thesabs
patreon
Captain Turtledove Breakdown
🕑 Added 2024-06-20 04:42:18 +0000 UTCAlright folks, let's start from the beginning and talk about the initial inspiration for this series, and the main inspiration was pirate movies from my childhood, more specifically, the poster from said movies:
Many of these movies had beautiful hand draw posters that were full of color and personality, just looking at them gives a sense of fun and adventure, there's quite a bit of nostalgia at play for sure, but I do think these posters and covers add something extra to the movies.
I initially thought of doing the color pic as full-blown posters, with fake credits and all, but in the end I decided it would take away too much space from the drawings, so instead kept only the "logo", and tried to make it in the same style as the posters
The Logo itself did go through some revision, I didn't get it right on the first try, despite the style being kinda simple, it does have a sense of action, adventure, and playfulness that's hard to pin down, but I think it worked out in the end ^^
Also, for my Brazillian friends, the name "Captain Turtledove" is a small hidden joke, the word "Turtledove" translated to Portuguese is slang for the male genital, which I think it kinda funny given the content 😅
Regarding the character's visual design, my main inspiration was the work of one of my favorite artists, Arne Niklas Jansson. For this character in particular I wanted to try and push the proportions to a more "cartoon" style, with very round and expressive shapes, and small hands and feet, almost "chibi-like", here are some drawings from Arne that perfectly show the style I was trying capture:
Of course, I wasn't trying to copy the style 100%, while I love the proportions and expressiveness of this style, I also like to keep the anatomy somewhat grounded, and I also love sculpting forms and facial expressions, so the simplified facial anatomy wouldn't work for me, in the end I think I found a middle ground that works well, would be fun to do it again later and maybe refine this style until I find a more personal take on it ^^
One of the most fun parts of this character was designing his costume, the hat, in particular, required a few tries to get right, my first idea was to use a more "sleek" hat with a wide brim to create a more feminine shape, it didn't work as it loses too much of the "roundness" of the shape and breaks the "cute" vibe I was aiming for, the second idea was to use a bandana, that didn't work either for the same reason as before.
in the end I decided on a large hat with a folded brim, it creates a nice round shape at the front, and the feathers break up the "pointiness" of the back, and I think it works particularly well with short hair, as it maintains and reinforces the whole round triangle created by the hat, while still showing the neck and separating shape of the head from the body, creating a nice silhouette.
The rest of the costume is a mix of a bunch of different references, you can see them all below:
As for the other inspirations, the Jade King was kinda tricky, you see, many of these pirate movies have this trope of showing black people in the role of "savage tribesman" or something "exotic", and I didn't want to fall for this kind of thing, so while this is a fictional character and he doesn't represent any particular people, I did try to give him a regal air, and an expression of kindness and intelligence, this is a goal I hope I have achieved.
With the mermaids, I'm personally not a big fan of mermaids that look too much like regular humans, I think that the concept is perfect for some creature design, and it is a great opportunity to come up with characters that look pretty yet a little strange, lots of room for fun exploration! for these mermaids, my main inspirations were the works of Clarisse Magand (center) and Victor Titov (right), I wanted them to feel soft, warm, and a little sticky, for that I kept their shadows warm with reds and pinks, and made their skin purple, a perfect color for when you want something that should be cold to feel warm.
And that's gonna be it for this breakdown my friends! hope you found something interesting here, thanks a lot for your support and patience my friends ^^
Cheers!
Comments
The sabu
Thanks a lot for the kind comment Tahldon, I'm really glad you like our little captain ^^
Tahldon
This was incredibly insightful, Sabu, thanks a ton! It really is fun to see the references for these scenes and to read your thoughts around how you concepted the design and some of the influences for the scenes. Generally, I'm not one for mermaids at all because of the half human nature of them as typically depicted, but yours were interesting because they seemed more marine-based than just ladies with fish bottoms. Additionally, the Jade King one was my favorite, I really did enjoy how you depicted him and Turtledove together. So you achieved what you were trying successfully! Great work as always, these were incredibly fun. The details of the title card and hat were awesome!
The sabu
thank you Shae! glad you found it an interesting read ^^
Shae Guerin
Good to read this! Yes, I think you got the hat just right. Clean lines, big smiles, and brilliant costuming, love it all!
