Posted

Jun 23rd 2008

Mood

Bitter

So I resume my look into the world of Pepper & Co.

In the previous entry, I had pondered about the removal of some characters in the universe. There have been some candidates, a few more likely than others. Out of the whole bunch, the most likely that were to go are the martial arts duo Bosley and Kenro, Uncle Mittens, and Leroy and Bosco. The rest, to me, seem somewhat indisposable, although Rhonda Roo, Sir Humphrey and Aunt Linty were close to removal.

Looking into Bosley and Kenro, the most use I could have for them is that bit of randomness. In a scene of recent imagining, during a transition of a plot, you suddenly see the two fighting each other in impressive fighting style. Then they freeze as Pepper and company walk by to say hi, and greet back. After the communication is complete, they resume their fight until the focus is brought back to Pepper and his friends. Not only that, but the plot of the two's liking to Rhonda Roo can also work for a quick laugh. Because of this, I'm thinking of letting them stay.

Uncle Mittens, on the other hand, I've had very little use of since culmination, and the same is true of his Southern fox friends, Leroy and Bosco. It might have been a cute idea at the time, I suppose, but I don't see much personally that they could be used for. And the idea developed for their circumstances is, well... odd. So regrettably, I may have to let them go.

I'm down three, and I don't think there's much else to toss out, it seems. Not even Bugle the Penguin.

I suppose the next issue in question is one I've often gotten with many of my Pepper & Co. style pictures, be they the characters themselves or other folks' characters in the same style...what I've been referring to as the "Peppered" style. It becomes irritating when everyone seems to associate the characters to "Rayman," the video game character, because of their "floating" limbs. Also, there was some conflict earlier in the year with an artist names Jaggers on FurAffinity because his characters seemed very similar in style to my own, and that caused a mess.

Do I need to think of a new design for these characters?

Initially the initial foursome of Pepper & Co. were designed more like the true animals. But some conflicts arose because of the relative inflexibility of their animal builds, not to mention the at-the-time new character Azuzu and the complicated process of making him look right in that style.

It was at that point that I experimented in a design style based upon a simplistic look I've seen from Legendary Frog, a flash animator. Very much present in "The Matrix Still Has You," this "detached" simple look of characters inspired me to try something similar, just in case I were to make a Flash animation of Pepper & Co. in the future. Adding more details to the characters than what Legendary Frog did for the Matrix cast, I eventually came up with an early design of this new "detached" style.

After that, the characters were tweaked and the faces were capable of better expression. It was around this time that the foursome's personalities were starting to take shape, and from there the first publically viewable pictures of Pepper & Co. were shown...

Since then, small tweaks to the design were made. Body sizes were altered, the shapes of paws and feet were modified, and the foursome had obtained unique "icons" for themselves (Pepper, of course, had the icon shared by the "Malamtie Ltd." logo). But the concept of the detached limbs was still there, and there seemed to be no turning back.

But considering the previously mentioned situations resulting from this style, perhaps I should be trying something else.

I have dabbled slightly in making some the characters properly amthropomorphic, but I think something is lost in that process. They aren't as cute.

The other possibility is to graduate to something even simpler and mroe abstract. There are icons for the four of them; perhaps it's best to use the symbols as the characters themselves. It wouldn't be the first time...

And yet once again, something is lost. I think it's possible to create some expression on the icons, but it still isn't quite the same.

Maybe I'm missing out on something.

--Malamite Ltd.
"You has looks?"