Style n. 5

Thank you all for helping with these.
I have a few more ideas to explore and just to give you a fair warning they will be even weirder.

Some of you requested for more regular proportion. Actually I have a feeling that these drawings seem off because we are used to the regular Castalia and compared with the other style these are less realistic. Ha ha ha Okay, we need to switch mindset a bit... think of this special as if... meant for Cartoon Network instead. Alright... one, two, three... done!

 Truth be told I expressed the wish to do this special using a cartoon style for a reason: I come from the animation industry and at times I seriously miss it (not the stress but the creative process). So when you think of cartoons you have to think about: Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, Fairly Odd parents - but with a bit of fashion in it (inspired by toy makers or illustrators such as Tim Biskup or even Mike Mitchell).

The reason why I want to move away for just two or three pages is that every now and then I need to move back to concept design and refresh my head. I have been doing the other style for two years and at a very high speed - the speed I use for storyboard. I want to slow down a bit and produce something more on the "production" level.

Realistic is more popular and common in Comics but I do wonder why can't we try a bit of a cross over every now and then? It should be fun! So when it comes to animation proportions must be pushed around because regular proportions are a bit constraining and by most considered... well boring.
So here come the big eyes, the long arms or the long legs (think of Dee dee from Dexter's Lab) or sharper/flat shapes like Samurai Jack.

 The big eyes help expressing emotion, a character with big eyes can express emotions - such as fear or surprise or happiness - in a much stronger and direct way (in case you were wondering why manga/anime characters have big eyes is because, back in the days, Osamu Tezuka was inspired by Disney and Ub Iwerk's works and noticed that characters with wider eyes were more expressive - it evolved from there). The longer limbs allow the character to strike stronger poses in very interesting silhouettes, which helps creating interesting design within the composition of the shot.

In my case would be the panel. This short special will be somewhat about Castalia's being somebody else's nightmare... because she is bad-ass, feisty and a fierce little kitty. She is going to pick a fight with another female warrior and will trash her big time hahaha but it will be in a funny way. I am going to make fun of some famous tropes / some people might hate me for it hahaha... If you noticed, in the regular series when I need to have comical relief I already push the characters into simple super deformed, mostly facial expression driven/featureless creatures. I do it a lot with Cassandra (even within the current special, where she is going shallala mode - and I did it with the episode of her stealing the lemon and then turning into the sleepy head monster).

Some things cannot quite work in realistic style, that's why they need to be simplified and cartoony (you can have squash and stretch and other fundamental principles of animation). If I did the project in the regular style or with character with normal proportions there's a risk that it might be taken seriously, but I want it to be super slapstick and exaggerated instead, something out of a dream / for us / a nightmare for the other female warrior.

So I hope the next style won't freak you out too much. They are not really that freaky when you look at them individually, they only seem weird when compared to the regular style