Granny Character - Body Designs

i have thought about the characters some more and have come to a conclusion that for the story that i'm going for - a child (or young) character would be quite 'safe' or obvious choice. so i have been brain storming more ideas and have come up with some older characters (mainly female) which i think would be funnier and more intriguing for the story.

After i have done some character designing for granny i particularly liked the two that have been selected on the page below. to these two heads i have been designing some bodies that would suit the head. 

Here are some examples of what I've done.

the reason why i have chosen two designs and not one is because i like them both and they are both a complete opposite of one another. one is quite innocent and happy and quirky(left) and the other is very serious and agitated/angry.

I don't know which one exactly i am going to go for but according to my pitch idea the character is supposed to be happy or more peaceful perhaps and then as story progresses the character will get outraged, feisty and ready to fight.

COLOUR AND STYLE

I have started thinking about colour and style. below you will see some of the colour and style tests that i have done using the character designs from the image above.

Style - very paint-y and quite flat at times

Try-out 1:

I have had some time away from the painting and when i came back to it i have realised a very important point. this is a great style but it is way too complicated for an animation that i have in mind. taking into consideration everything else that will have to be done it will be pretty much impossible to main the animation throughout in this time in the amount of time that we will have. i will have to revisit it later and see what i can do about simplifying it.

this is the end result with all the different styles together on one page where it's easy to compare and choose. i like the one in the top left corner probably the most, although the one below and to the right of it (in yellow dress) looks quite appealing as well, very interesting character on its own.

(the research and the references for the styles that im adapting/imitating i have posted in a previous post)

(if you are wandering what the story is i haven't posted my idea anywhere on the blog yet and probably wont until much much later in the year. but keep an eye out for more designs and development as you might even guess or 'read' the story if you follow the development closely)