There Was Once A Girl Who lived In The Sun....

I'm not going to delve too much into the plot of this story, as, as I say, I may well do something with this in the future. But basically it was about a girl, Una, who lives in the Sun. The Sun is a floating structure in the sky that is full of candles. Una's job is to light the candles at sunrise and blow them out at sunset, in order to create day and night, 

She has been doing this all her life, all alone. She has always dreamed of just taking a risk and leaving the Sun, venturing down to Earth, to freedom. Eventually she is tempted out by a boy on Earth who spots her in the Sun. But when she leaves the Sun and throws open the exit door (that has never been opened before) wind blows into the Sun.

Una goes down to Earth and has an amazing time, But back in the Sun all the candles are getting blown out. The Sun emits less and less light until everything goes dark. Una freaks out on Earth, believing her risk taking has doomed the world, throwing it into darkness. She runs back towards the Sun but trips in the dark and is knocked unconscious.

 In the Sun, there are only a few candles left alight, but instead of the candles getting blown out, they are knocked over by the wind. The candles set alight the Sun, the growing fire rushing through it.

On  Earth, Una regains consciousness as the Sun explodes in the sky, so that it becomes a big ball of fire that emits an incredible light, much brighter than the light given out by the Sun before. The Sun continues to burn happily in the sky as Una smiles: she can now remain on Earth as the Sun is lighting itself - her risk paid off.

So I then began developing Una, a sad, pessimistic, lonely girl.

I was inspired by steampunk, the cold war era and celtic art, so was trying to combine elements of these within my designs. Oh and obviously I wanted to make this in stop motion with puppets.

As you can see in these initial drawings, shown below, I enjoyed the prospect of her having hair resembling a stylized Sun. I also thought she could wear a fireproof suit so as to avoid burns and smoke. At this stage I wanted her to give off a fed up vibe as she is so sick and tired of being in the Sun.