This website may contain contents not appropriate for young eyes. Nude figures, vulgar language, and new age ideals will all be expressed here. Viewer discretion is advised

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Illustration IV: Avenues, Character Desgin

So for my Illustration IV class we're starting character design, and I thought this would be a perfect chance to do some work for Sundast.  I've since decided to try and tackle two character designs (though I'm going to do them one at a time so if I don't get to a second it doesn't hinder my grade).  But I figured I'd share the process we have to use (and the one that I do feel works well for most assignments) with everybody.

 So I always try and start out with thumbnails (after around 15 minutes of warm up sketching to get the juices flowing in my brain and in my hand).  I try my hardest to keep them simple and to the point.  These are the basic layout for the character design I'm going to do.  A very simple front/side/back set up that is used for a lot of video game or animation character design. The top is a design for Kourkain Admontan, the Rebel leader in my story.  The bottom is for Cerenae la'Orater, sister to Cienn our protagonist, and the prophesied queen.

 So after the thumbnails I try to go out and get some reference images for things I'm not so sure about (this time is was wedding dress designs for Cerenae's dresses) and then proceed to do a couple detailed sketches, trying to work out compositional issues and in this case, to see who I wanted to draw first.  I think I'm going to do Kain first because he's a more simple design and can be completed more quickly so that I can get started on Cerenae's design, because her dresses should be a lot of fun.


Next time: Value Studies and my digital classwork.

Blog Archive