THE EVOLUTION OF BITSY

Day two of the TEAM MONSTERPLEX effort and things are off to a good start. While the number of votes is not public knowledge, we do how many pageviews we're at and how many people have added MP to their favorites. As of 24 hours after the competition began, we stand at 1,436 pageviews and 45 favorites. Not bad!

Part of what I'd like to do with this blog is share with you some of the great artwork that's been produced for MONSTERPLEX that you'll likely never see on the Zuda site. First up is the Evolution of Bitsy. While she she doesn't do too much in the 8-page preview on Zuda, Bitsy has a big role to play going forward and so we had to get her to look juuuuust right...



DAVID SCHLOTTERBACK (Monsterplex Artist): This was the very first attempt at Bitsy. “Juno” was the jumping point for this character. Bitsy was to retain the cuteness, yet reclusive quality of that character and I felt that this first attempt contained too much similarity to Ellen Page herself. So, back to the drawing board.



DAVID: Here I obviously pushed the “alternative” side of Bitsy to the max. She looked too wild and loud and could easily be mistaken as a witch. However, I was digging the hair. So, I thought I’d give’r another shot.



DAVID: This was my favorite version at the time. But, we decided she looked a little too rough around the edges. Looking at it now after not seeing it for quite some time, I notice a similarity to Pink in her. She definitely lacks the “cute” aspect of the Bitsy of today, but I still fancy this approach mainly due to the dreadlocks. Brock was not sold on the dreadlocks, hence the 9 samples of hairstyles later to come. But, we were set on having her hairstyle be a little wild and also be dyed, as referenced in the notes along the edge. You can see at this point, we really were starting to bring her character together.

BROCK HEASLEY (Monsterplex Writer): I hated the hair. I admit that. I really hated the hair. But...I loved the look of the uniform. I felt like Dave really nailed in his third sketch and that look would dictate how we handled the uniforms on all the characters.



DAVID: Finding Bitsy’s hairstyle ended up being real crucial to her personality. We had settled on an alternative personality for her character. I mean, one would have to be a little off their rocker to want to work for Corman Cinemas. So, getting the hair to capture that personality, but still retain some fun and not evoke a dark persona was the key. It would be too easy and predictable to go the “goth” direction. As you can see I went through many sample ideas until we settled on a variation of the hairstyle on the bottom left.

BROCK: I think at one point I was arguing in favor of the top middle hairstyle. Really glad that didn't happen.

Bitsy's final look:



Don't forget to visit MONSTERPLEX and cast your vote! If you've already voted, did you add it to your favorites? No? There's still time!