6 and Kells

Okay so, here's the finished model sheet for my character, 6 - the masked god in our group project in character design. We were to have a profile view, a 3/4 view, and a silhouette:

The group also decided that for our story, we wanted to go with a "Secret of Kells" style. Another girl in my group and I decided to take all 7 of the characters we designed as a group and do them Kells style. Here's my version:

Also, the above designed are based on the original designs made by everyone in the group. You can see them here (each person of the group designed ONE of these characters. You can see some of the earlier versions of 6 in the upper left corner):

Group Project: Mask God

Sooooo, as mentioned in my last post, we're doing a group project in my character design class. I was given the character of a "masked god" who has the ability to shape-shift. In the real world, he appears as a small boy wearing a mask, but in his hotel room, his true nature become apparent.

We were going towards a Greek style with our story/characters but I wanted to get away from that. Are characters were also becoming quite flowy and pretty...which i also wanted to avoid haha. Sooooo,  here's my African based, sharp masked god...who I've come to name "6" after his hotel room number.

Sketch Dump

So in character design, we're working on a giant group project (our group is 7 strong). The assignment was to come up with an idea for a feature film. We have to have 7 characters and 3 beat boards (scenes from what would be the film....kinda like screenshots or really detailed storyboards). The first week, we came up with our basic plot and the characters, than each of us sketched the characters out and shared them.

These are my sketches for our characters:

Cammy is our main character. She's an orphan who ends up getting a job as a bellhop at a mysterious hotel. We started off making her really yong (6-8yrs old) but then decided to move her into her preteen years. That way, she could have a job AND feasibly go up against other characters in the story. (I am in love with that colored sketch though hehe)

Glory is the owner of a mysterious hotel. She takes Cammy in after she loses her parents. Upon taking in the girl and learning of her misfortune, Glory tells the girl that if she gathers 3 artifacts from 3 of the hotel's tenants, she can resurrect her parents....thus the journey begins!  But is there more to Glory than meets the eye?? (some of these were done by the wonderful John Pohlman).

THE TENANTS: The people who are staying at the hotel are more than they appear. On the outside they seem drab, worn down, and broken. But if you enter their rooms and you enter their world, where their true selves become known. Some of these tenants are helpful, some are not, and some are downright terrifying.

This is one of the tenants of the hotel. She is based off of the Greek Goddess, Athena...but we're trying to figure out another name for her. She acts as the mentor to Cammy and helps her on her journey. She also sends her owl, Oote to help Cammy along.

Oote is "Athena's" owl who acts are a guide, comic relief, and watcher of Cammy. He's small and flutters around quickly...kinda like a mix between Flit from Pocahontas and the Golden Snitch from Harry Potter hehe

Lastly (from my batch), there is the "Masked God" (as we've been calling him). We aren't sold on a name yet, but are thinking of referring to him solely as his room number. He appears as a small child in our world, but in his room he is a dangerous killing machine. He is based off of Kou from Avatar: The Last Airbender (the face-stealer) with a little bit of the Monkey from the 12 Kingdoms and No Face from Spirited Away. He's our psychological monster and his goal is to make everyone crap themselves.

Exciting enough, I was assigned the character of the mask god. This means that I will be developing him over the next week and a half or so - along with the room he's staying in and his role in the story. I'm really excited for this opportunity and know that he'll be quite the challenge.

More to come!
Cheers!

Expressions Galor! ...and HTTYD

Latest thing was to take one of our characters and doing 5 versions of 5 different expressions (25 drawings total). I picked NiKita because she's fun and I can draw her quickly XD

I tried a little too quickly though and it ended up awfully messy. And so, I redid all of the linework before I turned it in. I did not get to redo all of the horribly messy colors though :( So for now, you just get to see the first face with colors (and correct eyes). But hey, at least you can see one of them with color :3 I'll color the rest of them whenever I have time (next semester?) haha

We also took our hands to the 2D animation found in How to Train Your Dragon's short "The Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon". I drew a young Gobber and one of his dreaded Hammerhead Sharks :) (they belong to DreamWorks)

Lastly, there's always the 30sec warmup gestures:

In other news, there's a really big and exciting project beginning in character design. I'll be joining 6 of my fellow classmates and we're gonna bring you a kickass story with exciting characters <:D So be excited! And stay tuned! :3

Tonight's Class 10.17.11

30 second gestures

Still trying to figure out Colette. Her darn hair is giving me all sorts of trouble! >:(

Looney Toons Sketches! <3 Bugs look really weird because we had to draw him upside down...and I didn't really know what I was doing with that hahaha

A chariot horse from The Prince of Egypt <3 He belongs to DreamWorks :3

Inspired by Kelly Connell

Something a little different to share:

I'm taking an Art & Tech class (equivalent to photography II) and our latest project was to do a "fictional documentary". I toyed around a lot until my interest in psychology slapped me in the face and led me to mental disorders. I randomly latched on to Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Now, I don't know anyone with MPD, so I can only assume what it must be like (horrible I'm sure).

Anyway, as I progressed with the series, it became more about my own, personal, personalities and how they differ, are similar, and argue with each other ever day. As a current student, I think that college kids are always at war with themselves. This is the part of our lives when we grow up. We have to deal with finances, friends, relationships and the general balance of things. Make a well balanced meal or spend the time getting homework done (which happens to be due at 8am the next morning)? haha

I dunno, I thought it was an interesting thing to explore. I took them all in my apartment (which is tiny) so that gave it a claustrophobic sort of feel (which I like). It makes the space in which all of these personalities live really small...and thus leads to tension :)

Anyway, enjoy and let me know what you think!
YAY STRESS.

 

The Antithesis

 

Food Wars

 

Study Party

 

The Lovers

 

Morals

 

Gender Bender

Character Redesign

So the latest assignment was to take a character with a silly design and redesign them. I browsed about for a while...going through characters from As Told by Ginger, Hey Arnold, Chowder, and other shows before settling on Adult Swim's 12 oz Mouse. I had never seen the show before, but after being told about it, and after looking it up, I concluded that I had struck gold in the "omgwtfisthis" industry.

So here he is, Mouse Fitzgerald with his original and redesign. Enjoy!

Fitz belongs to whoever his owners are :)

Lawrence & Colette - head/expression views

So the latest character design assignment was to take the character from the "styles" assignment and one from the "4 cast members 3/4 head shots" (lolwut) assignment and draw them in 6, 3/4 views (headshots with a specific expression) <---- that probably didn't make any sense...

Whatever! Enjoy the pretty pictures!

Colette! (I still want to play with her hair...I want it to be a lot messier)

Lawrence! (sporting his new design!)

Sketches & Notes

Just some things done in class today:

30 second gesture drawings

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (c) Disney and Victor Hugo

A random sketch (and the first since last semester) of NiKita. I can already see changes in her - which is very exciting! It means I'm learning!

As for notes, it seems I missed the mark on the last assignment. The "styles" part of it was supposed to be...different I guess? Not sure if my lineart really throws it off or not. I guess it was supposed to be a sort of "more realistic" or "super cartoony" or "feature film VS television animation" style...thing.

I went with 2 that were kinda random (one inspired by concept art for Frollo from Disney's Hunchback), one that was a generic "anime" style and one that was a general "hannah-barbara" style...but I guess that didn't come off o.O I'll try and redo them if I ever have the time....

Anyway, you should be seeing more of Lawrence and some Colette in the future!

Lawrence - Variations and Styles

Latest project in character design was to take one of the characters in our last group (Read: french dystopian fantasy drama a couple posts back) and make 12 variations of them. Then we were to pick one of those variations and do it in 3 difference styles (I did 4 though because why not?)

So out of Aero, Colette, Frederic, and Lawrence...I decided to go with my villain. Lawrence just didn't seem as solid as the others in personality or form. So I took my evil musketeer and stretched his face all over the place :)

Silly story about these guys...I came to campus to scan them and color them all yesterday...but when I got to campus I realized that I had left the sketches at home *fail*. Soooooooooo I went home and had to throw some ink to line these things and bring 'em in today so I could scan and color them before class haha XD It's a messy way to work..but it got done :)

....and yes I spelled "variant" wrong...it's more french now! <_<     >_>

random flour bags

50 flour bags for character design. This was the side project to the one I will (hopefully) be posting tomorrow.
Enjoy!

I'd never drawn a flour bag before...haha Some of these I like and others not so much D:>

Character Development - my process: NiKita

I think it's really important to show the progress of how you create your characters...the reasearch you go through and everything. This post will be about how I came to make my character, NiKita, from my story titled "Aviris". It's already not quite up to date (since it was done last semester) but it gives a good idea of how I work :) Enjoy!

Step 1: RESEARCH: You HAVE to get to know your character. What is influencing you to make them? Cultural influences, celebrities, existing characters, animals, whatever! Put everything that inspires you to make that character into a reference folder so that you can always review it and go back to it when you're stuck on how you want your character to turn out. For example, NiKita is based off of a mix of Alley Sheedy, a little Louise Brooks, and a Borzoi (russian wolfhound). I also looked at existing characters that I thought were close to her body type (or the one I wanted for her) and personality. It's important to look up actors/actresses/celebrities/people that you think could "play your character" so that you can study mannerisms and speech patterns in those people. It will help you make a better, more expressive character. This step is the MOST IMPORTANT. So take your time and really dig around for interesting, inspiring examples that get you excited to create!

Step 2: The Development Process: This is where you take your character and draw them in a bunch of different ways. Mess with their body type (are they fat? skinny? tall? short? ect). Mess with the length of their hair (is it fluffy? wavy? thin? thick? what color is it?), how big their hands and feet are, mess with all of the shapes that you include in your character (head shape, eye shape, body shape, ect). With NiKita, I wasn't quite used to loosening up yet, so I didn't push her as much as I could have. But this is really the part where you want to push yourself to the limit so you can really come out with something creative. Do 12 versions of your character and pick the one you like best :) Also, start thinking about the colors and the shapes that really go with your character (their personality or culture, ect). (Red notes in 3rd image are from my professor).

Step 3: GESTURES! Draw, draw, draw again, and draw some more. This is where you really learn about your character. Draw them in all sorts of poses - twisting and turning and jumping and rolling and flying and whatever else you can think of. This will really help you become comfortable with perspectives, help you loosen up and become a faster, more efficient artist, AND help you become an EXPRESSIVE artist (getting the emotions of your character into the poses is very important!). This stage is where you really dig in and get a sense of how your character would exist in the world you're creating for them. (Green notes in the lower right corner are from my professor).

Step 4: The "Final": I put that in quotes because you'll always want to go back and change SOMETHING. Once you're comfortable with your character, make up a character sheet for them with bio information, color palette info, and anything else you think is relevant. This is a resource not only for whomever is looking at it, but also for you so that you can refer to it and remember the work you've done on your character (who they are). This sheet isn't perfect, but I was QUITE proud of it when I finished it last spring.

So yeah, this is the BASIC process to character design. My experience was more in-depth (15 weeks - including 2 other characters), but it's really something you just have to dive into and see what you can get out of it. It's a super creative process and doesn't come quickly. You're always finding ways to improve, whether that be in general or in a specific step. Just keep looking at others who are doing visual development/character design and see how they work. You'll eventually come along :) practice practice practice!

Technical stuff aka - quick studies.

So these are things that aren't necessarily interesting, but are very important for animators or people interested in the general field:

So here's 50 (or close to) bean shapes twisted and turned and squished and squashed. This was done pretty early in the class.

Twisted rectangles in perspective and what not

25 rectangles and 25 cubes in perspective (some of these are a little wonky - sorry! haha)

Some examples of some super quick gestures I did in class. These were done during warm up and we had about 30sec on each one.

Gestures done during warm up in class. I believe we had about 30 seconds on each of these as well.

Some hand exercises - some of these turned out kinda weird too. Unfortunately, I did them rather quickly D:> Gonna have to practice them more! I like hands :)