Monday, November 21, 2011

Character designs, or rather trying to design a character.

 This is a painting I did when I was trying to get a character design down for the Hiker for a new film I am working on.

I don't think that I have found what he is supposed to look like yet. I've feel like I've been grasping at straws trying to figure out how to design this guy. How do you go about designing your characters.

Do you have any design tips for me?
More drawings bellow.






2 comments:

  1. Aimed towards 2D or 3D animation?
    Depending on 2D/3D animation, budget, time frame, ect, you might benefit from thinking practical things into the design from the get-go.

    In school our teacher was always pushing for the 7 elements of design (no matter what we were drawing) 1. Line - 2. Shape - 3. Color - 4. Texture - 5. Form - 6. Value - 7. Space

    But my brain can't always work that practical/by numbers so here's roughly some of the steps I go through when designing characters (for 2D)

    - Story/personality - If I'm designing for a specific character for a
    specific story, I'd start figuring out which type of personality is
    linked to the character and what he/she will be doing in the story.
    - Early preproduction I work with different materials, black ink mostly, to get a clear graphic shape language, and get many things down quickly.

    also... (Look + references)
    - What genre is the film?
    - What animation style will be used?
    ... things to think of while getting into more specific design...

    - Pencil, more details, while not making to much either (time budget is of import) Figuring out what I like and what I don't like.

    (I have only worked on digital 2D productions so therefore next step for me have been to start working in photoshop)
    - depending on which program you use for animation later on, playing with the design in the chosen program, and maybe even test animating in the program can be helpful.

    I don't know if this helps or not, but this is roughly how I went about designing characters for 2D anim. (Trial and error, trial and error)... XD
     

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  2.  Hey thanks for the write up.  It is always helpful to hear some one else's process.  I really love your work and follow your blog.

     I think I need to take a step back and go back to the basics, so I will probably try out only using black ink for a while.  This character will end up being a stop-motion puppet, so eventually I will have to start sculpting them.

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