This project was very unique to work on, as the 1930's cartoon aesthetic is one that I am very fond of. The requirements were to create 6 original ideas for a set of stickers, and I wanted to really make these designs something that I'm proud of so I took a lot of time and effort into putting as much personality and spirit into these characters as I could.

The main objective that I am achieving with these cartoon characters is to show that things in our everyday ordinary lives could take on a spirit and soul in the animation world. The objects/things that I decided to portray are a worm, a cat, a paintbrush, a camera, an oven and a cow. Using different characteristics of these "normal" things, I created versions of them that could hold their own in a fight! Portraying these normal everyday things as something unique gives a message that even when you feel like everybody else and there's nothing special about you, just remember that you have your own unique spirit that makes you, you.

At the beginning of the project I had some ideas of what I wanted to create but immediately ran into a huge roadblock - how in the world was I going to give ordinary everyday things personalities of their own? I thought of what personality a pencil would have, or a cat, or even a paintbrush. Well a cat is a pretty mischievous animal right? Well let's exaggerate that part of the animal. A paintbrush is a very artsy object, so maybe I could put a big ribbon on it and give it childlike eyes. A camera is a common thing on film sets, and directors are some of the craziest people (in a good way) that I've ever met! So why not put a director's hat on the camera and make him a zany character? I went through this thought process with each of the characters to give them a unique personality that you will see in this project.

Sketching these cartoon characters was a challenge and a half. Given the amount of sketches required, it quickly dawned on me how extensive this project was going to be for me. Giving each of these ideas a fighting spirit was going to require a lot of creativity - especially in the way that these things would fight if they could. Some of them were easy, for the oven - I could have it shoot flames out of it's mouth! But I had special difficulty with the cow, which I decided to turn into a minotaur and give him a "gym bro" look, but if you look closely, you'll see that he skipped leg day. With each of the character, they had to have a weapon to use in a fight so I came up with things relating to that item that they would use as their weapon.

I loved this stage but dang it was hard. This is my first time using illustrator extensively and learning all the shortcuts and the methods for creating graphics was a challenge. A lot of ideas came out in this stage, so the sketch drafts are very different from what happened when I got into illustrator. Here the processes that I went through for each of the designs.

Director Snaps was my first and original idea for these characters, and he's definitely one of my favorites out of the bunch. At first I was going to give him hands and legs but decided against it because I wanted to fit his personality a bit more. I wanted him to be a short and menacing character so I decided for more of a "tank-like" design for him, or even the AT-ST walkers from star wars. Initially I was going to have white gloves but ultimately ended up with boots for him. I also gave him different strokes throughout to emphasize his expression and his cartoony vibe overall!

This one was so fun to work on, as initially I had sketched him as a brute and insane character, but when I created his head shape in the first vector draft I decided to go with a sea captain look for him instead. While most of the other characters in the set have very expressive mouths, I decided to cover his mouth with a mustache and make him look more like a royal and loyal captain instead of a savage with a hook. His story is that he was used as bait by a fisherman, he then defeated the fisherman and stole his hook to use as his own personal and unique weapon.

Serendipity Sphinx was an incredibly fun character to work on because it really tested my skills in illustrator. I wanted the embodiment of mischievous so a cat was naturally the perfect candidate for it! But combining a soft cat's body with the rigid face of a sphinx was a challenge for sure, so I mixed rigid elements with the body and softer elements into the face. For example, I have a very goofy nose on the head, which contradicts the rigid shape of the headdress drastically, and I have rigid lines for the legs which contrasts the soft and chubby body of the cat. I also wanted to have a gold look to the headdress and the solution I found was to add highlight streaks on all the parts meant to look like gold.

Olimar Ovens as a vector graphic is very different from his sketch counterpart. I felt as if the trope with arms and legs on objects may have been too prevalent in my ideas so I decided on a simpler version of Olimar who uses the heat inside as a primary source of his power. The first design of the vector graphic is pretty much the one I used, while changing small features to make him have a bit more presence. I gave him thicker lines, I adjusted the flames inside to make them more vertical and less bendy like in the first iteration, and connected loose ends to make him flow better.

Max Minotaur was the character that went through the most drastic changes in his development. He started as a sketch as a hunky bodybuilder with hooves for hands, then transitioned into a tough chubby kid, then grew into a teenager who had super scrawny legs, then eventually into the image that I ultimately wanted. This is also the character that I had the most feedback on so I could improve him this much. Also, this is the character that I started practicing shading on, so I had to go back and redo all of the shading so it would look better after learning how to shade better.

Priscilla is the only girl of the bunch and so I wanted to make her as feminine as possible. I also wanted her to look tough while still having that cutesy look to her. By far the most difficult part about Priscilla is the wood grain design that her body has. I went on a rabbit hole trying to find the best way to do this and ended up using some very unique tools in the process! I also made her pupils much larger in comparison to the other characters to give her the young and excited look.

I got a lot of great feedback on this project and it really helped me get these designs to what you see above. Here is some of the feedback that I got on my designs and what I did to improve them.

Feedback: Director Snap's hands look awkward and that one looks like it is facing upwards.

Change made: I tried out different methods for the hands, realized that I wasn't at the skill level for this yet and decided to pour some time into making his arms into legs and changing his hands into feet so I could put some stylish shoes on him.

Feedback: Max Minotaur's abs looked odd, needed something more.

Changes I made: I decided to put a tanktop on him instead which actually made him look stronger.

Feedback: The fire in Olimar Ovens isn't realistic enough.

Changes I made: I made the fire more vertical to fit the critique better.

Feedback: The stroke needs to be thicker to give the cartoony look.

Changes I made: I made a lot of the strokes thicker on the characters, especially Olimar Ovens. I thickened the strokes throughout to give them a more cartoony feel.

The characters fit into the objective in several ways. My objective was to give life to normal everyday things and these different characters are based off of normal things that people see daily. Things like a camera, a paintbrush, a cat, a cow, an oven, and a worm are all things we are very familiar with and this project sheds a new light on them showing what they would be like as warriors in the cartoon world.

Thank you for looking at my work and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed making them! - River Pinhey