Pooh’s design in this film actually seems like a combination of the several designs he’s had over the years.

For example the texture of his fur as well as his face and the pads on his paws are inspired by the original Winnie the Pooh doll that the real life Christopher Robin had as a child.

One could claim the color of this doll’s fur also is part of Pooh’s design here, but the teaser poster for the movie shows Pooh’s fur being a yellowish color similar to the Disney incarnation so there’s a chance his more dull colors might just be a result of the film’s overall gloomy color scheme.

Pooh’s body on the other hand is somewhat of a combination of the Disney cartoon design and the E. H. Shepard book illustration design, using the Shepard head shape with the Disney body (judging by the teaser poster Pooh has slightly longer legs like the Disney version compared to Shepard design which has really short ones).

Probably the biggest addition based on the Disney version is the inclusion of the red shirt. While Pooh did wear a red shirt in the books this was limited to winter scenes. In the Disney version the red shirt is his regular outfit that he wears on a daily basis.

I’m actually looking forward to seeing how the rest of the Pooh characters will appear in this movie because while the Disney design of Pooh stays pretty close to the Shepard book design the rest of the characters (with the exception of Piglet and maybe Kanga and Roo) differ greatly when comparing the book versions to the cartoon versions. I’m interested to see how they’ll try to combine several elements from these different designs and maybe even some elements from the original toys to create new versions of these beloved characters.