For the few that have Pm'd me about the Kittenization design process I thought I'd post a little laying out the process I follow as some of you are thinking of doing your own CoX-related projects;
Re.Design process;
I spent a long time looking at Caracature and in this case the
superdeformation you see on Japanese vinyl dolls, and sat down and painstakingly worked out 3 poses that would showcase the male, female and huge bodytypes - yet look sufficiently superdeformed and cute to pull off each caracature.
There is probably a mathematical process you could follow to get the features looking superdeformed and cute enough, but to be honest it just came down to me sitting down with a piece of paper and working on a pose, erasing parts of it in frustration then working on it some more until I got the pose right.
Yes, all the Kittenz are based on those three bodyshapes, In the beginning I was going to do just the one bodyshape just like with Marvel Bearz but it soon became apparent that following one pose while trying to get them to look sufficiently uniform kind of made them look a bit bland, well... maybe bland is the wrong word, I wanted each pose to kind have a bit more spirit in it, The Tank AT was archetypal in this, it just didn't look right as something that wasn't huge and hulking (as most tanks are). I appreciate there are some Tanks that are female bodyshape or male or even 'tiny huge' but I felt more than three body shapes would of diluted the whole 'Vinyl toy' idea that these were of a family...a range that belonged together.
In the end I chose the kneeling down pose to bring the Huge Bodytype down to eye-level with the other two bodytypes, that and a raised fist to showcase a weapon if needed.
The female bodytype supports claws if they are needed to be added, the male supports Claws, Guns, Dual Blades and Arachnos Mace size weaponry and the Huge bodytype was designed to support a fire/Ice Sword or Stone Hammer if you imagine a little hole in their vinyl hands you slot the weapon into.
So basically I spent a long time getting three basic poses I thought could represent all, these are printed out as a master template that I put under my drawing pad so I get each Kittenz's dimensions identical to the last - then I trace the Basic universal bodyshape whether it be male,female or huge - once I have that duplicated I look at the character screenshot printout (which is an A4 sheet of them from the front, back, sides and a close up of the head and torso along with any further shots of costume details) - Then its just the caracature process of bring out and emphasising in a Japanese superdeformed style the Iconic parts that really make the character who he or she is.
So each kittenz is hand-drawn from paper up, but share three specially chosen poses as I need them to look as though they are all part of a range.
The Major influences were Marvel Bearz for giving me the idea at Memorabilia 2006, Marvel 3Age vinyl toys for the specialisation of each doll and I think I wandered around many a Chinatown and Japanese quarter looking at and photographing various Superdeformed Vinyl toys for research as well.
My advice to you would be study anatomy drawing books as you have to understand proportions to be able to caracature, personally I found superdeformation very hard - Its almost as if you have to unlearn (or throw out) many things that traditionally look 'right' for the superdeformation to work. All I know is I found it pretty hard, I'm not a naturally fluid Illustrator and spent a fair few evenings tearing my hair out trying to get the poses right and the muscle-anatomy to look right after going through the process of superdeformation.
Caracature is the second thing you need to study, I find this part the easiest and often find myself giggling as your costume design as a kittenz comes to life on the page in pencils (the costume creator system really is a great piece of work
), as I've mentioned before its about emphasising what really makes them 'them' - It just kind of flows from there.
Then its scanning into Photoshop and saving as a jpeg before importing into Adobe Illustrator for the Vector Line-art. I try my hardest to get as far as I can with the vector artwork Illustration including simulating (in a faux fashion) things like texture and reflections, this usually takes me within 80% of the finished Kittenz but there are somethings even Illustrator are best not suited for, so I save as .ai file and Import into Adobe Photoshop in readyness for the next stage.
Each kittenz often has tens of layers as an Illustrator .ai file, comprising a few hundred groups comprising many hundreds of individual objects. All those are then merged into a single layer and imported into Photoshop where they are given the plastic sheen, reflections, further textures and other little embellishments that a Bitmap program specialises in.
Oh and another thing I almost forgot to mention was facial markings. Rather than just make each Kittenz face plain If they are devoid of details or (what gave me the idea in the first place) If a concept toon was clearly from somewhere inparticular region-wise I'd give them the facial fur markings of their breed, whilst taking into account the skin colour in-game as well.
For example;
Zoser (clearly Egyptian themed) - I would go for the facial fur markings and colouring of the 'Egyptian Mau' or even the 'Abyssinian' Breed.
Red Commissar (if he wasn't wearing the helmet) - clearly his kittenz could have the facial fur markings and colouring of the 'Russian Blue'.
The next Kittenz will be a double Issue featuring the Winners of the Supreme SuperBeing Awards and will feature the first Kittenz Villain.
At the end of the year there will be a First year Anniversary picture along the lines of the premiering trilogy post last Christmas. Its going to be weird seeing a years worth of work and a dozen or so Kittenz all condensed in one scene. I'll look at getting them onto products at years end once we have a fair few of you Illustrated.
Anyway, hope thats answered a few questions of your questions regarding the Kittenization process.
Regards,
ML
