Month: October 2021

This week our homework was to fill 2 or more pages of different character design ideas, whilst considering the fundamentals covered over the past several weeks (shape, from, colour…). Along with our lecture this week covering this topic, I also found reading up on character design and looking for examples from different artist helped me get started with my own designs. I read various ‘The Art of’ Disney books which was very useful. I have The Art of Up, Brave, Soul, Coco and Tangled, and looking through the different steps taken when designing characters for these animations helped me gain more confidence as I knew where to start with my sketches.

The current theme for my group is a magical academia world where a fungus begins to spread, infecting the magical school near the forest where the fungus began, turning the pupils and teachers into mushroom people. Sorcha, who was our guest lecturer this week, helped breakdown these ideas and characters for us which was extremely helpful. At the beginning of the week, I kept my sketches extremely basic, only using circles and triangles to design my mushroom characters as I wanted their whole bodies to resemble mushrooms in the beginning. I looked at mushroom images as my references.

As the week went on, my group decided to focus on creating taller and slimmer bodies as we wanted them to look more like zombies with mushroom features rather than complete mushrooms. I continued using actual mushrooms as my references whilst making the bodies look more humanlike to fit the theme of the animation.

Looking at the shapes of the mushrooms, I noticed that the bottom of the stalk was often much larger than the top. I decided to keep this in my designs by making the bottom half of the legs larger than the top half, so even though the bodies now are more humanlike, they still have shapes similar to mushrooms throughout them, rather than the head being the only mushroom-like element. At this point, I also researched how fungal infections spread so I could design a more realistic character. Through my research, I found out that fungal infections spread through skin to skin contact, or through infections in soil. Because of this, I tried to incorporate long, thin fingers in my designs so the zombies could grip people easier, causing the spread of the fungus. Also because of this research, we decided to have a zombie coming out of the ground at the beginning of the animation, which is the start of the spread.

Research:

Fungi

Designs:

I also read a couple chapters of ‘The Silver Way’ by Stephen Silver this week. Already I have learned so much from this book as it has taught me to loosen up more with my sketches. I found the exercises in the book extremely enjoyable and useful. I plan on continuing reading this book next week as I start to add more details to my characters as I want to learn more about gestures and what to avoid when designing a face. We also had a character design workshop this week where Sorcha explained many topics in ‘The Silver Way’ such as rhythm and avoiding a stiff, even ladder when designing a character which I found very interesting.

These are two exercises from ‘The Silver Way’. Here I created 12 different thumbnails, splitting the bodies into very simple sections to find a body shape that I liked the most. I only took around 10-20 seconds on each thumbnail so that I didn’t overthink the designs and I could create them more freely and loosely.

Here I did the ‘zone-out’ exercise where I had to blur my eyes and draw with my left hand to create a rough sketch of a character, I then added detail from there. I found this difficult at first however I am very happy with the result and will be trying this again in the future.

References used:

Week 6:

As we did not have class this week, I decided to spend my time drawing a character design sheet for the main mushroom zombie of our animation, the old Principal. We did not end up going with this design as we decided to make him look more human-like, therefore his skin would look less green and instead of having a mushroom shaped head, the mushrooms now grow and appear on his skin. I am still, however, extremely proud of my design and am happy the others thought some elements would look good in our animation, such as his pale, white eyes, which were inspired by the zombies from the walking dead video game.

My design:

References:

This week we were tasked to use either a monochromatic, analogous, complementary or triadic colour scheme on one of our previous thumbnails to create a simple environment. I chose to use a monochromatic colour scheme as my worlds for the past few weeks have both had a magical, supernatural element to them, therefore, I chose to focus completely on the colour purple in my drawing. I learned from our lecture this week that purple is often used in film to create an ethereal, magical and illusory environment. I wanted to give my environment an ethereal feel as I thought the theme would go well with my current ‘magical academia’ world.

We were also tasked to create two scenes using different colour palettes to create two different emotions. As in the previous exercise my colour palette consisted mostly of brighter, more saturated shades of purple, I wanted to use darker colour palettes for this exercise. Keeping to the theme of my world, I used an analogous colour scheme that consisted of dark purples and blues to create a more mysterious scene. I am extremely happy with this drawing as I feel as though the bright stars in the dark sky gives the drawing a more magical element, whereas the dark shadows on the ground creates the mystery I was trying to convey.

For this drawing, I used mainly various shades of red to create an angrier environment. I changed the sky in this drawing to a cloudy, overcast day to make the drawing feel more closed in, generating a more fearful emotion in the viewer. For both drawings I used images that had either a clear, starry sky or a dark, cloudy one that I found on pinterest as references.

For this assignment we had to look at our favourite movies/animations and create a basic colour script using block colours. I found screenshots on google images and looked at the Princess and the Frog and Venom as both movies have completely different plots and themes. I wanted to see the clear contrasts between colour palettes. Blues and oranges are used many times throughout the Princess and the Frog. This creates a sense of calmness and a friendly environment. Purple is also used when the shadow man is present, highlighting his magical abilities. Complementary colours purple and yellow are used in the figures that surround the shadow man, creating tension and a sense of madness.

It is clear to see that the Princess and the Frog uses much higher saturation and value in its colours than Venom. This creates a more joyous, childlike feel as its target audience is much younger than that of Venom. Venom uses many dark colours to show the villainous nature of the creatures. When lighter colours are used it is usually to highlight the character’s features, such as his large teeth and eyes and his size compared to the average man when lights are coming from behind him.

I also watched these videos on colour that were extremely interesting to me. They helped me understand hues and values more and taught me how to blend various colours, which has helped me in drawings and paintings outside of university as well as in this module. I found video 1 the most interesting as it taught me a great deal about cyan and magenta which I never thought about before. I feel as though this week, my skills have developed immensely as I have learned so many interesting things that will help me in the coming weeks.

This is not BLUE (a lesson in color theory) – YouTube

Colour Harmony – 10 Minutes To Better Painting – Episode 5 – YouTube

Colour Notes – 10 Minutes To Better Painting – Episode 7 – YouTube

Understanding Shadow Colors (Ambient Light Part 2) – YouTube

I also continued designing landscapes for my current ‘magical academia’ world. This week I added colour to my sketches.

References used:

This week we were tasked go outside and take photos of three different colour groups – Analogous, Complementary and Monochromatic. We then had extract the colour palettes from these images. Image 1 makes us feel happy and calm as the bright warm colours in the flowers are naturally relaxing. Image 2 has very striking colours and captures the attention of the viewer. Image 3 has very soft, pastel colours, making us feel at peace. None are too bright, therefore not as dramatic as images 1 and 2.

This week my group consisted of me, Lydia, Milo, Joe and Jorja, and we were given the task to complete 6 more thumbnails focusing on perspective, tone and value for our 1920s supernatural world. We then had to choose one of these thumbnails to create a more detailed drawing.

I decided to do three cross hatching drawings as cross hatching is something I am familiar with, but I wanted to further develop my skills in this area. I also chose to do two tone drawings, focusing on the contrast between tones as finding the right balance between shadows and highlights is often something I find difficult. I used three tones for my sixth drawing as I wanted to show the leaves and vines on top of the buildings and felt this was the best way to do so.

After creating these thumbnails, I feel much more confident using various tones in an image, however when cross hatching, I think I need more practice drawing flatter surfaces as image 3 has more ‘two dimensional’ surfaces, making it more difficult for me to create depth. Images 1 and 5 look much more three dimensional as there is more texture and form throughout these images.

For my week 2 drawings, I found reference photos on Pinterest and google images. I then used the drawings I created as reference images for my tone and value drawings as they didn’t have much detail and I wanted to develop some of them further. This week was my first-time using Photoshop to create my thumbnails instead of Procreate on my iPad. I enjoyed using Photoshop and will be using it much more often to create my drawings as I find it easier to use and prefer the finished results.

I chose to do a more detailed drawing of image 1 as it was my favourite out of them all. I felt as though it worked best with my world theme and I wanted to see how it would look as a more detailed image.

I also decided to do some cross hatching drawings of elf ears. In our group, we had discussed different characters we would like to see in our world, including elves. As I have never drawn elves before, I wanted to begin practicing some of their features.

References: