Budding Badges!

Hey everyone! Welcome back!

So, I've been working on some ideas for badges. At the moment, these are only rough ideas since I'm not entirely sure of what the badge dimensions are just yet - the problems of not having one's own badge maker and needing to outsource. However, for right now, these are all only sketched ideas, with only two of the seven eventually making the final cut. Those two will then go on to having digital versions completed which will match the dimensions for the badges, since by that time I should have an idea of what might work out best.

So if you like, give me your input on what you might think would work best as a badge design. After all, if eough people like a particular design, it'll be one of the two that'll make it to merchandising stage :)

So, what are the ideas? Well, here's photographs of the sketches - I apologise for my, as usual, fairly abysmal photography skills:

For the first design, it was the most simple, yet probebly the most striking - a stylised version of one of the Oneiros' heads. I found that when I did badges for Susanoo, the one that sold the most was the Orochi's eye badge. Essentially something leaning towards 'cool' rather than based on a particular character. Plus, skull designs are pretty popular when it comes to T-shirts and such. With the right combination of colours, the badge could be quite striking, even if the badge itself ends up being relatively small. Plus with these creatures being the main antagonists of the series, it seemed a fairly fitting thing for merchandise of Dreamwalkers.

The second design was less to do with Dreamwalkers itself, and more my personal mascot that, in Dreamwalkers and generally everything I've been doing since starting has the Luphin character somewhere. If you have the first chapter of Dreamwalkers, it's in there somewhere. :) Plus where 'cool' doesn't pick up interest, cute is its next contender. However, as its not technically a character in the series, but more my mascot, it might not be so fitting for a Dreamwalkers badge. But if it doesn't end up a badge, I might still use the design elsewhere. Luphins always seem to show up in my work somewhere. lol

The next here designs are similar in ideas, leaning towards 'cute'. However, these are significantly less fuzzy and more 'chibi' versions of the three main characters currently introduced in the series: Rem, Somnus and Ashling:

Admittedly, out of the three, while Rem seems the most adorable, Somnus and Ashling's poses might work better for the badges since they'd leave less blank space of nothing. However, it would make more sense for Rem and/or Somnus to get badges with them being the main focus from chapter one. Rem being the main protagonist, while Somnus being the deurangonist. Its always possible, depending on how people take to whatever two make the first cut that the chibi other versions could show up later on.

The last two designs were more leaning towards their actual designs and were actually inspired by the Somnus poster idea I got to digital version for my degree show. That is the character holding a glowing ball - the ball itself representing imagination/dream/potential that can be crafted by the Dreamwalkers while in the dreamscape into whatever they might need via will - something explained in more detain in the course of the story. Considering what I mentioned of the two focus characters, for that idea I only did those two so far - If only because they made for cool mirror images:

I personally like the idea of these designs, however, I'm unsure if others would be interested in them as badges, at least for the first lot of merchandise for Dreamwalkers that weren't prints. These two would make a tad more sense to be done together, but could work solo as well. Still, if they dont get much interest as badges I do have ideas to repurpose them to designs for other things, such as perhaps internet 'banners' or 'icons'. 

Still, I would love to know what you guys think! Any input would be great. After all, not only does it help me to know what you guys like, but it also helps me give you guys things you might want. So let me know your thoughts. Thanks!

Until next time!

Tara