Final Designs - Klaus
The key feature that came out of the group drawing sessions was Klaus' oversized nose whilst stylistically we took a lot of influence from the illustrator Edward Gorey. We also had to take into account how we would animate this character. A lot of discussion was put into the robe, half of the group wanted him to have a long choir boy's robe which would have looked visually impressive but would have caused problems at the animation stage. The rest of the group thought Klaus should be wearing shorts and a top, however this caused concerns over the fact that the story is based around him leaving choir practice and might be visually confusing to the audience. We met midway and came up with his shortened robe, leaving his legs animatable and which we decided looked a lot more interesting than if we had just stuck a typical robe onto him.
The Klaus puppet has been designed with three replaceable heads. A normal face for the bulk of the animation, his expression is calm and shows no emotion. The second face is a squinting face, used at key moments in the story where Klaus is looking closely at something or is concentrating. The final face is the scared/shocked face whiche will be used not only for when he has been scared or shocked but in the 'moment' between Klaus and the gargoyle as this face used with a lot of blinks look extremely innocent. The blinks are made with replaceable bits of sculpey which slot into his eye sockets alike to the pupils which are seperate bits of small sculpey attached with vaseline.