By Brigette Barrager
2019
Medium: Pencil and Photoshop
Little Ellen
The producers of Little Ellen approached me to do some preliminary character designs for the Little Ellen series, to be based on the childhood adventures of Ellen Degeneres. Previous to this assignment, I didn’t really think I had a character design “niche,” but I think it’s safe to say that I often get asked to design cute and appealing kid characters, and I get why. It’s an area I’m deeply comfortable in. I just think kids are fun. They are made of silly, amusing shapes and have zero self-awareness. What a combination!
Ellen’s character needed to be recognizably Ellen Degeneres, which meant using her signature blonde pixie haircut and featuring her blue eyes (which I’ve heard are stunning in person). She has a little cat friend named Charlie and two friends named Becky and Freckle, and she lives with her Grams. We went through a few rounds of notes, and I worked the characters into a color lineup. When the assignment was finished, I returned to work on a book.
Fast forward a year or so, and my good friend Matthias is the art director of Little Ellen. I asked him, “Did you see the designs I did early on?” he answered, “Yes, your version of Ellen is the design we are using.” I was so surprised! Usually, things change so much, and as a freelancer working from home, I simply wouldn’t be aware of what was happening, but now I have an insider to tell me all about it! Becky and Freckle mainly stayed the same. Gram is the most noticeably different.
Matthias was kind enough to ask me back to work on a couple of fun sequences within the show. You can see the designs and background paintings from a segment here! It is really, really fun to work with productions (and friends) who really play to your strengths as an artist, and that’s exactly the experience I had on Little Ellen. I’m so happy to have contributed to this fun show.
All visual work on this page is property of Warner Bros.
