Sunday, December 20, 2009

Adventures in 3-D

Dear Readers,

You may remember that a few months ago, I mentioned my attempts to see one of my characters in The Third Dimension:


You may be surprised, therefore, that I decided to attempt it again! One of the perks of working at the children's museum, besides getting to hang out with kids all day, is occasionally getting to hang out in the clay studio all day. I've really been thinking a lot about my musical-themed book and have been trying to get to know my characters better. It turns out that modeling them in 3-D really helped! I think the process lulled me into a trance of sorts, where I was free to imagine and explore the characters better. Trying to figure out just how Ladybug's hair would fall gave me new insights into her fastidiousness...


And likewise into Fly's rambunctiousness (also, I think she's a girl now?) Not that these models are perfect, or even what I eventually want to characters to look like... it was just a nice process to think about them in a different way.


And since I had some extra time on my hands:



I hope to use this little piggy statue more as a drawing model. He's the star of my next book, and revisions are due soon!



And, just a kid that I made up. Again, I'm trying to understand kids' anatomy better, and modeling really seems to help in that respect, too.