Saturday 19 January 2019

Two Years Later - Teletubbies Humanized!

Over the posts and long ago, Teletubbies came to play looking a little more human than usual. Now I return to this challenge but this time I draw them in something more realistic than the Droey's Draws style. Prepare to see some even more human looking Teletubbies!


I struggled a little bit, wanting to draw each Teletubby down to the hip, but finding poses that reflected them proved to be too challenging so I resorted to mid-shots. I'll go through each Teletubby in the order I created them, which is in the famous order that their roll call follows.

Tiny Winky is without a doubt the favourite of this piece. I love the design, the pattern and the colours, even the addition of the ear stud which the original version lacked. I was going to give him an ascot but ultimately decided against it. I think you can tell what I was going for, Tinky Winky is depicted as a homosexual, something that was highly suggested of him at the time of the show's release.

I knew what I was doing with Dipsy and didn't say from my vision, except from one aspect. I changed his skin tone, I was going to use a tan pen but resorted to the orange-brown colour from my pastel collection. It may be slightly redder than his actual skin tone but the result is so much better than I could've imagined and am proud to have done this, This shade of orange-brown was also in my skin tone collection and I was always wondering when I would actually use it for a skin tone, I am now satisfied to think it has great potential, it might work for a character like Ida Noe (see Droey and Co.). The pattern in the background is sampled from Dipsy's cow skin top hat.

La-La was the challenging one. Standing and facing the 'camera' just didn't suit her and I needed her to look like she didn't have a care in the world. Numerous references later and it became possible for her to assume the pose you see her in now. Her hair was changed greatly to gain bangs and to turn her spiral tuft into a ponytail, not that it is so obvious from this angle. Lastly, La-La's skin tone was actually the tan pen I originally intended for Dipsy! This made her skin slightly darker than I wanted but I was aiming for a more bronzed skin tone that looked like an exotic tan. I used a yellow pencil to lighten up the tone and it did her justice, overall despite her struggle I am happy with how La-La has turned out.

Lastly there's Po. I love her original design and didn't want to change it but I accidentally did. She is supposed to be wearing a onesie which could be zipped from the back, but the front looked a little plain to me so I ended up moving the zip to the front. The other change I intentionally made to take advantage of the more detailed illustration was giving Po a braid that would lead to her loop of hair. This has boosted my confidence with braids which I have finally got the hang of. The pattern in the background is inspired by her scooter.

These are brilliant designs and I'm glad they've turned out like this, it may be a struggle if I had to draw these designs in the Droey and Co. style again! One more thing that springs to mind, the recent revival of Teletubbies has seen us gain an army of Tiddlytubies, which has made me overthink so much about Teletubbies! Do you think I should try to humanise all of the Tiddlytubbies as well to complete the set? Let me know what you think I should do about it, even if it's just for a laugh! 

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