We’re introduce to our module where we’ll be mainly focusing on developing a character/creature. We’re going to be introduce to a program call Zbrush which I’ve never used before but from what I’ve seen, it looks much easier to use to sculpt designs compare to Blender but again learning how to use a new program is gonna be a struggle. But anywho, I can’t wait to start the designing process since I’ve always been a big fan of looking into how characters are designed and developed.
BASIC PRINCIPLES
I’ll be looking into each steps in more detail and do personal further research in the upcoming weeks but for now I’m just kind of dipping my toes in some details on the subject. This is usually how the character development is planned:
CHARACTER SCRIPT
Most character will be provided through a script with a few words describing the creature and their surroundings. We can mostly use the character details to create what shape and mainly what colour this character is made up of along with how it interacts with it’s surrounding, we can then add further small details that makes sense for their climate.
ANATOMY
We have to look below the skin and understand the bone, muscle and tissue anatomy for these character/character designs. The best way to create them is look at real animals, understanding their anatomy before making small adjustments or combining other creatures together. This helps us understand how movement works with the creature when animating and make it more believable.
KEY PRINCIPLES
These principles are what help it visually look pleasing and easy to tell how the creature may act, these are Balance, Repetition, Contrast, Scale & Perspective, Shape Language and Dynamism. Most of which we are just looking at the shapes, form, size and colour.
PERSONAL RESEARCH
I just decided to pull up some videos just to see how more professional designers whip and cook up designs. I had watch these after completing my first exercise script. Just judging from what I’ve done in my first script, I should have added in some tones to break down the silhouettes into smaller shapes so my ape brain can focus on smaller pieces, hopefully making it easier to come up with designs.
CLASS EXERCISE – SCRIPT
For our class exercise, we were given 4 different scripts to read through and come up with a design. I read through them a few times before pulling up with a highlighter and slapping it on a few word to research further in for reference or what are the key features for them:
The Enchanted Grove
Since the first one didn’t much about how the creature functions but more of how it appears and move. I went into creating a few silhouettes that I mashed up through ms paint on a mouse which I will then follow up with my drawing tablet.
I wanted to give them long legs in all of these (or at least attempt) to give it some touch of ‘grace’ since the first thing that comes to to mind when I think of graceful moments was a ballerina ☻. I’m just going to lower the transparency and draw what I see from these and then extend 1 of them to a final design. I clearly struggled when I had draw on details. 
Instead of trying to finish this. I decided to grab two of these and restart after watching the video and here is what I came up with
From here, I was leaning towards the left one more and wanted to make more designs with the similar shapes but I just decided to not to waste any more time on it and move onto the other scripts.
The Phantom of the Sylvan Realm
When reading through this script my mind was just thinking about the tendrils so through slapping down some silhouettes, I made them the main thing that stands out. The first one is so clearly aa jellyfish since my ape brain couldn’t come up with something but hopefully the following 4 was a lil more seasoned.
Again taking two of them and playing around with tones and breaking it into smaller parts. I didn’t bother adding much texture and details since it didn’t mention any of it in the script.
The Amphibious Enigma
I decided to do a quick search of characteristics of amphibians and looked at the common animals that fit into this label. Stole this information from a website, science GCSE did me good but I needed to make sure the information was correct.
From here I didn’t spend any more time taking the silhouettes and using tones to season the design more as I want to start my own script for my character design but hopefully just looking at these, it’s obvious that these are some type of amphibian creature.
The Dune Dweller
The script here mentions a lot more than just on the appearance but also the organs, I’m a visual learner so I did the easiest thing which is collecting images on how animal anatomy works for small animals and just animals that live in deserts to take heavy inspiration from.
Judging from my silhouettes, these are just a whole bunch of similar looking rodents with large ears, I feel like for these I would need to take them and use tones to break them into more detail to actually make it look very different. Too bad I wanted to start my script so I don’t fall behind on my own design.
Doing this very time consuming exercise (kinda my own fault for doing it like this) helps me know what direction I want to go in, mainly it helps me find easier ways to design a character/creature.