2. DESIGN PACKAGE
Now that the idea has been set in stone (more or less), the fun part really starts - taking out the paper and pencil and just doodling whatever comes to mind. Maybe that's not entirely accurate, because I already had a strong sense of the kind of "look" I wanted. For example, I knew I wanted the main character (the "Traveller") to be an older woman, the sort of age that communicated that she was probably a mother. I also was fairly set on the fact that she would wear a long sort of robe or cloak, because I knew that the wind would play a major aesthetic role and would provide a lot of interesting opportunities for compositional framing.Click on the images below to expand them.
Initial concepts for the Traveller
Model sketches of the Traveller
This was also the point I started conceptualizing the setting and feeling of the story. More than a specific environment, I wanted to lay out the colors I would use and the sense of "smallness" I wanted to show, the fact that the Traveller was alone in a vast, inhospitable land.
In addition, I always knew that I didn't want to go for a "realistic" look - partially because I didn't want to fall victim to the uncanny valley, and partially because I felt I would have more room for invention and creative interpretation.
