From recording several songs (as seen below) we discovered that we like the sound of the mice being in a Barbershop quartet. It gives the mice much more character and sounds rather good too. So, with this in mind whilst doing some character sketches I decided to give the mice a bit of an old school look, just like the sound of a Barbershop quartet.
I tried showing this old school style in items of clothing and hair.
With the clothes I find there is too much going on. Especially as we are trying to keep the character simple. I felt there was too much going on in a small area for items of clothing to be added.
I moved onto hair ideas. And I liked this thought much more. With the quiffs and thick strands of hair I can already imagine it swaying along with the music whilst the mice are bopping to the rhythm. The hair styles also start giving the mice a style and era (50s/60s). This idea of an era influencing the design is very appealing and gives a lot for me to base my designs on.
Other additional things added to the mice are the famous, two sharp front teeth. This just adds more mice like features to our simplistic forms, as well as the whiskers, big ears and tails.
I also looked into the idea of them having legs and arms. Although in the performance it is not necessary I thought "no harm in trying". The conclusion was that the simple well shaped lumps of plasticine is all we need and has a better aesthetic look to it.
The last two images on this post our what I am basing the final Character Designs on.
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