Prep work

These first images show my musings about guitar types/shapes and style. The guitar on the left is a bit like a BC rich Mockingbird, which is a possible guitar. As for the figure I had not yet decided on the look, but I think the long haired look could be trouble to model and is probably too rock and roll to start with.

This is where I think a little more about the character design. I think the middle figure works pretty well as an ordinary kind of guy that could be tweaked a little to become a lot more rock and roll when the change happens

So I'm thinking here about how to change the hair when he becomes more rock n roll. It's important for me to think more three dimensionally with these drawings as you'll notice a lot of them are at pretty much the same angle... The middle style works quite nicely, although it might be a bit too extreme... Not the robot. Never the robot.

Thinking more full body here, getting some idea of how the body is constructed. I'm trying to decide whether or not to have the shorts baggy or tight, or even to use shorts at all. Obviously the easiest thing to do would be tight shorts or jeans, but I quite like the look of the baggy shorts. I have to make the decision whether it is worth the extra work. More musings on the second hair style here as well. You'll notice the shoes have gotten a little cooler, but I don't think that will be an actual change

My initial design for the squire copy headstock was to have the make be called "shit". Can't really do that. A little inappropriate. So went the Fandar, which is a bit of a reference to a Gibson copy that was in a music shop that used to be down the road from me (before it closed because it was rubbish). This Gibson copy looked exactly right from a distance, but as you got closer you noticed the neck was warped, the pickguard was coming loose, it played like death and the headstock said "Gibsun". Genius. Should have bought it really.

Still thinking about whether or not I'm going to axe the hood. Trying to weigh up whether it adds anything or not. Here he's holding an SG like guitar, but I reckon we need to go more archetypal with the bad guitar, so a fender copy, and more radical with the good guitar, so a BC Rich Mockingbird.

In fact I think I'll have access to a terrible squire to record the poor guitar parts on. Best news ever.

For the amplifier we'll be using something like a Fender 65 Princeton Reverb

 Storyboard is as follows

So aside from a few dodgy panels (especially the one where he first goes in to the guitar pose) this pretty much sums up what we're trying to do. It's ambitious as a project, but also I think achievable. 

After going through all this with my client I'm now working on the character model.