Monday, 23 August 2010
Friday, 13 August 2010
Character Sheet
Post of Bodyshapes, faces, poses I like
Image created by Szymon Biernacki, as part of a competition brief set by computer arts. Blog address: lordbiernac.blogspot.com
Image created by Szymon Biernacki, as part of a competition brief set by computer arts. Blog address: lordbiernac.blogspot.com Thursday, 22 April 2010
Re-evaluating tall character
Dean: i have taken the feedback received by Jim and re-visited the character i previously created,
i have changed the expression of the character to make him more sad and tired.
Character features are:
-Sunken dark eyes
-Bags under eyes
-Small mole like marks on body
-Small lines (like what you see on leather) on body
-No teeth just gums
-Bottom lip is always out
The arms of the character are tenticle like with suction pads at the top, with a sticky under neath texture and little bumps, the arm will be a smooth rubber texture. Where the arm comes out of the body is a plug also a smooth rubber texture.
The arms are long enough to reach the top of the rug so they can be cleaned, the sticky texture collects all the dust particles and dirt the rug as been gathering.
The legs of the character are kangaroo like to enable him to have the right spring movement just before stretching out and shooting himself off. They are strong and a smooth texture like the arms.
The stance of the character is tired, dragging arms slowing bouncing while he walks, droopy facial expression and that bottom lip sticking out.
Front view of the character.
Friday, 16 April 2010
Jonathan Rush
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Body Types
Body shape classification system is known as "somatotyping". The body can be chategorised into three main types:
- Mesomorph
- Ectomorph
- Endomorph
Mesomorphed Character
Ectomorphed
Light and slender, usually female, nymphs, vampires aged wizards - associated with magical powers. Female Ectomorphs rely on agility in physical combat and slenderness in a female is regarded as a desirable quality. Wizards have a more emaciated appearance to promote the illusion of age and to increase the dramatic effect when they unleash their powers. Skeletal knowledge is crucial here as bones are often visible through the skin. Hands, feet, back and rib cage are usually the areas thatstick out the most.
Endomorphed
- Heavy Boned
- Compact, robust, square body
- Well developed muscles
Ectomorphed
- Fragile- seeming features
- Minimal flesh and muscles
Light and slender, usually female, nymphs, vampires aged wizards - associated with magical powers. Female Ectomorphs rely on agility in physical combat and slenderness in a female is regarded as a desirable quality. Wizards have a more emaciated appearance to promote the illusion of age and to increase the dramatic effect when they unleash their powers. Skeletal knowledge is crucial here as bones are often visible through the skin. Hands, feet, back and rib cage are usually the areas thatstick out the most.
Endomorphed
- Softly rounded shape
- Large belly
- Small hands
- Fleshy overall appearance
Hefty rounded build, tendency to be fat. Commonly appear as secondary characters - usually on the side of evil in roles where the novelty of their size is fundamental. Shape is dictated by fat distribution which varies during movement. Fat is not anchored to the body and can move around freely - this should be reflected in the way it deforms.
I Draw Girls.Com
Found this extensive blog that has loads of tips on drawing and character design. Could really spend hours trawling through this as there's so much to go on, including a pretty impressive portfolio of the artists work.
Haloweeners - Neil McFarland
Came across this illustrator whilst looking at a computer arts article. The posture and body language of both characters (especially the one on the left) depicts a primitive, neolithic stature and there's a definite air of sadness in the two. The left hand characters drooping eyes reinfrc this. This is exactly the mood I want to create in my principal character and will help direct my drawings which could perhaps be exaggerated by a havy shell weighing the character down.
Character Design Tips - Jon Burgerman
Extract taken from Computer Arts magazine, featuring 20 tips from illustrator Jon Burgerman (who has adopted a very distinc style hat can be seen in various brand identities, notably the murial he did for Size in London)
20 character design tips
Lacking character? Jon Burgerman drums up 20 tips for creating fantastic characters and the best ways to bring them to life
Character design can be a tricky beast to tackle, because although many of the classic characters familiar to us all through cartoons, entertainment and advertising look simple, that simplicity usually belies the many hours of work that have gone into their development.
From Mickey Mouse’s famous three-fingered hands – drawn to save production time when the character was first developed for animations in the 1920s – to the elegant simplicity of Homer Simpson, character design has always been about keeping it simple. But aside from clean lines and easily readable features, what else are you going to need to know? There’s knowing what to exaggerate and what to play down, what to add to give a hint of background and depth, and what to do to develop personality. Getting started can be the trickiest part in any character development project, but once you’ve got some ideas these tips will help you breath life into your creation…
1: Research and evaluate
It can be helpful to try and deconstruct why certain characters and their characteristics work and why some don’t. There’s no shortage of research material to be found, with illustrated characters appearing everywhere: on TV commercials, cereal boxes, shop signs, stickers on fruit, animations on mobile phones, and more. Study these characters and think about what makes some successful and what in particular you like about them.
2: Design and plan
Where will the character be seen and in what medium? This will have a direct bearing on how you go about your design. For example, if the character is for a mobile-phone screen, there’s no point designing it to have a lot of intricate details and features. Nathan Jurevicius says, regardless of the format, “The process of thinking up concepts always starts the same: paper, pencil, green tea... lots of thumbnails, written ideas, scratches and sketches over sketches.”
3: Who is it aimed at?
Think about your audience. Characters aimed at young children, for example, are typically designed around basic shapes and bright colours. If you’re working for a client, the character’s target audience is usually predetermined, as Nathan Jurevicius explains: “Commissioned characters are usually more restrictive but no less creative. Clients have specific needs but also want me to do my ‘thing’. Usually, I’ll break down the core features and personality. For example, if the eyes are important then I’ll focus the whole design around the face, making this the key feature that stands out.”
4: Visual impact
Whether you’re creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people’s attention. When devising The Simpsons, Matt Groening knew he had to offer the viewers something different. He reckoned that when viewers were flicking through TV channels and came across the show, the characters’ unusually bright yellow skin colour would grab their attention.
5: Line qualities and styles
The drawn lines of which your character is composed can go some way to describing it. Thick, even, soft and round lines may suggest an approachable, cute character, whereas sharp, scratchy and uneven lines might point to an uneasy and erratic character. Sune Ehlers characters are bold and seem to dance on the page, which echoes his approach to drawing them. He explains: “Drawing a doodle is about decisive pen-manoeuvring. A strong line for me comes from strength and rhythm.”
6: Exaggerated characteristics
Exaggerating the defining features of your character will help it appear larger than life. Exaggerated features will also help viewers to identif y the character’s key qualities. Exaggeration is key in cartoon caricatures and helps emphasise certain personality traits. If your character is strong, don’t just give it normal-sized bulging arms, soup them up so that they’re five times as big as they should be!
7: Colour me bad
Colours can help communicate a character’s personality. Typically, dark colours such as black, purples and greys depict baddies with malevolent intentions. Light colours such as white, blues, pinks and yellows express innocence, good and purity. Comic-book reds, yellows and blues might go some way to giving hero qualities to a character.
8: Adding accessories
Props and clothing can help to emphasise character traits and their background. For example, scruffy clothes can be used for poor characters, and lots of diamonds and bling for tasteless rich ones. Accessories can also be more literal extensions of your character’s personality, such as a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder or a maggot in a ghoul’s skull.
9: The third dimension
Depending on what you have planned for your character, you might need to work out what it will look like from all angles. A seemingly flat character can take on a whole new persona when seen from the side if, for example, it has a massive beer belly. If your character is going to exist within a 3D world, as an animation or even as a toy, working out its height, weight and physical shape is all important.
10: Conveying personality
Interesting looks alone do not necessarily make for a good character; its personality is key as well. A character’s personality can be revealed through comic strips and animations, where we see how it reacts to certain situations. The personality of your character doesn’t have to be particularly agreeable, but it does need to be interesting (unless your characters is purposely dull). Personality can also be expressed simply in how the character has been drawn.
11: Express yourself
Expressions showing a character’s range of emotions and depicting its ups and downs will further flesh out your character. Depending on its personality, a figure’s emotions might be muted and wry or explosive and wildly exaggerated. Classic examples of this can be found in the work of the legendary Tex Avery: the eyes of his Wild Wolf character often pop out of its head when it’s excited. Another example of how expressions communicate motions is deadpan Droopy, who barely registers any sort of emotion at all.
12: Goals and dreams
The driving force behind a character’s personality is what it wants to achieve. This missing ‘something’ – be it riches, a girlfriend or solving a mystery – can help to create the dramatic thrust behind the stories and adventures your character gets up to. Often the incompleteness or flaws in a character are what make it interesting.
13: Building back stories
If you’re planning for your character to exist within comics and animations then developing its back story is important. Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character. Sometimes the telling of a character’s back story can be more interesting than the character’s present adventures… or not, in the case of the Star Wars prequels.
14: Quick on the draw
Don’t be afraid to experiment and ignore all the rules and tips about planning and crafting the look of your character. Going against what is supposed to be the right way of doing something could create unexpected and exciting results. When artist Yuck creates his characters he doesn’t really know what he’ll draw. “I just listen to music and draw the result dependent on my mood: freaky or cute. I always want to have a drawing that I find interesting. I then work more on the character after it’s okay with me and my brain,” he says.
15: Hone, plan and polish
Instead of just drawing or doodling without too much pre-planning, Nathan Jurevicius prefers to take a different approach. “I take a long time creating finished looking roughs and also thinking about how the character could be expanded beyond a 2D artwork, what the character will do in a specific world, and how it speaks and acts,” he says.
16: Drawn in mud
Having decent materials to work with is useful, but not essential, for the early planning of your character. A lot of amazing characters were successfully designed years ago when no one had personal computers and Photoshop was just a dream. The drawings of your character should still work when rendered on paper with a simple pen or, as Sune Ehlers puts it, “The character should still be able to work with a stick dipped in mud and drawn on asphalt.”
17: Real-world drawing
Ian, of I Like Drawing, generates some of his characters away from both the computer and the sketchbook, allowing outside elements to influence his work. “I really like characters that interact with their surroundings,” he says. “The environment normally suggests an idea and then I let my strange mind do the rest. I prefer drawing in the real world with a pen instead of on the computer, because it feels good and odd things happen.”
18: Release the beast
Show people your creations and ask them what they think. Don’t just ask whether they like them or not. Instead, see if they can pick up the personalities and traits of your characters. Find who you think is the suitable or ideal audience for your work and get feedback specifically from them about it.
19: Beyond the character
In the same way that you create a history for your character, you need to create an environment for it to help further cement believability in your creation. The world in which the character lives and interacts should in some way make sense to who the character is and what it gets up to.
20: Fine-tuning a figure
Question each element of your creation, especially things such as its facial features. The slightest alteration can have a great effect on how your character is perceived. Illustrator Neil McFarland Neil McFarland advises: “Think about the meaning of the word ‘character’. You’re supposed to breath life into these things, make them appealing and give them the magic that will allow people to imagine what they’re like to meet and how they might move. I think it’s strange how creating characters for the sake of it has become a distinct branch of graphic design.”
20 character design tipsLacking character? Jon Burgerman drums up 20 tips for creating fantastic characters and the best ways to bring them to life
Character design can be a tricky beast to tackle, because although many of the classic characters familiar to us all through cartoons, entertainment and advertising look simple, that simplicity usually belies the many hours of work that have gone into their development.
From Mickey Mouse’s famous three-fingered hands – drawn to save production time when the character was first developed for animations in the 1920s – to the elegant simplicity of Homer Simpson, character design has always been about keeping it simple. But aside from clean lines and easily readable features, what else are you going to need to know? There’s knowing what to exaggerate and what to play down, what to add to give a hint of background and depth, and what to do to develop personality. Getting started can be the trickiest part in any character development project, but once you’ve got some ideas these tips will help you breath life into your creation…
1: Research and evaluate
It can be helpful to try and deconstruct why certain characters and their characteristics work and why some don’t. There’s no shortage of research material to be found, with illustrated characters appearing everywhere: on TV commercials, cereal boxes, shop signs, stickers on fruit, animations on mobile phones, and more. Study these characters and think about what makes some successful and what in particular you like about them.
2: Design and plan
Where will the character be seen and in what medium? This will have a direct bearing on how you go about your design. For example, if the character is for a mobile-phone screen, there’s no point designing it to have a lot of intricate details and features. Nathan Jurevicius says, regardless of the format, “The process of thinking up concepts always starts the same: paper, pencil, green tea... lots of thumbnails, written ideas, scratches and sketches over sketches.”
3: Who is it aimed at?
Think about your audience. Characters aimed at young children, for example, are typically designed around basic shapes and bright colours. If you’re working for a client, the character’s target audience is usually predetermined, as Nathan Jurevicius explains: “Commissioned characters are usually more restrictive but no less creative. Clients have specific needs but also want me to do my ‘thing’. Usually, I’ll break down the core features and personality. For example, if the eyes are important then I’ll focus the whole design around the face, making this the key feature that stands out.”
4: Visual impact
Whether you’re creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people’s attention. When devising The Simpsons, Matt Groening knew he had to offer the viewers something different. He reckoned that when viewers were flicking through TV channels and came across the show, the characters’ unusually bright yellow skin colour would grab their attention.
5: Line qualities and styles
The drawn lines of which your character is composed can go some way to describing it. Thick, even, soft and round lines may suggest an approachable, cute character, whereas sharp, scratchy and uneven lines might point to an uneasy and erratic character. Sune Ehlers characters are bold and seem to dance on the page, which echoes his approach to drawing them. He explains: “Drawing a doodle is about decisive pen-manoeuvring. A strong line for me comes from strength and rhythm.”
6: Exaggerated characteristics
Exaggerating the defining features of your character will help it appear larger than life. Exaggerated features will also help viewers to identif y the character’s key qualities. Exaggeration is key in cartoon caricatures and helps emphasise certain personality traits. If your character is strong, don’t just give it normal-sized bulging arms, soup them up so that they’re five times as big as they should be!
7: Colour me bad
Colours can help communicate a character’s personality. Typically, dark colours such as black, purples and greys depict baddies with malevolent intentions. Light colours such as white, blues, pinks and yellows express innocence, good and purity. Comic-book reds, yellows and blues might go some way to giving hero qualities to a character.
8: Adding accessories
Props and clothing can help to emphasise character traits and their background. For example, scruffy clothes can be used for poor characters, and lots of diamonds and bling for tasteless rich ones. Accessories can also be more literal extensions of your character’s personality, such as a parrot on a pirate’s shoulder or a maggot in a ghoul’s skull.
9: The third dimension
Depending on what you have planned for your character, you might need to work out what it will look like from all angles. A seemingly flat character can take on a whole new persona when seen from the side if, for example, it has a massive beer belly. If your character is going to exist within a 3D world, as an animation or even as a toy, working out its height, weight and physical shape is all important.
10: Conveying personality
Interesting looks alone do not necessarily make for a good character; its personality is key as well. A character’s personality can be revealed through comic strips and animations, where we see how it reacts to certain situations. The personality of your character doesn’t have to be particularly agreeable, but it does need to be interesting (unless your characters is purposely dull). Personality can also be expressed simply in how the character has been drawn.
11: Express yourself
Expressions showing a character’s range of emotions and depicting its ups and downs will further flesh out your character. Depending on its personality, a figure’s emotions might be muted and wry or explosive and wildly exaggerated. Classic examples of this can be found in the work of the legendary Tex Avery: the eyes of his Wild Wolf character often pop out of its head when it’s excited. Another example of how expressions communicate motions is deadpan Droopy, who barely registers any sort of emotion at all.
12: Goals and dreams
The driving force behind a character’s personality is what it wants to achieve. This missing ‘something’ – be it riches, a girlfriend or solving a mystery – can help to create the dramatic thrust behind the stories and adventures your character gets up to. Often the incompleteness or flaws in a character are what make it interesting.
13: Building back stories
If you’re planning for your character to exist within comics and animations then developing its back story is important. Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character. Sometimes the telling of a character’s back story can be more interesting than the character’s present adventures… or not, in the case of the Star Wars prequels.
14: Quick on the draw
Don’t be afraid to experiment and ignore all the rules and tips about planning and crafting the look of your character. Going against what is supposed to be the right way of doing something could create unexpected and exciting results. When artist Yuck creates his characters he doesn’t really know what he’ll draw. “I just listen to music and draw the result dependent on my mood: freaky or cute. I always want to have a drawing that I find interesting. I then work more on the character after it’s okay with me and my brain,” he says.
15: Hone, plan and polish
Instead of just drawing or doodling without too much pre-planning, Nathan Jurevicius prefers to take a different approach. “I take a long time creating finished looking roughs and also thinking about how the character could be expanded beyond a 2D artwork, what the character will do in a specific world, and how it speaks and acts,” he says.
16: Drawn in mud
Having decent materials to work with is useful, but not essential, for the early planning of your character. A lot of amazing characters were successfully designed years ago when no one had personal computers and Photoshop was just a dream. The drawings of your character should still work when rendered on paper with a simple pen or, as Sune Ehlers puts it, “The character should still be able to work with a stick dipped in mud and drawn on asphalt.”
17: Real-world drawing
Ian, of I Like Drawing, generates some of his characters away from both the computer and the sketchbook, allowing outside elements to influence his work. “I really like characters that interact with their surroundings,” he says. “The environment normally suggests an idea and then I let my strange mind do the rest. I prefer drawing in the real world with a pen instead of on the computer, because it feels good and odd things happen.”
18: Release the beast
Show people your creations and ask them what they think. Don’t just ask whether they like them or not. Instead, see if they can pick up the personalities and traits of your characters. Find who you think is the suitable or ideal audience for your work and get feedback specifically from them about it.
19: Beyond the character
In the same way that you create a history for your character, you need to create an environment for it to help further cement believability in your creation. The world in which the character lives and interacts should in some way make sense to who the character is and what it gets up to.
20: Fine-tuning a figure
Question each element of your creation, especially things such as its facial features. The slightest alteration can have a great effect on how your character is perceived. Illustrator Neil McFarland Neil McFarland advises: “Think about the meaning of the word ‘character’. You’re supposed to breath life into these things, make them appealing and give them the magic that will allow people to imagine what they’re like to meet and how they might move. I think it’s strange how creating characters for the sake of it has become a distinct branch of graphic design.”
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
character development
DEAN: After discussing about the initial characters with Jim i have created some more. The character below is one that would eat up all the dirt in he rug, living like a skip. Initial ideas are that they would live under the fridge and some of the dust mites would delivery the rubbish to them.
I will pass this over to Jim to so he can model a mock up.
Jim: Nice one Dean. I've been having a look at microscopic photographs online - there's a few above to look at. Loads of really weird shapes, textures and colours to consider. When I originally thought about this characeter I had him down as a cow type figure that would just stand around all day chewing the cud so the mouth movements are really important. Like most agricultural animals (farmers included) they have a sort of rotaional motion to the way they chew, where the bottom jaw seems to dislocate from the top and then grind back with the teeth to complete the loop.
Also scales quite importamt - how big are these characters in relation to the rest of the characters? We associate cows as being big docile slow creatures tha remain pretty stagnant all day - they only move as far as they can chew, but are still quite powerful and physically intimidatting.
Textures - creature could have the sort of mottled patches like a Friesian cow. Ill post a few examples to give an idea.
Jim: Taken from Google images - the size comparison between the woman and Friesan is immense, I would certainly feel intimidated stood next to it. The first thing I notice from this picture is that cows are all about body, and how its front legs appear to be almost buckling under the weight. Cows are not built for mobility.
I will pass this over to Jim to so he can model a mock up.
Jim: Nice one Dean. I've been having a look at microscopic photographs online - there's a few above to look at. Loads of really weird shapes, textures and colours to consider. When I originally thought about this characeter I had him down as a cow type figure that would just stand around all day chewing the cud so the mouth movements are really important. Like most agricultural animals (farmers included) they have a sort of rotaional motion to the way they chew, where the bottom jaw seems to dislocate from the top and then grind back with the teeth to complete the loop.
Also scales quite importamt - how big are these characters in relation to the rest of the characters? We associate cows as being big docile slow creatures tha remain pretty stagnant all day - they only move as far as they can chew, but are still quite powerful and physically intimidatting.
Textures - creature could have the sort of mottled patches like a Friesian cow. Ill post a few examples to give an idea.
Jim: Taken from Google images - the size comparison between the woman and Friesan is immense, I would certainly feel intimidated stood next to it. The first thing I notice from this picture is that cows are all about body, and how its front legs appear to be almost buckling under the weight. Cows are not built for mobility. Thursday, 25 March 2010
Character development
Dean: I have selected this character from the initial sketches and created a cheeky personality for him, i will pass this over to Jim so he can start modelling the character and begin the character rigging process.
Jim: Looking good Dean, might consider making his feet a little broader - like they're webbed, or maybe expandable/retractable so he can spread his toes out whilst retaining the overall delicacy of the character. The expandable arms will be a nice feature in the rig, looks like from your drawing he travels at pace, so they need to lag behind him when in full swing - thinking about using a dynamic chain with a switch so the animator can swap between the two.
Jim: Looking good Dean, might consider making his feet a little broader - like they're webbed, or maybe expandable/retractable so he can spread his toes out whilst retaining the overall delicacy of the character. The expandable arms will be a nice feature in the rig, looks like from your drawing he travels at pace, so they need to lag behind him when in full swing - thinking about using a dynamic chain with a switch so the animator can swap between the two.
- Could do with a few more concept sketches - think facial expressions, especialy considering the narrative, looks really happy in these pics, not really appropriate as he's supposed to be under oppression. I've found this wicked showreel online (click) have a look at the worm style character and the faces he pulls - immediately gives you an idea of what sort of character he is.
- Can you give me a bit more detail around the eye's mouth and hands? Need to know if the eyes are protruding in frontof the face or sunken in, does he have wrinkles? Bags? Tongue? Is it like a human tongue or a long lizard style tongue that can act as an extra limb? Teeth? Fangs Nashers? Gummy?, if he's gummy he could have a set of falsies - that insinuates age, could be shrivelled up like a sultana?
- Couple of close up drawings would be beneficial just to see whats going on around the afore mentioned areas (eyes, mouth, nose). Legs, are they hairy (like a fly) or smooth (like a baby's arse), shiny/ matt
- Textures - How does his skin appear - remember he doesn't just have to be flat colour, we can apply allsorts - use photographs, manipulate them in photoshop and bang them on. I did a drawing in photoshop the other day using a marble texture (click) of an insect claw. If you could give me something like that would help no end.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Film reference-Dust Mite characters
Film reference: Antz
DEAN: Character design for the film. This is really interesting and incisive in to the process of character design.
I am learning so much more about character from this collaborative project, i am thinking more in depth about character, i am thinking more about the movement of the character, so after creating a character with a specific personality i am now considering the movement which is informing my practice of character study, i am becoming more aware of what a 'real' character is, not just a doodle that looks 'cool', the character has a narrative and purpose.
Another clip showing the process of character development:
A clip of the fight between ants and termites, i have added this video just to show the difference with both the termites and ants looking at the size and movement of both.
Film reference: A Bug's Life.
Some character dvelopment for the film:
A clip looking at the movement of each insect:
DEAN: Character design for the film. This is really interesting and incisive in to the process of character design.
I am learning so much more about character from this collaborative project, i am thinking more in depth about character, i am thinking more about the movement of the character, so after creating a character with a specific personality i am now considering the movement which is informing my practice of character study, i am becoming more aware of what a 'real' character is, not just a doodle that looks 'cool', the character has a narrative and purpose.
Another clip showing the process of character development:
A clip of the fight between ants and termites, i have added this video just to show the difference with both the termites and ants looking at the size and movement of both.
Film reference: A Bug's Life.
Some character dvelopment for the film:
A clip looking at the movement of each insect:
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