This piece exemplifies my longstanding interest in the possibilities of combining the cuddly with the grotesque. It is part of my series of “Teddybugs” and, like many of them, grew from a spontaneous sketch to become a highly refined piece.
Essential to my process is an appreciation
for strong composition and organic shapes. So, though pieces such as this
develop from doodles in an apparently unplanned way, they are founded on
technical cornerstones such as colour and form.
In varying from my regular practice of
sketching thumbnails to draw this vignette to scale, my awareness of the
specialist aspects of drawing were heightened. And it was in this
headspace that I reconsidered the challenge of drawing fur.
Fibrous filaments, clumped yet separate,
strands and stubble … fur is one of those things which is only appealing in
certain contexts: on the body of something we love it draws our hand; off that
body and in balls on the floor – or in our food – nothing can be worse.
‘Foompty Doomps’ is essentially an animated
furball, a creature whose lack of physical definition is symbolic of the fact
that it is beyond any definition itself. I perceive it to be somewhat
doleful – perhaps bullied – and, like so many shy people, it hides behind its
fur. Paradoxically, however, though it cowers from the viewer, it still
has courage to make eye contact and seems to implore for connection. In
contrast, the ‘Wispy-Wranger’ in the top right of the frame sneers a little,
perhaps believing it is ‘above’ both the ground-hugging fur-ball below it and
the viewer. None the less, there’s something honest and brave about
‘Foompty’, something intrinsically likeable, and if you had to pick one of them
to be your friend, it wouldn’t be a tough decision.
Evoking empathy in a viewer by enlarging
certain features of a figure is as old as characature itself; animators and
character designers distort and distend every part of a figure’s appearance in
order to elicit an emotional response. So, in experimenting with
proportion in the creation of these fantastical creatures, I looked for new
ways to make ugly forms endearing. It is the combination of foompty’s pudgy
fluff and focused eyes which make it such a successful character, demonstrating
that, though the body of a figure may seem formless in some respects, clarity
of character is as simple as getting the eyes right.