Elements Animation Development Process 5

Another issue I am currently facing is what age to make my central character when she rediscovers her dog teddy. She's definitely four at the start of the animation.

I used my sister Florence as a reference for our four year old character when she was around that age.

I also used Lotte from the YouTube video Portrait of Lotte 0 to 14 in 4 minutes as a reference on how to draw a four year old girl.

But then I wanted to convey the idea that a huge amount of time has passed since the girl has lost her dog teddy. I guess its up to the viewer to interpret what happened to her in that time; she gets upset, she searches for it, forgets about it, goes through school, grows up and re-discovers it.

Originally I was fairly set on the idea to have her come back fifteen years old. I felt it would be enough time for her to have changed significantly, but also an age where she has matured enough to be more careful with the things she's responsible for. Going back to the feedback I recieved about maybe setting the story over a period of a few months instead of a decade I just don't think I could represent that idea of the girl becoming mature enough to look after her stuff over a time period that short. 

My sister aged 15 I might use as a reference for our 15 year old girl character.

I might also use 14 year old Lotte from the YouTube video Portrait of Lotte 0 to 14 in 4 minutes as a reference for how to draw a fifteen year old girl. 

I received feedback about this idea of having her come back to the dog teddy 15 years old to my friend Matt. He told me that 15 might not be an old enough age for her to be mature enough to gain a respect for her childhood toys, as he also has a sister who's 14, he said that 15 year old's often tend to be more sassy and more about rebelling. This was a very good point and something that had not occurred to me in the slightest. He suggested that a more realistic age the girl could rediscover the dog teddy would be closer to 20, maybe 19.