallic and inorganic layered over this dirty sketchy colour. I didn't want to make him look a living caterpillar but much more like a toy.

With this final design I want to animate the movement of the character in a creative way. The individual balls spinning in their own timing. Almost like an animation of DNA spinning.

Head Development

For the head I wanted it to be very simple but to have a tribal characteristic to it. I began by rough sketching ideas and thoughts. I also felt the caterpillar also needed an aged look, to make him seem to be getting old and being born again as a youthful butterfly.

I took this idea into Photoshop and used blocked out circles to begin creating a design.

The images above had a certain horror movie look and didnt have the personality I was going for so I want back and took away to the swirls on the cheeks and added some tribal dots.

The character will be reborn as a youthful butterfly. I want the personality of the caterpillar to come across in the animation. For it to be masculine and contrasting with the butterflies femininity