designing Pocahontus

right...so on to the design of pocahontus: the 7 year old child who would like to be a gorilla. I found it quite difficult to get into designing a young girl as found my knowledge was limited. How do you make someone young? What do young girls wear? How do they have their hair? Not to mention these specifics, the look has to also reflect a claymation style...so simple shapes, no vast detail amongst costume, no human qualities such a muscles. I would also like to put my own spin on the look so its not just a typical Aardman copy. I looked at a few animations that demonstrated children in them such as Boo in Monsters Inc, the dead girl in Corpse Bride, Little My from The Moomins as well as Hoodwinked's Red and One Man Bands Little Girl. I also looked at the strange dutch children in Hookwinked for costume inspiration: Images are are taken from google, my own screen prints and images of Boo taken from the Pixar Book "To Infinity and Beyond"

Stereotypical designs of young girls are to have big eyes, tiny frames, pig tails, dungarees but as you can see from my sketches below, i wanted to try out a few possibilities to make sure i was satisfied when i chose my final design. 

So enough chit chat, heres my conceptual work...enjoy:

first lot...i wanted to capture the fact poca wants to be a gorilla through the reflection of her design...it did go off on a bit of a tangent where she looks like a wild child/tarzan type...but i was soon swayed back on track to treating the project brief like a live one and thus the character design.

second lot...dont ask..sometimes i draw on tracing paper...anyway i was experimenting with face shapes, simple shapes to construct the hair out of. 

third lot...starting to narrow down a design here...it helped me to make a list of her characteristics and then draw as well as list clothes to try out a few outfits....i think some of my drawings might seem a little limited as im always thinking of the next stage and know what i do and do not want to take into Maya...above all...i want to keep it simple...its too easy to get carried away. 
Colour research. I know Pocahontus is bright, curious, energetic, sweet above all a young girl so its a good idea to start considering colour now. Heres some quick colour samples i completed....i then went into the mass store of plasticine i have under my bed (dont ask) and found the colours appropriate. Plasticine tends to be more the brighter shades of colour...its interesting from photographing the blobs to see how light falls across them....will be useful for texturing later.