There were several elements between the options from that last round that we pieced together to create the tall version, but we loved the shorter version too. So I made these hybrids and that's where we found her.
But let's rewind to my first round ideas. Initially I took a lot of influence from guitars to create her round body and long legs. Then I looked to my own grandmother's stature for her shorter versions. I thought it might help her connect with Thelma if she's the same size.
The moment we really found the character was when I worked on Vic's iconic smile. His grotesque teeth from some of my early concepts served as the inspiration for this take. I still remember the horrified laughs on the call after I posted this. A star was born.
I even designed monograms and logos for him, without being asked. He seemed arrogant enough to want to wear his own jewelry. And of course it was funny that his initials were VD so I had to take advantage of that.
But of course we knew we'd struck gold with that first one so we returned to him and played with some outfits, but we never really topped that initial jumpsuit. I did love the driving gloves and the yellow vest look though.
I'll wrap up this thread with a quick expression sheet. Thanks for following along. I'll be back to share everyone's favorite, Vic Diamond tomorrow. In the meantime, go watch Thelma the Unicorn on Netflix!
Some more Thelma exploration. The anatomy sketches were in response to notes from THE James Baxter.
But before we got there, these were a few of my first concepts. It was a wide open search for the language of the film and what Thelma's personality would feel like. It was kind of tricky to create a design that would suit her two identities.
I can't shake the feeling that I'm just surrounded on all sides by AI and I'm losing all patience to bite my tongue and make polite arguments to keep the peace in mixed company. That's how we allow it to spread. Let's make these bros feel bad because they should feel bad.