This week’s work is all about designing characters for our worlds.

I had gotten moved from the Plant/Flora world and was put into a new world that is based in a submarine. I don’t exactly know what the world includes but I had a theory about it so I went with that. Character wise I don’t know who is involved in the world exactly, I know that there are possibly two main characters and inhabitants of the submarine.

For my design work I decided to try come up with an idea of an inhabitant. Therefore I started gathering images that would help me come up with an idea.

With these reference images, I tried drawing them myself to get an understanding of the shape and look of what I might use for a character design. The character design on the right was a quick sketch of the combination of practices I did in a style that I thought might work for the world.

After this I then began to do some pose work using shapes to start with. This way I was able to get an idea of how the body should be positioned. The more I did this the more quirky I seemed to be making the character. Which I found funny and didn’t really mind, as I am not a fan of dark themed material.

So what came to mind was an animation character called Tae Yamada from the animation ‘Zombie Land Saga’. In this Tae doesn’t actually talk and is quite quirky as a zombie. This is something I thought I could incorporate in my character design, as the inhabitants of the world I am working on are meant to be dark, creepy and scary… I think, but adding this quirkiness makes things better in my opinion.

After the quick pose sketches, I took a few of my favourite ones and did full body designs, using the same character concept from before, but in a more developed style. I do think the poses I have done or more quirky and light-hearted rather than scary, but that is what this character is about.

 

I added colour to one of the poses to get a better grasp of the character. I used coloured pens for this image. I think I did pretty well, some of the shading might be off but I like the design. I should probably try a more green tone approach or darker colours to get a more darker vibe for the character. A little problem I do find with the design is the shading on the dress. Somehow I have managed to make it look like her body is twisted in an awkward way. However at the same time, it somehow looks appealing like that. Anyway it is something I should keep in mind when colouring other designs.

 

So I followed my suggestion and did a green coloured version of the dress to see what it would look like. While colouring I am trying to take in the advice I was given about my use of colours. I was told to be careful with using primary colours as they can really stand out amongst other colours and take the eye off the important areas. Meaning that I should be careful using highly saturated colours. Out of the two versions, I do prefer the blue as it is a bit more quirky looking, but I do like the green so many there might be a way to include both.

This is a purple version of the dress, I really like how the hair looks so I kept it the same. I went for purple as it is a darker colour which suits the theme of the world much better than the blue or green version. The pose may not be great but the basics of the pose is there. I do think there blue version is the best as it stands out better than the other two when compared to her dark hair and body.

This character, we’ll call her Felisha, is eccentric and weird, even among the other inhabitants. After a long period of time stuck in the submarine, she has started doing things randomly as her mental state has deteriorated to that like a child. She doesn’t speak much, more just grunts in the beginning, but as she follows the two explorers around her speech develops. She has a curiosity about the explorers and will follow them around either from a far or up close. The hope for this character is that she becomes loveable to the audience in the hope that she survives throughout the story.