Creating an enemy bird

Just a quick post to show you the design process I went through in creating a bird for the game. Tis quite a long winded process for me as I do not think I am actually a natural artist, I have the ideas but takes a while to refine what I want within the art package.

I am currently using Inkscape (open source)to draw most of the animated characters, I find it quite easy to use and gives the lovely vector look.

Anyway you can see in the image below the top left bird is my first attempt, which I was not very happy with but I refine it and refine it to the bottom right image which is the final birdy. Then it was on to animating the bugger.

The first birds head is way to big and there is no character in his face at all, the white face just does not work.I change the proportions which helped a bit but his arms looked like popeyes.
As we move on I work quite a lot on the eyes, slowly bringing more character to his face, trying to make him more menacing rather than simple.


Then finally I work more on the wings/arms getting them to fit to the proportions of the birds face.