Ellis Belong's Character Sheets and Early Concepts
When working with Wheeler Creative Studios I was put in charge of doing the art for their book "Ellis Belongs" a story about a platypus named Ellis who struggles to figure where he fits in the world.
While I did all the art direction this particular post is to show off the characters and the concepting process I went through
This wound up being the final iteration of Ellis, the main character.
As you might notice he's a platypus!
Back in the early design phases Ellis looked more like this, a bit more anthropomorphic.
You might notice these are done in pencil; I personally prefer concepting on paper just to get the idea out there and finalizing my ideas when given the okay.
And these designs wound up being the final set. We decided to go with a more animalistic approach to Ellis' design.
You might recognize that we decided to go with the 1st design in this batch for Ellis' final design.
The Dirawong is the first character that Ellis meets in his story and acts as his guide when he is struggling to find his place to belong.
For those unaware a Dirawong is a mythological creature, and there are very few drawings that depict it. With the references I could find I did concepts that fit more with the depictions I came across.
For the second round of concepts, we went for a more anthropomorphic design.
The pink eared duck is one of the characters Ellis encounters in his journey to find a place to belong.
As you might be able to discern for all but the dirawong the characters have a more animalistic design and a less anthropomorphic design.
The Wallaby is another of the outback creatures that Ellis encounters on his journey.
Designed to be a bit of a ditz and a hoarder he lives in the outback amongst his things to teach Ellis a valuable lesson.
The water dragon is the last individual Ellis meets on his journey through the outback.
The water dragon like many of the other has a primarily more animalistic set of concept designs