These are more of may my sketches of my toadstool
with in these images I've used less expression, as the others, the others where full of obvious expression, with arms and mouths and faces, doing all the work, after talking to Phil the other day he mentioned not to have these areas to do all the work for the object, but to have the body to express the feeling, of what the toadstool is thinking.
I feel through every drawing, I do I'm getting closer to my final goal, and to finally be exceeding it and bring my final character Idea to the table. though I have used less expression with in these concepts and using the idea of Wallis and Grommet, and using the idea of the eye brows to hint the emotion.
after talking to Phil again he said to take out all the facial emotions all together. this reminds me of a french mime act, though immediately this also reminded me of a style of drama, I did school, I cant remember the name of the act but or genre of the type of drama. But I'm sure it was I'ver Greek or Italian, and was one of the first type of panto styled ways of acting. BUT the actors, wore blank masks to blank there facial emotions, and then act out all there emotions through their body actions.
(but this I must find out more about that style of drama it may become very beneficial)
Marcel Marceau is/was a very famous French mime, he maybe the one you are thinking of.
By the way I like the effort you are putting into your character design. However don't forget to experiment with the stem of the toadstool, not just the cup. The whole body should be used to tell your story.
Love the colours of your toadstool, the image looks quite professional so consider using it on your final character design sheet.