the first step of the sketchbook

and after all the paper work the fun bit.
my first idea was to make a narrative about creatures similar to the forest spirits from Studio Ghibli's princess Mononoke. these little characters have always fascinated me ever since i first watched the film as a young teen on film 4, in a way they really sparked my love of anime and animation in general. the concept was somewhat short lives as i developed my idea but more on that later.
these are my original designs for this narrative and shows my thought process and development.
to start the idea was already pretty well formed but i knew that the eye design was the most important thing to me, as we can see i this screen grab from princess mononoke, the spirits don't have corporal form or really distinguishable features, i wanted  my characters to be more identifiable by something and i thought unique eye design was the most important feature for this.

picture form princess mononoke 

this is the first stage of my concept development, getting a general idea of the plot via spider diagram  

p1

then i get to start drawing...finally