Fuzzy Fury Rescue Friends: Character Concept Design

With the Fall Semester here at AAU quickly approaching, I'm finally taking a moment to breathe and reflect on the thesis work that I've created over the summer.  Still miles to go in the coming year, but I'm pleased with the progress I've thus far made.

Here is a collection of scanned pages from my sketchbook as I was developing the characters for my Fuzzy Fury Rescue Friends story.  The idea is that these characters would be CG in a feature length story (in the vein of Pixar, DreamWorks, modern Disney, Blue Sky, etc.).  At Sherrie Sinclair's request, I have abandoned my previous design ideas where the characters were all of similar basic shape with specific animal characteristics attached to each design.  Those designs were done with a 2D project in mind, and apparently simply won't work in a 3D environment where characters have to be rigged to move.  I've drawn a lot of influence from the work of T.S. Sullivant and classic four-legged Disney.  That having been said, I'm definitely not a character designer.  Eagle-eyed visitors may also notice that I replaced the Donkey character with a Rabbit.  This was done in an attempt to make a more visually interesting character lineup.  I'm definitely looking forward to refining these designs and beginning to flesh out the story sequence!