Tanuki

After making the fox animation I went back to my Japan photos again in search of another character I could try. I found a photo of a statue of a tanuki, or raccoon in English. Japanese people often have these statues outside their houses or businesses, as they are meant to bring good fortune. I did some initial sketches of the statues, but I think these might be off putting to an audience because of their oversized scrotums. The tanuki statues have these as in Japanese folklore they use these to shapeshift. 

I then researched some photos of Japanese raccoon dogs, as this is the animal that the tanuki are based off of. I’ve made the decision to use these as the character instead, however I may feature some of the characteristics of the tanuki statues, for example the statues almost always wear the same type of hat. This would be a good reference to where I git the character of the raccoon from. 

The last sketch is an initial composition for an animation, in the same style as the fox animation. I thought it would be good to this time try having multiples of the character appear, but each time getting more transparent, again to insinuate the idea of them being a spirit to guard the nature.