Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Foofa's Evolution

I thought it might be a little fun to show you how Foofa has evolved over the few years that we've been developing this show.



2004


I rendered this in 2004 when we first started to pitch the show. Note the butterfly wings and bunny tail, which we ended up scrapping. The idea was that Foofa (the girly girl ) could fly and the flower on her head was like a helicopter propeller. This concept might've been a little too ambitious, she being a live action character.

In fact, pitching the show with just these drawing was really hard because people didn't grasp that these characters weren't going to be animated. The sooner we could actually make them into real-life costumes was the only real way we could get the point across.

2005

Foofa's costume design.


Christian really hit the nail on the head with this conceptually. Here we have is a cute little flower bubble of a Foofa.

...And here's how it came out...


Kinda cute...but kinda not so cute. We wanted her sweet, but not frumpy.
Oh well, good enough to shoot a demo...

2006

The first two episodes were made. We shared some bits on the internet. They tried it and they liked it! Yo Gabba Gabba is now a go! Now it's time to go back and iron out some wrinkles before we start shooting the real deal.


I whipped this up at the tail end of 2006 to show how we'd like her to change. After sketching and sketching different ideas, I looked back to Christian's previous concept and I really thought that a lot of the answers were already there. With that, different fabric, a cuter, teardrop-shaped head separate from the body and better eyes. We also learned that with the (then) existing Foofa, her body hung down below the knees, so it made it really difficult for the performer to move around. It's a learning experience.
sooo....

2007

Voila!


Oh Foofa! What a doll! Here you are in all of your glory! It's an extreme makeover, you beautiful swan, you!



Enjoy!

8 comments:

Penh said...

Cool! Thanks for the look at the evolution of a character, and bless you for actually taking the performer into account! I've been in a lot of suits in my day, and with some of them I'd swear it never occurred to the designer that someone was going to have wear the thing, let alone have to run around and interact with people. Truly the Gods of Mascotdom will smile upon you!

K. Roo said...

woah holy crap that looks so great

Mike the intern said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mike the intern said...

I've learned so much, and it's AWESOME!

mod*mom said...

hi! foofa + this show are new to me (is this on cable? i don't get most channels).
i LOVE the original 2004 foof drawing with the vertical eyes, elongated head + body, + wispy neck petals. foofa looks smooth, but not furry.

rkelly said...

Thanks for sharing the evolution of Foofa! I've been wondering how she evolved over time, and this answered so much! LOVE The Show!

Unknown said...

where are the pics - would love to see these :o(

E said...

Please put the pictures back on! My LIFE DEPENDS ON IT!