Here is a little character concept I created a few years ago. I was doodling on my notepad at work, a common pastime, and drew a little teddy-rabbit character. At the time i was particularly interested in the aesthetic of an old object that had been much loved, coming apart at the seams. I guess this may have been a developed aspect of the scarecrow character I had drawn prior to this. I have always loved old fashioned or home made toys and teddies, where sewing a button onto a missing eye was perfectly effective. The likelihood of this happening in today’s disposable society is very slim, so I wanted to show the character discarded, or outgrown. Here is the first initial doodle (very basic) and then a further elaboration I did of the idea at home. I decided I would try to build the character in 3d as quickly as I could. I modelled a super low poly ‘ButtonEye’, then rigged, animated and composited a test, all in one day. 3d animated pieces often take such a long time. Making a low res version like this allowed me to create it much faster. Although it isn’t a particularly polished piece, it’s good to get an idea up and running before it goes stale, or just remains as a doodle in a notebook somewhere…

…and since revisiting this almost forgotten character, I made a little Sculpey version of him. He’s a little bit skinnier and lankier. He maybe doesn’t look quite like that of the teddy made with baggy material, but was interesting to explore the idea in a new medium.