Shape Theory is good for you.

After reading about the comforting shapes in Tangled's visual development I decided to experiment with some shapes in my designs.

One of the processes used in the Tangled design process was this idea of taking a basic, lovely, safe shape, and realising it as a prop.

So here I wanted to find some comforting shapes for my Fundevogel adaptation, and made a sort of marshmallow-esque shape to begin with, and rendered it as a tree. ta-da.

I really like the look of the first tree and similar to some of the designs from Tangled, it's very short and safe. This shape would look out of place in a threatening forest. Basically this makes it look like a nice part of the woods to be in.

Anyway, in accordance with the visual resonance theme I'm interested in, I decided to take this shape over to the character design of Lina - the only character I was yet to render in detail. The perfect candidate.

A sepia Lina, because I'm not happy with the colours yet. Also, I got carried away with the eyes.

Like Fundevogel, Lina has always lived in the forest, and so, I figured I'd use a tree to harmonise her with the world. Also...

In Arabic "Lina" (لينة) refers to a small, young palm tree. It means "tender" or "tenderness". (Wikipedia)

So that also helped influence her design.

This use of shape I feel is starting to create a nice separation between good and evil characters. It would be interesting to find out just how much of a distinction this could create between locations.

In Chris Solarski's book "Drawing Basics and Video Game Art", Solarsi discusses the use of harmonising shapes to convey a safe or dangerous environment within compositions.

The black shape is the character. The green is the environment. 

I think this is going to be a huge influence on my upcoming scenario concept pieces. Harnessing this theory/technique to demonstrate the mood of locations within the story of Fundevogel, and in tandem with resonating characters could work well to illustrate a "good" character in a "bad" environment, and use this contrast to highlight the tention or atmosphere therein.