Character

After my class with Ashling about characters, I decided it was time to re-evaluate the design of Thumbelina. I always planned on furthering her design and creating a different interpretation. Therefore, I began redesigning.

I looked at Beatrice Anemagna and how she doesn’t sacrifice a character’s personality for “pretty”. My goal was for my character to have appeal and leave the viewer wanting to see more. I started with drawing in oil pastel with no pre-planning in order to let my ideas flow freely. I ended up happy with some designs that I wanted to experiment with further.

• Oil pastel

With the oil pastel drawings, I felt I was creating a more unique silhouette with my character as well as including a special costume aspect that makes my character more appealing, in this case, it was the hats. The hat would also work as a visual device being able to convey mood. As well as this, the hat helps with a story aspect, as in the story the characters have “crowns” This leads me to think that the different hats can represent the crown and whatever flower the character originated from.

I began to sketch my character, being very free with my line, so I could see what personality comes through. I used different media and experimented with the new character design. Ive also included experiments with my original character design.

• Sketchbook

As im moving on from experimenting with my original design I wanted to do a final illustration of my character. This also shows how in concept art a character normally goes from fully developed to a more simplified version. This would be the complex version of my character

• Character Illustration

Using tips from the colour theory class, I used different colour schemes from movies in order to create some quick character drawings. I did this as throughout my project I had yet to experiment with my colours and wanted to make sure that the colour scheme I had chosen was the best option for me.

• Colour palettes

Scenes part 2.

During the break i spent time researching different concept artists from my favourite cartoons and movies. The artist who has always captured my attention the most is Hayao Miyazaki. I love the scenes he creates with simple illustrations that aren’t very detailed but still capture the essence of a place and personality of characters. Taking this into consideration I thought this style would be best to experiment with in order to achieve a less “stiff” look that i have been aiming for.

I began working on scenes that don’t take up the full page and create unique shapes.

Work in progress

I then decided to do one focusing on the character to try and achieve a natural pose with lots of personality. Ive been experimenting to figure out what line works best and the combination of my materials. I figured that I like using a watercolour base as it gives me freedom with the colouring and makes my drawings very free. I think the line in this drawing is holding it back and making the character too stiff. With the pose i was inspired by Beatrice alemagna and how her characters anatomy isn’t perfect. I wanted to experiment with how my character takes up space to express a pose, Im going to work on this further as i don’t think i achieved the effect in this piece.

Scenes

Designing the environment is one of the main areas of concept art. Therefore, during my A3 painting project, I wanted to take extra care with the background I placed my character in. One goal of mines was for the scene to relate to the story of Thumbelina. Therefore, I read through the story again and choose moments where the character and background are equally important. I also wanted to use the backgrounds as a visual device in order to show the size of Thumbelina (A vital aspect of the story)

As practice for my final piece, I designed two different forest scenes where moments of the story may take place. More thought was required than in the normal forest scene as I had to take the size of Thumbelina into consideration and how she would fit in with different-sized plants.

• Forest scenes

In order to help with my perspective in scenes I visited botanic gardens and took a series of photographs. I created a miniature version of my character about the size of a thumb, as described in the story, and photographed her beside various plants and flowers.

• Photographs (PDF for easy viewing)

IMG_69

To experiment with creating scenes I wanted to create something that included a “landmark” for example a house that features in a story. I choose to design the castle that is referenced in Thumbelina. This helped me work on the relationships between an environment and design elements. I decided to draw in an Ink pen in order to be freer with my lines which allowed me to experiment with shapes and ideas.

• Ink scene

Gouache

• Planning: Since backgrounds and environments are essential to my theme I decided to make sure the location I chose was accurate and true to the story. I sketched a few thumbnails using prompts from the story until I came to one I was happy with. I wanted to choose a scene where there was an action so I could try drawing a character mid-movement.

• Final painting

• Update: Experimented in photoshop making my character more of a main focus in my painting.

Update  1.

•  Theme: Fairytale.

I want my body of work to focus on concept art and development therefore I spent my first week reading and researching well-known fairytales in order to choose one that would spark my interest.

I first looked at the Grimms fairytales and from there I discovered the stories of Hans Christina Anderson. After reading his novels I decided I wanted to do a fairytale that everyone knows but could have many different interpretations.

I choose Thumbelina. My aim with this story is to create scenes and characters that haven’t been associated with “Thumbelina” before. This week, I began by designing my first impression of the main character “Tiny”, most popularly known as “Thumbelina. From this character design, I plan on exploring all the different ways I can approach the design for example, by changing the gender or image of the character.

I’ve begun sketching some scenes from the story in order to grasp the basic Thumbelina design. [Belo