I first started with defining my turtle’s personality. I originally imagined her talking like a child with a southern accent. I was a little worried that what I came up with was stereotyping too much and maybe cliche. Then I started thinking more about what I had already decided about my character that made him comedic. He’s a baby so he’s ill-equipped to take on a shark. He’s ironically confident and seemingly delusional. This made me think of Henery Hawk from Looney Tunes. And for some reason it made me start imagining his dialog in a Joe Pesci-type voice.
I looked at designs of Henery Hawk. For a place to start, I decided to try taking the essence of some of his expressions and putting it on a turtle. No matter how many different ways I tried spacing the eyes apart I always came back to closer together like Henery Hawk. It just felt right. The further apart they got the more he looked “normal” or “dopey.” Here are some of my brainstorming sketches for expressions:
I also brainstormed a bit on body proportions. I like to start with silhouettes and basic shapes and these are where I ended up.
I then began sketching his body.
I then took a closer look at sea turtle reference vs land turtles and made some adjustments to the shell and proportions.
I then asked for feedback from some friends and the main note was that people immediately thought of the baby sea turtles in Finding Nemo. Though when you put the two images side-by-side they are definitely different.
I played with the proportions more and landed on these:
To help push his design further away from Finding Nemo, and to make him “pop” in the underwater environment, I chose to make him an orange/red color like some actual orange/red sea turtles out there.
Next week I’ll go over my shark designs.
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