Character Project: The Inspiration

The original idea behind this character came from a square headed vinyl doll I designed for a friend similar to this one.

I designed the the square head to look like a crate had fallen on the creature and then just ran with the idea of creating a two dimensional version, except, this time i wanted to give it more personality. The main goal for the character was to create something that seemed similar to rag doll but in a darker sense.

as far as appearance goes, i also used Sackboy from little big planet as inspiration for the overall feel of the character.

I browsed around some more characters for some inspiration and found some like the one below that are a great example of using shape and color, instead of gradiance to shade and add depth to the character. The search also helped me with some ideas on how to keep the character cute yet edgy at the same time, using exaggerated shapes and expressive, bold lines.