The Carp is an antique dealer who lives in his shop in the depths of the Oxidized city. His design is actually inspired by both a catfish and a toad. I added a little bit of Art Nouveau, as I wanted to convey an impression of luxury to his character.
I wanted his antique store to look something like a Jules Vernesque boat hold and a lighthouse. With a huge skylight blasting him to expose his blatant vanity.
He is rather greedy and obnoxious. A petty little being, living in an art-driven world, yet focusing his efforts in growing his capital.
I gradually separated from the amphibian/fish look to give him more humanoid features. It seems easy when I put it like this, but truly this is hours of struggles, weird experiments and crushing doubts to reach to this point.
His eyes design were inspired by old gyroscopes.
Quick functional test for the eyes design. A proper animator might have fun with this.
The hat idea started as a joke from my girlfriend to troll my design, but it grew on me, so now he has this ridiculous hat.
I picture him haughtily exhaling a massive amount of smoke from his dual-hookahs. Charming really.
Our Kickstarter campaign just ended, and despite our best efforts, we could not reach our goals.
I would like to thank everyone who contributed and believed in the project. It didn’t pay off this time, but the attention and support that you showed for Distance have been very encouraging for myself and the team.
I am thinking of maybe turning it into a collective project, inviting artists and animators to volunteer to contribute to the film.
I know this is not ideal, not everyone can afford to make art for free, so obviously don't feel obliged. I wish we could all get paid to make those kinds of projects. I really tried, but I won’t be prospecting for money anymore, as this is only bringing me more frustration and siphoning the precious time that I shall be spending on my art.
If you are interested in volunteering to help out on the film, please drop me a message, as I am trying to reckon what potential resources we could have. This will take some management on my end, but it will get us back to our original intent: Making art for its own sake.
In the meantime, as a token of gratitude for all the love you showed for the project, here are concepts and experiments for the Shopkeeper character which appears later in the film.
