Pinocchio - more toy than boy

I have three main directions for Pinocchio, so I am going to make an update for each...

As a brief introduction, the story will be set in a futuristic world with a hint of A.I. and Final Fantasy XIII added in for good measure. As I am still undecided as to the plot, I can not decide whether one type of Pinocchio is better than another, so I will just post everything I have done so far and will refrain from developing Pinocchio too much until I have the story tied to a sheet of paper.

So this Pinocchio is the traditionally wooden/robotic type, I started thinking of bug eyes and a screw nose which might slowly unscrew and tumble out the more he lies... But dropped the bug eyes cos it looked way too alien.
The more grim looking top hat marionette was a random idea... As I still have the narrative floating in my head I did consider an angry looking Pinocchio... not sure why he is wearing a vest/apron...
From this batch, I then started teetering towards the version with a battery in his chest... The crows have importance, which will be touched upon later, I am sure. You can see on the second page of the third image, an upside down Pinocchio head with a siren on his head... made sense for lying?

if I am gonig to be honest, this is my least favourite version of the three... not sure why. Bad David.

Gepetto and a conscience

I might be spelling conscience wrong. I am gonna go with it for now...

I decided pretty early on that I wanted Gepetto t bear a resemblance to Professor Ochanomizu (sp?) from Astro Boy, a manga also inspired by Pinocchio. In the last few years, to celebrate the longevity of Astro Boy the mangaka Naoki Urasawa created a re-envisioning of Astro Boy called Pluto, and it is this version of the Professor I have so far focused on...

I will not lie, I am not overly fond of these designs. I want to work back in to the design a bit more until I am happier with them.. they just feel a bit... flat? lifeless? boring? Ochanomizu's character is akin to Gepetto's, he cares deeply for Astro... However as I am still tossing ideas about concerning the narrative a more cold, shunning Gepetto may make sense...

Anyway, I was also considering the idea of changing the conscience in to a different animal, perhaps an owl. Owl's are considered wise, after all. A more WILD idea I had was to have Gepetto load his own consciousness in to a robotic owl which would be Pinocchio's guide, of sorts...

pls note, digital monacle ftw

  

New Project - Self Defined - Pinocchio

So, last term of 2nd year is going to be a self-defined project. Neat, huh.

I eventually decided to stroll down the road of Pinocchio, and have begun character designs.

I am still jugglnig what the final outcome will be... it will be one of three things; 1. dozen+ full colour illustrations for a book, 2. A 28+pg b+w comic book, 3. concept art for a theoretical Pinocchio game...

I will explain more about the narrative and style choices as I go on, hopefully my reasons will become clearer as I go...

For this update, enjoy the Disney Pinocchio. I was doodling a little from the DVD front cover, so these are a bit hit'n'miss

third...

seconds out, round two

one down

In Summary...

These will (almost definitely) be the final three images for my covers...

As an interesting side note, each moustach co-incidentally matches with the mood of the relevant book... Kipps (top image) points upwards, ala climbing the social ladder, moving up to new possibilities. Love and Mr Lewisham (middle) is a stable moustach, bushy and large, with a whimsical flick at each end. Tono-Bungay (bottom) is pointing downwards, along with the bloody tears, in a similar fashion to the downward spiral that the characters life takes...

Tono Bungay tweaks

This was definitely the least difficult to tweak after the last bout of edits. Minor adjustment to the breast jacket and how it feathers off at the end... variants are the moustache... and thats it...

I will shortly begin the sleeve finals... I think simplicity really will be the best option here. Hopefully the boldness of each portrait will make up for my lack of graphic's skills : P

Love and Mr Lewisham second tweaks

alrighttttty then, these tweaks are a bit more straightforward, I took the old image (49.jpg, first image in the post), adjusted the torso a bit, moustache variety for the win... and played with the collar, tie and mortar board...

Kipps tweak 3

I keep typing moistache in to photoshop when re-naming layers... Ok, so this is a selection of finals, hopefully all is well... The top (pg60.jpg) image was used as the base for the subsequent image, I just straightened up the torso alignment with the face a few pixels and sharpened the edges a tad...