Style exploration part 2

Hi everybody! long time no update... well, my second semester in school has started a month ago and it's been busy. I Finally started my Traditional Animation studies and so far it is really amazing. I can't even describe how much my appreciation to the creators of all those memorable 2D films has grew after animating a few bouncing balls. They are true artists and I really want to believe that we will see those incredible drawings back on the big screen soon. I really hope that Disney's upcoming "Princess and the frog" will be a success.

On a different note, I am still doing some character concepts inspired by African masks (what can I say? it's really fun). During my exploration I bumped into an image that amazed me:


mask picture from: "Masks of Black Africa" by Ladislas Segy

Is it only me or the resemblance is amazing? The shape of the head, the hair the brows the nose the mouth... I found this to be really interesting. Once again it has shown me how those simple shapes can have so much appeal.I am really curious if the designers at Pixar have seen this image. Anyway, this really gave me a great incentive to keep going with these so here is another round of sketches.. some I like better some less, and hopefully I'll find a time to color a couple of them soon.