Daniel Arriaga, Tom Gately, Dan Holland, and Daniela Strijleva rounded out the character art team with me, and they all were not only inspiring to be around, but brought so much enegry and creativity to the character design process of the film, that it was just exciting to be around. Lee Unkrich our director was awesome as was our Producer Darla Anderson. I also have to tip my hat to the entire TS3 story team, they really paved the way for us character designers to have a ton of fun and really succeed. I can't remember all their names, but their team really set the tone for the movie, and their creativity and character/story concepts are behind every character you see in the film. They all did a spectacular job.
While I worked on more than you'll see here, I thought I'd post some stuff from the characters that were not only new original characters to the franchise, but ones I had the most influence on. Below is a collection of some of the work I did for the film.
Mr. PRICKLEPANTS
Mr. Pricklepants was one of the first characters I had the chance to work on. When I first came on to the show, I was assigned to begin working out the designs for Bonnie's toys. Pricklepants being the esteemed actor and thespian that he was, he was hilarious from day one and he definitely stole the show in the story boards which made my job as a designer pretty easy. As far as his design goes, I thought of him as sort of a stocky little bean bag toy you might find in an airport or something. Below are a few other sketches I did while exploring his bean bag/gum drop shape, style, and outfits.
BUTTERCUP
Buttercup is another one of Bonnie's toys. Most of the work that went into Buttercups design was to try and make him the cutest little unicorn the universe had ever seen. One thing I thought that was really helpful in working out his design was referencing pictures of real horses to see how they moved. And using that reference to help figure out how much of that natural movement would translate into the movement of a little plush horse. Below you can see some of those sketches I did to help figure out his movement and shape.
I included the sketch below as it was the first sketch I ever did of Buttercup, at one point we thought he might have long flowing hair.
DOLLY
Dolly is another one of Bonnie's toys, and from the first time I started designing on here, Lee always thought of here has a flat little home-made looking doll, so that's where we started. In the early stages she looked as she is above. I wanted her to be the perfect definition of a cute little girl, so I referenced pictures of my wife when she was little (as she was seriously the cutest little girl their ever was) and put a lot of her into my design. I always thought of her as having cute little pattern dresses and her hair parted to one side with stylized little bangs and maybe a bow or bumble bee hair clip. Below are a few more variations I did on working out differences in her hair style and dress patterns and colors.
CHUCKLES
Chuckles was another character that really stole the show in the story boards. The artist who boarded him, really nailed the "worn out clown toy" look, so I just followed his lead and tried not to screw up his concept. Chuckles was a blast to work on, because in the film he's so broken, so down, and the fact that he's a clown just always came across as so dark to me and I couldn't help but fall in love with his character. Below are a few sketches I did on his movement, which should really just be called a "waddle." And a few other early concepts of his look.
One thing that was particularly challenging about working on him, as were a few of the other bad guys was, these toys weren't made to look evil, creepy, or mean, so we had to design them with the concept that they were made to look cute and fun as you would buy them in the store, but could have the proper look that could give them the dark edge they would need as characters.
THE ROBOT
The Robot was a character that was originally in Bonnie's group, but didn't end up making the cut. I worked on him for a while, and the concept behind his design was that he was a cute little battery operated learning robot. Below are a few other takes I had on him.
OTHER BONNIES TOYS CONCEPTS
For a while, we played with the thought that Bonnie might either be making some of her own toys, or simply just have some hand made toys. These were particularly fun to work on as I just had a blast drawing a whole bunch of funny little hand made characters. I thought it might be particularly fun to play up their hand made feel by making them noticeably un-even in their design which I also thought played up their charm and silliness.
We also played with concepts of her having toys that were possibly shaped as veggies, fruits, or deserts.
Two characters I pined for were the tooth and the Popsicle. I thought of the Tooth as maybe something she got from her first visit to the dentist and the Popsicle just a funny little hand made craft guy made of felt and Popsicle sticks. To me they seemed like the perfect odd couple, the Tooth disliking the Popsicle for his carelessness when it came to health and sweets and all things responsible, and the Popsicle just being the sweet life of the party with not a care in the world.
Below are a few other quick sketches of hand made/craft toys Bonnie may have either made or just had lying around.
STRETCH
Stretch was one of the first characters I worked on in Lotso's Gang. It was fun to get to design a bad guy for a change, and it was also fun because his design evolved for a little while thought the process of finding out what type of character he would be. I originally thought it would be funny if he was some sort of water toy 9 thus the silly little sailor hat above ) but we ended up ditching that, and pushing him to a creepier design as seen below.
below are a few other sketches and passes at different variations of his face both happy and mean.
THE LIBRARIAN
Below are some sketches I did as we were trying to figure out what type of light up worm would he be. I have a painted final design and quick sculpt I did which I'll post tomorrow once I find them. But for now you can see the beginning part of the process with him.
THE "METAL HEAD" GARBAGE MAN
I didn't really get a chance to work on any of the humans in the film, except for the bad ass head banging garbage guy. Not too much work went into his design process, we tried to keep him pretty generic, but accessorize him with everything a metal head would need to be jamming out while picking up the trash. For a short assignment, I had a fun time sketching him in his head banging ways.
ANDY'S ROOM GRAPHICS
One of my first assignments on the film was to begin to develop some stickers / posters that teenage Andy might have in his room. Not sure if any of these made it into the final design of his room, but none the less, I had fun making some skateboarding stickers and graphics so I thought I'd share a few.
