A friend yesterday brought up that the style of my book so far was looking similar to that of the gruffalo. So I asked another friend whether it was too similar. We discussed similarities in other mediums too such as comic book characters having similar costumes, illustrators styles resembling others etc but eventually decided that if I was too worried about it, then I should tweak my character designs and perhaps even consider making the world more fantastical. Now realistically, it's the textured colouring that is making this a similar style to the gruffalo, but the creatures do share other traits in common with that design too such as two horns, exposed teeth, yellow eyes and sharp claws. None of this would be a problem if it wasn't going into the design of a character that shares the same genre as the bloody gruffalo.With that in mind, I did some character tweaking to try and make it more reptilian and leave behind the *monster* angle.
I've posted this to my facebook page for feedback so I'll be waiting for a little while before deciding anything. Although I've pretty much already decided on the elements that I like from these designs. I'm thinking that the tongue hanging out is a good indicator of the takers being reptiles. The soft spines replacing horns are good for the child too, whereas the adults can have sharper spines. I like the lighter coloured belly, it goes back to my original thoughts on the takers resembling bipedal crocodiles. I think I can get away with keeping the huge ears. Oh also, since we are going fully reptilian now, the other takers can have a variety of features like these too. For example, the chin spines of number 10 will look great on the adult male takers because it resembles a beard. So based on my own preferences, it looks as though the protagonist is going to be a mix of 2 and 7 at this point.
On a side note, if I DO make the world more fantastical, then I'm instantly leaning towards volcanoes and shit. Mainly because now it looks like I've gone prehistoric and this is a book about dinosaurs. That might be taking it too far though. Just a thought.
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