Character Design Project: Week 9

Today, we've focused on environments that would act as "a character" leading up to the other characters. We've learnt how these environemts can be easily manipulated by tones, angles etc to give another emotion. So for today we've been tasked with two randomized environments and draw them, also giving a back story to them. I've got a "civilized star ship" which instantly I thought of "Dr.Spock meets super posh room". I've looked at some futuristic interiors and came up with 6 thumbnails. After checking them with Justin, it was noted that it appears to be two different genres in one room and that it should be blended and the room to be expanded other than just a room. So for the rest of the thumbnails, I've looked at more modern furniture and added some distorted shapes to give it a more sci-fi civilized room.

Character Design Project: Alien Villain Colour test sheet

My favourite part once again!! ^_^ Here are some colour tests to see what colour scheme goes well with the character. I thought of using dark primary colours to suit the simplicity of the character style. My favourites so far are numbers 2,5,6 and 8. 

Character Design Project: Alien Enemy refinements

Made some refinements on the alien villain character. Changes includes changing the hand postures and adding in claws instead of fingers as they were too humanoid, torn ripped robe and some slight changes to the face. Also tried my hand at drawing its side view where the neck is noticeable from the side but is hidden from the front view.

Character Design Project: Hands practice

I haven't disappeared from the face of the earth yet!! I've been getting my hands stuck on with the rigging and skinning the model character with our narrative group project over at Anecdote Studios. :)

Here I have sketched out from hands as a practice base since they've become a bit rusty so using the tips and advice from Photoshop Phil I thought it would be best to practice out on these before drawing out my characters. I followed the tip from Photoshop Phil of drawing hands using wedges and shapes before roughing out the details which helped me alot in terms of drawing them from different angles. :D

Narrative and Character: Anecdote Studios: Alan rigging and skinning update 2

"(middle) Mouth and Jaw set to "Eee" expression"

"(middle) mouth and jaw relaxed"

Another small update this time, his arms, legs and head are all rigged and skinned with just the mouth shapes to go. So far, following the tutorial, this is my first attempt in recreating the mouth shape for "Eee". This still needs some retweaking since the mouth shape for "E" has a strange look on his face. Won't be long til he's ready to go!! :D

http://anecdotestudios.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/alan-rigging-and-skinning-update-2.html

Character Design Project: Class Week 8

Today we've taken on a different approach in our class, we've been put into groups and working in a team we've to create a character design using what we've learnt from the past few weeks for a pitch by the end of the day. Justin gets to be our client and our task is to draw up some character designs for a children's cartoon series, "Jetpack Jones". The cartoon is set in the 1940's style and is set in a action-adventure genre aimed at 11-12 years. Along with Chrissie and Ernesta and Kadeem (who later "went to work for our company instead") we've became "Creation Station" for the day. Not only that we had to work on characters, after experiencing multiple "phone calls and e-mails", changes were made on the characters, storyline, adding in an extra prop and even creating a logo.

I focused on drawing on the main hero, Jetpack Jones who is a space galactic aviator hero who is never far away from his mark 7 pistol and wears a rocket pack. I decided to look at some olden aviator costumes as well as looking at galactic clothing. I imagined Jetpack Jones as a young hero, similar to Flynn Rider. So for his costume, his jacket design is based on a pair of wings, representing flight and his aviator role. I've also added in a scarf that hangs out from his jacket, for a bit of space- galactic style I've added in some arm and leg padding with the trousers slightly flare out at the bottom with the shoes in a space- shoe style. As for his rocket pack, it was also based on the wings idea but spaced-it up, as for the gun it was a simple space galactic design that just came into my head.

Just when we began our pitch, we've came up a character height sheet of the characters in the series. I've also decided to draw all the finalised design on a new page with things that would be most important to the pitch. All went pretty good as all teams had their good and bad points but we've been told that from what happened today is an example of what its like working for a client with sudden changes and pitch.

Character Design Project: Dragon sidekick facial expressions

I think I have found my chosen thumbnail!! I've chosen number 3 from my previous sidekick post as my chosen sidekick. I think that with those eyes they would be better at expressing features and with its tiny shape could help make the character line-up interesting. So I've decided to play around with its features and creating some dynamic poses such as in "running" mode, sneezing and my favourite of all, trying to fly as high as it can only to be able to lift off a few inches from the ground. ^_^

Thumbnail 3 chosen as the sidekick