one second a week Mad Hatter

The inspiration for this pieces has come from the hatter from Alice adventures in wonderland, this is because it has been mad hatter day during this week and this seemed as good a source of inspiration as any. I started by drawing the large hat and then large mad looking eyes, I also thought the hatter should have an overly large and disturbing smile. In all I decided the way to make this character appear mad was to have his features excessively big. I also used colour in this piece and this played a part in creating the mad persona, I used yellow and orange for the eyes quite pale skin and a red toned hat with dark areas to make it look tattered and parts which appear torn. I drew up this character and then cut it out to use as a puppet for a stop motion animation, I decided to do this because the character was coloured and redrawing it would have been difficult, also I wanted to use coloured ink splats in the background but as I didn't have any I used black ink which when mixed and allowed to run with water separates into its constituents. I think this may be better than the different coloured inks as it gives a busy but dark background which emphasises the colours in the foreground so doesn't take anything away from the hatter. Having cut out the character I cut out its eyes and hat separately, I also placed a teacup on the head of the hatter and put a slit in the hat so it could slide underneath and appear to be being unveiled. As I animated this I changed the background between the ones I had created so it flashed, I also rolled the eyes in different directions and raised and lowered the hat so the teacup was briefly visible and for a couple of frames had the eyes and face disappear in turn, this was effective when working slowly animating but after being sped up and viewed full speed it makes the animation seem a little more jumpy like a frame is skipping or something, I think if I had just made the eyes disappear this would have been more effective. I am happy with this piece though because when seeking feedback from my flat mates I was told by one that he couldn't handle it which is how i wanted to make this although I only wanted it to be strange not unbearable.