I initially included a speech bubble of the crow singing to make that element of the story clearer. I ultimate decided to get rid of it as it really wasn’t necessary, and it was clear enough already with the visuals alone. I showed the bad singing of the crow through the wonky musical note.

I decided to create the picture in black and white. I feel this worked well with the crow, the cheese and the tree. They are well defined, and the cheese is a focal point. I used 0.4 fine liners for the line work. I used this because it would allow me to create very clean and precise line art that would lend itself well to the cartoony style. I did do some brushwork on the tree to create some varying line weights. With the design of the Fox I wanted to capture the cunning and malicious eyes foxes have. But with the crow I wanted its eyes to be vacant and expressionless, this would fit the dopey character.

Although I am happy with the Fox’s character design, I am not quite as happy with the overall image – it is not as eye catching as the crow. However, I like his expression and the look of anticipation on his face.

I decided to do the image in back and white, using a range of grey toned alcohol based markers. This would allow me to use blending techniques to create more realistic shading.

Disney foxes

Fox McCloud- Star Fox

Fox McCloud- Star Fox

The Fox and The Crow

I decided to choose this short story as I thought it lent itself to a frozen moment as there is one crucial moment in the story. The frozen moment I chose is when the crow drops the cheese when he opens his mouth to sing. I felt that there were very strong emotions that could be illustrated – the look of  anticipation and victory on the fox’s face, a the look of horrible realisation on the crow’s face or the opposite – the complete lack of understanding that he has been tricked. It is also not a static image – the cheese is dropping, the crow is opening his mouth and the fox is preparing to eat.

Therefore, I felt that it was very important to capture the right expressions. I looked at manga, where exaggerated facial expressions are a key part of the style. With regards to the style, I knew I wanted a very animated style. I thought this would be the best way to create strong character designs that would carry a lot of expression and effectively tell the story: expressions like the sneaky malicious nature of the fox, and the dopey naive expression of the Crow.

As I was creating a single image, it had to be interesting and hold the viewer’s attention. However, it needed to be clear and convey the frozen moment. I decided to make it an upshot, alongside the tree. I thought the most important element was the cheese falling and the expression of the fox. To emphasize the cheese, I knew that I couldn’t have it be drawn in front of anything or I would risk it being lost in the image, so I decided I would have to frame it around the fox and the tree to have it be against the sky where it would stand out. A benefit of using an up shot is there will be no ground in the image. It would just be the key elements shown. To make the other important part of the image clear, being the fox, I decided to have the fox be in the foreground. This would make the character larger and create a strong focal point to the image.

I wanted to show the sense of movement, and did this not just through the drawing of the cheese, but also the leaves falling nearby.