Jean Jean Patou Nicolai - A bit of Story!

For the ones who still don't know, Jean it's Estelle's son, and both of them are french. Today I have some free time, I would like to share the sketches I've done so far for this, one the characters I've been working of to develop since the end of last year. Before he became the character you know now.

Jean Jean Patou and his partner in the TV documentary show "Traveling with Chip and Jean", they came out from other story, which main character was a kid who needed an hero, a role model, and since she loved animals and documentary shows, I thought of them. But it wasn't until I commented a friend of mine about that story, and about them, that the inspiration for developing them came to me like a powerful lighting, and I felt inspired to actually draw them!

Early Jean and Chip Sketches.
These are the very first sketches of both characters Jean (the one with the snorkel mask) and  his friend Chip. Chip isn't french but, well he was in the same page XD.
I did this on oct 21, 2013. Because I talked about them some days ago with a friend, and he said they were really cool characters. I still thank this friend of mine for listening to these characters concepts.
Cos in the past I kinda felt they probably weren't going to be very successful characters, so I just had them in my mind since a good time ago,  but I never really payed attention to actually draw them. Until I talked about them! Now I realize how amazing and warm characters they really are; People who like to see my art love them! :D

As you can see here, the characters weren't very well constructed still, it was a vague idea the one I had when I did this. Even I wouldn't have imagined that one day this was going to become the characters you see now. Here they were both in swimwear.


Oh Mon dieu! Jean's First good sketches!
This was the very first consistent artwork I did from him, and I remember I felt so happy and excited, and proud, like I haven't felt in a long long time! ^^
It was in part because I have created a new character in a long while, but I think it was mostly because I felt I kinda had "beaten" the problem I had with drawing male anatomy, cos I have been improved and my hard work has worth the effort, which it was amazing! :D

I think the sketch I was more pleased of, was precisely, the one where he says "Oh mon Dieu!". I just loved the expression there, it was so warm and full of amazement...it had all the emotion I wanted it to have! And I was happy cos that doesn't happen to me very often *chuckles*


This work was made also thanks to the encouragement of a very dear friend, yes, the same one who encouraged me to do them when I talked about them. This was what he saw when he saw the sketches:

"Its like looking at a stunning monument and being rendered speechless! You have created a true work of art that trancends simple beauty and conveys layers of emotion and depth that few people ever reach. Your soul and love and passion so pure looking at these drawings is like bathing in a warm light of eternal wisdom"



Jean's face practice.
Some sketches I made trying to draw a  formal Jean, I thought he probably would be in his prom. I was trying to practice drawing faces from the front side, because I'm not very good at this XD 

Teen and Kid Jean.

I knew at some point I was going to make him be a kid, either to have flashbacks of memories of him being a kid, and also because I have developed him and his friend Chip very well that I had the idea  that maybe I could make a series for him as well. Since he and his friend Chip were secondary characters in another story of mine, but they were so great characters that I was excited to make them their own show.

So I did some sketch test with jean being a kid and a teen.  I wasn't totally pleased with the results, but well, I think these are a good start :)

Jean Patou Sheet reference 

To the left:
Some random sketches I did for an intro "Sheet reference". I did this putting together some of the best sketches I had drawn of him from different times, also I drew other new ones.
The gray and brown ones are the old, the blue and purple are the new. 

But at the end I didn't used all the sketches for  the character design sheet cos I thought some of them weren't that good for this piece in particular. The final of this sketches is HERE

This and the other sketch, are the most recent sketches I've done for this character.