Week 5 Thumbelina's Mother

Having spent a few weeks on my Thumbelina design I was pretty eager to begin a new character, and Thumbelina's mother seemed like a good choice. Looking at the book Thumbelina's mother isn't described in detail, so I had free reign over her design. Her age is not specified, though she can not have children which could be due to age, though she could simply have no husband.

I can tell that she truly cared for tiny because there are descriptions of the small items she crafted for Thumbelina,  in addition to clothes for Thumbelina to wear. "A walnut-shell, elegantly polished......her bed was formed of blue violet-leaves, with a rose-leaf for a counterpane.......during the day she amused herself on a table, where the woman had placed a plateful of water. Round this plate were wreaths of flowers with their stems in the water, and upon it floated a large tulip-leaf, which served Tiny for a boat."  I wanted to convey that Thumbelina's mother is a kind and warm woman who lives a simple life. A seamstress and a gardener she spends most of her time looking after Thumbelina and keeping her out of harms way.

I was inspired by a few key images to base this character off of. They are all  European paintings produced in the era that this was written.

The Seamstress, Charles-Amable Lenior

View from the Loft of the Grain Store at the Bakery in the Citadel of Copernhagen, Christen Kokbe

The Flower Girl, Hans Zatzka

Then I began designing starting with quick sketches and becoming more refined as I went on

initial body sketches

initial face designs

chosen face with variations on the hair

clothing sketches, I chose the dress on the far right for my final design

At this point I moved onto colour pallets. I'd always imagined the mother character being predominately pink like my initial inspiration. but I also tried a few colour schemes based off of Mrs Banks from Mary Popins, as a tutor remarked that my character reminded me of her. This turned out very well and the blue colour scheme came a close second to the pink.

Colour variations

line art and flat colour pass

I will come back to render these flat colours at a later date, as for now I plan to move on to new characters.