To the Mac Labs and Beyond!

The next week was my first week in the Mac Labs creating my logo through Adobe software. I was so excited to start. My first step was to create the circular border, colour it, and create the recognisable Toy Story font. Although Illustrator was completely new to me, due to our introduction workshop, I felt quite comfortable with these simple steps.

I was really happy with how accurate my work was in reflection to my sketched designs, as well as the colour's and how they complimented each other and instantly resembled the colours of the film.

The hard part came when I had to create my characters. I tried to copy and paste a picture into Illustrator of the two but it was to artificial, to easy, to simple. I felt no fullfilment out of this and decided to take the long road in creating my own characters. I was advised to turn to Adobe Flash, another foreign programme, to do this. I watched loads of youtube videos, and many tutorials online, as well as sought advice from graphic design students who I knew around campus when I needed help or advice. I additionally did a lot of character research and re-watched the triology in this time, mainly focusing on the bonus features which included a lot of animator art and storyboards. Although it took me a whole week, I finally finished developing my own, personalised Woody!

My Final Design of the beloved Sheriff Woody!

Next was Buzz. Buzz proved far more difficult to create in comparison to Woody. Whereas Woody's character has a ragdoll type feel to it, with stiching, stuffing and felt clothing, Buzz is a 'Space Ranger', a tough guy, made of bolts, hard plastic, and ball-in-socket joints. There was so much more detail to Buzz than there was too Woody. But I got there eventually. Here's how his character developed: