Pocoyo and M.A.T.E.S

I am currently in the process of working on a personal animation that is not tied to any brief. I am attempting to make an animated episode of M.A.T.E.S, my personal comic that I draw for fun. I have realised that I will need to redesign the characters slightly as they are quite simplistic at the moment. The main problem is with the eyes. I draw them as little sticks with no whites which means it's not possible to tell which direction someone is looking unless I move the position of the eye on the head. This is where Pocoyo comes in.
I remember watching a few episodes on ITV before and remembered that the main character, Pocoyo, doesn't have any eye whites either. They get around the problem by adding little flicks above the eyes to give an impression of direction.

Looking to his left.

Looking straight ahead.

I believe I will use this method on the eyes of my characters so that I don't have to change their looks too much.

Pocoyo's official blog

This blog has very interesting and insiteful information on the designing and production processes that go into creating a children's television series. They have quite a few examples of how they originally intended the characters to look compared to how they actually look now and the reasons why things had to change.



Pocoyo info:

Created by

David Cantolla/Luis Gallego/Guillermo García
Co-Directors

David Cantolla/Guillermo García
Executive Producers

Katheryn Hart - Zinkia Entertainment -

Anne Brogan - Granada Kids -

Jon Doyle - Cosgorove Hall Films -