Monkey Business - Trending Characters

Anyone noticed how many monkeys are about right now?

Cute Club // Character Design

Over the past few months I have been involved with a really cool character project with a company called Brandart.  The first launch of products and stationery aimed at the toddler market is just about to hit chosen retailers.  Here is a peak at their promotional catalogue showcasing some of the designs...

Farmyard Animals

Here is my last post this week sharing with you some of my actual character designs.  Here is another nightwear print with some farmyard animals, possibly my favourite one from the week.

Next week I will be posting some of my research for Autumn/WInter 2013 as well as some boards I created for key Maternity looks for Autumn/Winter 2012 too!

Woodland Animal Print

Here is a little woodland print medley I created for some children's nightwear a few months back.

Monster Print

Here is a multi character monster print I created for some nightwear bottoms.

Dog Applique

Here is a dog applique I created or a client to go on baby night wear too.

Owl Applique

Last week I posted a whole series of images from a self briefed project I created called 'Noah's Ark'  which I created to practise my character drawing.  This week as promised I said I would post some images of real characters I have created of the past few months.  To start here is an applique owl I designer for some baby nightwear.

Noah's Ark Prints Part Six

Today is the last post from my Noah's Ark self brief project.  I decided to place some of my favourite characters into mock greetings cards.  These are only mock ups if I were to create them for real I would probably give them a hand drawn feel or maybe even paint them?

I hope at some stage, not too far into the future, I will play with these characters again.  Maybe I will take them to the next stage and make them hand drawn and more delicate looking.  I will keep you updated!

I have a busy week ahead as I start to look at Autumn/Winter 2013/14!  I will be working on trend boards over the next week before I start designing prints.  I will share my research once it is all ready!  Next week I will be sharing on my blog some actual designs where I have had to create characters for.

Noah's Ark Prints Part Five

Here is a little greeting card I made for my Noah's Ark range.

This is one of my favourite pieces in the range as it really tells the story through illustration.

Noah's Ark Prints Part Four

Here is a print I developed that could be used as a nightwear placement.

Its perhaps a little bit busy but it shows another way of  developing the characters I created into a placement print.

I think parts of it would work nicely as an applique giving it some texture and depth.

I've used some of my favourite character from the Noah's Ark range in this print.

Here are the crocodiles!  As I was saying in yesterdays post less is more I find when drawing characters.  Its better to exaggerate the animals key features then make their expression cute.

Noah's Ark Prints Part Three

Here is another allover print I created for my Noah's Ark range.  I think this style of print could work well on a baby's layette or for baby bedding.

This is a self briefed project I created to practise my character drawing.  While I was drawing these animals I found that less works more with them.  I found its best not to try and put too much detail into the characters, instead its better to exaggerate their key features and concentrate on cute fun expressions.

I think the characters that have worked best for me in this range are the Giraffes, Crocodiles and Lions.

Here with the Giraffes, I have kept their faces very simple enhancing the shape of their nose, ears and little horns!

At the moment the characters are in first draft stage.  If I was actually going to use them on products I would probably make them more sketchy looking or give them a hand painted feel.  Creating them like this in a flat vector format helps me get the overall look right then I can transform the animals into any style I wish.  It's the way I work with most graphics I create.

Noah's Ark Prints Part Two

Following on from my post last Friday where I introduced my self briefed character project 'Noah's Ark' here is an all over print I created.  More images to come over the week from this range.

Noah's Ark Prints - Part One - Baby's Bed Set

I mentioned in yesterdays post that I would be posting a new character project today.  Here is the first of six posts from my  'Noah's Ark' character range.

I set this project for myself to practise my character drawing.  Over the next week I will be posting a different print from this range each day.  Today is a baby's bed cover set.

Character drawing is something I'm always being asked to do as a children's print designer. At first it really didn't come naturally to me (see my old character design post as an example!) I was always creating awkward looking not very cute creations!

  However, as time has passed and I've put more practise into the area, things have improved! There is definitely a good move on since the days of my farm animal characters I posted yesterday - I think!  

I set this Noah's Ark project for myself so I couldn't escape creating lots of cute animals (the options were endless!)  Over the next week I will be sharing these creations on the blog.  A lot of the products are unfinished, it was more a self briefed project to practise character drawing.

I will also go into more detail about the value of self briefed projects to practise areas of weakness too.

The week following my Noah's Ark prints I will be showing some recent 'real life' designs where I have had to create lots of different character designs.

Old Character Designs

I was recently searching through some very old prints of mine and came across these funny looking farm animals I created over three years ago!  I'm a bit embarrassed by them now to be honest but they show me how much my work has developed since then!

 I will be posting a new character project next week which hopefully shows a good move on from these images!