During the second week, we continued learning about character design, including about anatomy and monster theory. Even when creating a new fictional character or creature, keeping in line with real life anatomy rules makes the character more believable as it gives it some form and a physical way to how it would work.
After learning about monster theory, inspired by the interpretations of animals based on their skeletal structures, I was inspired to have another look at the shape I want for my character based off of an existing skeletal structure – a plesiosaur.
I was much happier with this head shape for my character, and this also helped me add to its backstory and easier conceptualise what I wanted – a creature descended from dinosaurs and developed for living deep underwater.
I drew inspiration from other things as well when trying to adjust this design, such as the Rito birds from Breath Of The Wild, whose wings also doubled as big hands. I thought about giving the character hidden claws like seals have, but since he’s generally a pacifist I decided against it. I also decided to have the limbs jellyfish-like to account for the water pressure in the deep sea, as well as the non-threatening aura I wanted to go for. I decided on the long tail to help the sense of balance on the character and to help it steer, and the dorsal fins going from the head to the tail helped the flow of the design, as well as further conveying that this is a sea creature, adjacent to fish.
The colours were the most difficult for me to figure out. I mostly liked how they looked but they were still tricky, and I struggled with contrast. However I removed the dark purple on the end of the limbs and I think that helped a little.
My friend Chloe helped me out a lot with the process of creating this creature! Although I had done a lot of research on deep sea creatures, and thinking about my character’s backstory, she help with asking questions about its environment and history, which helped a lot with solidifying this creature as a real character.
The advice to add scales and gills and make the limbs see-through to better convey that they are made of jelly was super useful, and I went ahead and added those to the design.
Here is him in a normal vs. environmental scene!
I also really liked the idea that he helps out smaller fish in general to help guide them through the deep sea, and changed the story to this later. His size and sharp teeth etc. drives away other predators and keeps the fish safe during their journey. At the time I checked to make sure if it would be okay to include another small model along with my character as a scene element.
But my main concerns at this point despite liking the design were that I was worried that all of the colours blended together a little bit too much, and the feedback I got in class was that my character could use a little bit more contrast.
Using a black and white filter, it’s more clear to see which areas are brighter and darker, and the contrasts between colours.
I also wanted to add in hindsight that I think it would have been helpful to more clearly convey where the scales ended and the jelly began. I had this concept in mind, but I feel I should have conveyed it better right off the bat.
This blog may not be in exact chronological order, as I ended up developing the colours for this character for the next several weeks – but for the sake of organisation and fluidity, I will include the process I went through for figuring out the exact design I wanted!
Although my story concept was fairly simple, I did really like it. It was simple but cute and I thought it could perhaps be a story for a children’s storybook. Because of that as well, I really wanted my character to have strong and vibrant colours, but it was really difficult for me to balance everything so it actually looked appealing.
I sort of liked what I was going for, but it still felt off. I think part of my issue was that I had stuck onto one idea, so it was difficult for me to try new things, not just in terms of the colour itself, but also the colour patterns.
Then I think I ended up overthinking it and losing track of what I wanted in the first place.
I tried to bring it back again, and with the design above I was a little happier with it and the contrast was decent, but there was still something about it I didn’t like.
(Here I drew over my model to save on time.) I felt I was onto something when laying down the base purple colours for this, and I liked my little thumbnail at the side, but it still just looked unappealing.
The colours for this character were something that I put off for a long time, and they remained something I felt I just couldn’t figure out.
However, one day I sat down and finally, finally I had gotten something I actually really liked AND had good contrast!
The colours weren’t even that far off from my original concept, but this time everything came together really well! I think deciding to try out more of a painting style for the colours helped me a lot.
After drawing that thumbnail, I decided to expand the drawing into the full character because I was so happy I had finally gotten something that I liked, that was nice and bright and vibrant but also had better contrast and I felt like the colours were more coherent.
And sure enough, after testing with black and white the results were much better than before. I feel like the little bright spots / freckles added a little more of not only friendliness to the design, but also showed more the oceanic aspect of this character as many sea creatures have spots on their back.
Additionally, the dark colours on the back vs. bright on the bottom aligns with a pattern that many other sea creatures have due to countershading.
I also wanted to mention that for a while I was a little conflicted on how anthropomorphic I wanted to make this character. Although he was a sea creature, I feel like the way I drew him conveyed like he maybe had a bit more of a human personality, for example by drawing him pointing more upwards than sideways. However, in the end I was happy enough with the idea of him being fully a creature, but perhaps anthropomorphised in the sense that in a storybook or animated short, he and the fish and sea creatures around him would speak to each other. I decided that both the “upwards” and “downwards” poses were natural for this sea creature as well.
As well as that, I was wondering whether my design was maybe a little too simple so I considered adding some jewellery to my character. The story behind that was that he would find little trinkets from sunken ships at the bottom of the sea and wear them, and it added a bit of glamour and royalty to his design.
I wasn’t able to add these on later due to time constraints, however I honestly think that at this point, I like the character design on its own without the jewellery, as he looks more like just a creature you would find swimming around in the ocean.
Lastly, it took me a while to settle on a name for his species that I liked, but eventually I went for the name Sea Dragons! There are very few of his species in the world, so he’s very special and rarely seen (especially humans), almost mythical like a dragon, and of course the dinosaur element likens him to dragons a little as well. I also really like the name as to me it comes off as really cute and friendly, like I would like my character to come across as too!