WHEEZY

MAKING CHARACTER DESIGN WHEEZY-PEASY

This little chap had the weight of expectation on his slender green shoulders. He was to be the embodiment of the symptoms of asthma. He had to be flexible enough to be used in campaigns across the globe. So he’d need to work in a host of different media.

Rough ideas

We set about creating him with some old-school doodling. Well, oldish-school: after all, we were using a digital pencil. Soon we had a pantheon of characters with different qualities and traits, to see which ones chimed best with the client.

Finally, by the processes of elimination and refinement, we created a fully fleshed-out character by the name of Wheezy.

Mascot, advocate, spokesman... however you see him. He’s the driving force for the campaign.

Design break down

The final polish

Before we could breathe (or wheeze?) life into the little chap, we needed to sort out the finer details. Like developing his surface colour and texture.

This done, we created an internal skeleton for Wheezy that meant we could pose and animate him however we liked. And in the medium of our choice.

We also sound-engineered a voice for him that’s every bit as striking as his appearance.

By using a multi-location shoot and creating many different animations, we created a consistent global campaign for a huge range of different media.