Initial Character Development

Week 5-6

My main aim for this activity book was to create a relatable and intriguing narrative suitable for a 7-9 year-old child, whilst linking my two chosen maps, Egypt (1926) and London (1940).

The Idea:

The evil Doctor A. Baddon, a rat scientist, has released a ’mischief’ of rats throughout Egypt (1926) and London (1940) to destroy the valuable maps housed in National Archives. The child is tasked to team up with two detectives to undertake a series of activities in a quest to stop the rats.- This can be achieved by reading and completing each of the activity pages.

Prior to designing my activity pages I took time to contemplate and develop my character designs for Mr. A. Baddon and my two detectives. -Consequently, I elected to take forward a fun design for Mr. A. Baddon that wouldn't be frightening for a younger age group (7-9 years); whilst I also chose a fun design for my detectives I also wanted to create more refined images for these characters.

Rat and Mr Baddon Character Designs

As mentioned previously I opted to take forward a fun design for Mr A. Baddon (highlighted in fine liner), which would be appealing for the younger child (7-9 years of age). In correlation with this, I elected to use a simple design for my ‘mischief’ of rats. This enabled me to easily redraw the smaller rats, whilst also keeping in mind the cost-effectiveness of printing the activity sheets.

Context of Evil Scientist:

My concept design for Mr. A. Baddon is: A human who had transformed into an anthropomorphic rat due to a failed scientific experiment. My intention wasn't to just draw a large scale, talking rat but rather to create an intriguing character, that children will hopefully want to defeat. 

Detective Character Designs

Initially, I sketched out a range of facial features and expressions for my detectives to enable me to determine which would be more fun to draw, and appealing to a 7-9 year-old child. Having achieved this, however, I still had reservations that my drawings weren’t refined enough.

Further Character Development

Whilst contemplating my development pages, I considered the elements (facial features, clothes…) I would take forward for my two detectives. Once I had committed these to paper I was able to further deliberate whether the features and proportions made my characters appear fun and aesthetically pleasing, or weird and frightening. The additional amendments I opted to undertake were to move their eyes closer to their nose, adjust their mouth slightly upwards, and amend the ovals denoting the blush of their cheeks to simple lines. Furthermore, I would lighten the brown hues of their costumes and omit the use of red tones.

If I were to undertake this task again, I would also consider refining their costumes to show more movement of each character as I believe this would make my activity sheets more aesthetically appealing.