Toy Story Character Research

I have given my synopsis to a number of different people and gained some ideas of how to change my synopsis.  From this I have decided on a title name, and how I need to make some changes. I have also decided to do some character research on the Toy Story films as it was compared to my idea twice in my market research.  Hopefully from this I will be able to gain some ideas for when I am drawing my characters.

The Toy Story Films – Character Research

The Toy Story films were a series of animated films produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It’s about a group of Toys all living in a young Childs room, that pretend to be inanimate when the boy is around but come to life the moment they are alone. The film was very funny, and had a range of characters that the audience sympathized with, especially the main character Woody. I remember really enjoying it as a child, and it was very popular throughout the series. I’m going to look at some of the characters I think are most similar to my character ideas so I can gain an idea of what my final drawing might look like.


Hamm – 

-          Big head and Body

-          Small eyes and eyebrows used for expression

-          Short legs

-          Snout and slightly rosy cheeks

-          Very simplistic shapes

Mr & Mrs Potato Head -

-          Big eyes, small pupils

-          Short legs, quite big steps

-          Big Body

-          Bold contrasting colours

-          Simple big shapes

Lenny - 

-          Big eyes, takes up whole body

-          Big pupils

-          Short legs, waddles

-          Bright Colours, big contrast

-          Doesn’t talk, makes squeaking noises

I chose these three characters to look at because they are the most similar to my character in the sense that they are not the shape of a human, they are all inanimate objects with facial features. There are a few things that seem to be a theme through all of them.

They all have large eyes, I think this helps to make the character seem cute and cartoon like to the audience. Most of them have a rounded body, or simple shapes, with very small legs and they kind of waddle. I think this movement would be good to have in my animation but I need to think about how I would do it. They also all are bright colours that contrast quite well. I think this is because they are toys and most toys are bright colours, but I would like to use kind of unrealistic colours on my cup, as the colours of a coffee cup are kind of plain. I do want my animation to be fun and cartoon like without being too unrealistic.