Researching Methodologies
Concepting a character is an area that I have always loved, so I was really excited to work for this module. Before starting any concepting I decided to sit down and do some research of the key principles of what makes a believable character and have a look at different approaches artist have. I also used this as a way to understand how to present my portfolio in a more professional way.
From this video I learnt the importance of shape language and how to translate these into a visually appealing character by referencing other artist’s concept art work. Things like using repeating shapes and colours, achieving interesting contrast, how to pose your character in a 3D space and thinking gesturally when thumbnailing out ideas. He focusses a lot on understanding what you want of your character, gathering the relevant visual research and really push designs before pulling back for the final design.
Zhang’s video taught me how to approach generating ideas for characters as well as how to think about clothing them. She uses a lot of reference, not only for the design but to explore and understand the particular aesthetic and tone that she wants. Seeing how she extracts this information and creates something completely new is really interesting, learning how to independently work from the reference is an important skill for concepting characters. From here I learnt about using silhouettes as I work to ensure my character and their action is readable as well as making sure that the outfit fits the action/s that the character will perform and being able to achieve a balance of fantasy and history. Clothing is a way for you to sell your character’s backstory, understanding the material and what condition it is in can greatly reflect a character’s social status and background, as well as including props that have certain significance can hint at their greater story. It is also important that when designing you treat any real world references with respect and not like they are just an aesthetic to use.
Dermott Burns has a really clear layout of his portfolio, being able to see each stage of development for this character and understanding how he has used reference to inform functional design choices makes for a really well presented document. I also like how the key poses present the character beign functional in the world and gives it a bit of story that translates his character profile from written to visual medium.
Character Concept
Starting off I was pretty lost of what type of character I should create, so I decided to create a couple of options before deciding on one that I liked the best which ended up being the fox character.
I ended up swapping my initial Samurai idea into a ninja, as foxes are better known for being silent and sneaky. Following Zhang’s advice I went and researched the historical side of ninjas as well as foxes in Japanese mythology. From this I was able to start thinking about different aspects of my character, ninjas mostly came from farmers and their weapons came from farming tools, they would be poorer and used to hard labour. I was able to see how certain weapons were used, and how they needed to hold themselves which aided me in thinking about the anatomy and function I needed in my character. I also looked into what types of materials were used, patterns and protection charm meanings. Just a deep dive into a lot of Edo-period so that I could generate ideas of a backstory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QssD1riUYHY
Following along with moderndayjames’ advice I took a look at some artists I liked and saw how they constructed characters and created dynamic poses.
Then I gathered some references, both historical and illustrative ones. I looked at similar characters to what my idea was, seeing how they created unique silhouettes and used clothing as a story telling device. I also gathered some references that showed my general way of thinking, trying to understand the environment, anatomy and things that just connected in my head for this project.
So, for my character I decided to use a lot of triangles to get a sense of agility and danger, which naturally works with foxes shapes. I liked how TB Choi contrasted the rounded lines of the muscles and the harsh angles of joints and bones so I wanted to try incorporate that. I was also really inspired by a sculptor called Beth Cavener [https://followtheblackrabbit.com], she is able to create this sense of flow with her fur that would work well with this sneaky, moves with the wind type characterisation I wanted.
Following with my character profile I wanted to use his clothes to tell his story. I wanted him to have things that reminded him of his sister, things that he treasured and took with him and for these I decided to have a protection charm and use the cloth of her kimono as some form of wrapping. I wanted the fact that this was a farmer turned nomadic fighter to be represented in his sparse belongings and type of materials. So he has these pants that have been repaired hastily with a different coloured cloth patch, armour that isn’t too cohesive, metal is cheap iron instead of silver or gold. I wanted to have reoccurring elements so I kept this cloth on all my elements, and I liked the idea of some older family member being a retired swordsman, so it let me use this reoccurring foxtail motif, giving him this connection to his dead family. I also thought that since he was scavenging elements, instead of having a chain on the kusarigama that we know now, it would have been more accessible for him to create his own using some cloth. decided to use that common theme of layering from my references to make it appear like most of his gear was hand made and thrown together.
For colours I decided to experiment with contrast, tried to go on different extremes and get a feel for what I wanted. Then I went and sent some of these to my peers to see how they saw each element and get a feel for what they preferred, mainly it was 4,6,7, and I also received nice comments on adjustments I could make so you can see those explored in the second row . I wanted to have matching colours of the scarf and charm, to reflect that these both were connected and kept them quite bright to make them stand out as important. I used a saturation and a greyscale correction layer to keep an eye on how ranged my tones were for each of these. The colours I decided on will use cool tones on the white fur, pants and metal and then warmer tones will come from the fur and leather.
This ended up being my final design, and I gave him a name that matched his personality- Daiki as he is the first born son to his family and Yako coming from fox. I think this design turned out pretty well, although I could have pushed myself a bit further with stylisation and shape language.
