Character Design
Characters are the heart of animation. Audiences like stuff that has personality. In this rotation we began with looking at the most effective ways of building a character. Its best to work using base shapes: triangles, squares and circles. It is also best to avoid ‘ladders’ as it gives your character more temperament. To practice our structural skills we were given 15 minutes to draw outlines of characters using those base shapes.
We then began to look at aesthetics. I was told to consider thing such as an outline, stylized or realism, lighting or flat, texture and colour pallets. For the next task we were given objects and was told to create characters out of them.
Task: Selecting a prompt (winter), sketch a variety of character design ideas, choose one and create rough sketched of them in poses that show their personality.
Feedback
My tutor liked the variety of initial sketches and that my visual language is starting to be formed. I was suggested to experiment with a more masculine figure, like my reference, to make her seem more powerful. This has been done on my reference through her broader shoulders, her cut of top and how the sleeves come out by the elbows. I was told to maintain the themes of triangles throughout the bottom of the piece as well, as it get more boring the lower you get. Also I should make the legs longer to compliment the size of the head.
Reference
The Wicther 3: Yennefer. Lead concept artist: Bartlomiej Gawel
Task: Move your chosen sketch into rough colour thumbnails, considering the principles of aesthetics and designing for motion. Then, using a grid and rulers to guide your proportions, draw the character from two angles in neutral (front view, side view) considering the principles of aesthetics in how you render the final design.
Analysis
I chose the winter prompt as I felt it fit my visual language best and I could do some darker and supernatural designs. I began with 4 ideas; a magical tree, of which I disregarded immediately as we were told no monsters (I still wanted to draw it as an initial idea because I though it would be fun), a winter witch, a Russian Cossack and a Sami person (Indigenous people of Norway). I decided to go with the winter witch as this was more familiar to me; I’ve created lots of witch characters in the past. In some ways I wish I went a little more out of my comfort zone, however I aim to do this in the future in projects where we get a little more time. I used lots of triangle shapes when creating the structure of my witch and although I stuck to stereotypical shapes for females, I did try to make her shoulders broader to give her a more powerful pose. She isn’t the most diverse character, but I did try to make her quite alien-like through features such as her paper white skin and crystals in her forehead. Overall, I am happy with my final design; I could see my self potentially animating her. I do wish I went more out the box but I now know to push myself further and out of my comfort zone for future projects.