This week we focused on character design, and for the second week in a row I’m working on the ‘Demon Portal’ world.
To begin my foray into this topic, I tried a caricature exercise, choosing to stylise Judy Garland, Jackie Onassis and Peter Capaldi as Doctor Who.
I had already jotted some ideas down for the character who owns the Curiosity Shop (Mr “Old Man” Jenkins), but when it came to further exploration, I took into consideration his animate-ability. With these more realistic-looking sketches I’d worry about a lack of clarity in his expressions.
I tried out five ideas for Jenkins and decided to develop #3
As the character is a monster in a human skin, I experimented with having some more demonic features come to light when he becomes angry.
To create more clarity in his expressions, I made use of squash and stretch and the characterisation of his hair, hat and ears to amplify his mood.
I’ve yet to develop any of my ideas for the main character, Eden, but I did enjoy exploring different shapes and styles. This helped me in figuring out her character. I took heavy inspiration from some of the silhouettes presented below:
For the mask Eden wears in the underworld, we’ve started to think along the lines of a white rabbit, given the connotations with innocence and our stories parallels with Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland.
I’ve been struggling to come up with solid monster designs for this world since I’m so new to it, but after trying some silhouette exercises I found a body type that I wanted to use
It was the very last one I did (see bottom middle) that inspired me in this design. Prior to this I had the idea to include a clown mask in a design for the monster that helps Eden through the underworld to go along with her mask’s ‘creepy with connotations of innocence’ thing, but was really stuck; once I had the idea for this body type, though, it came to me very quickly. I’ll explore more concepts for the character, but I do enjoy him as he is. I think I’ll call him Piccolo.