This week’s workshop focused on Blender sculpting. To start the workshop, we were given a brief overview of how sculpt mode operates and how we can experiment with the tools and brushes. We began by sculpting a basic rock to introduce us to applying brushes in the process of creation. After watching an alien sculpting demonstration, we started using sculpting to make our own alien. I had no idea. what the alien would appear to be like when I was sculpting it. It ended up looking like a hybrid of a cow, pig, elephant, and reindeer since I kind of just played about with all the brush tools and preserved the areas that attracted my attention.
In our character design lecture, we were given a general overview of our second assignment, which focused on what we need and shouldn’t have. The lecturer also discussed the style he wanted us to maintain in our character designs. Genndy Tartakovsky’s work presented the inspiration for the suggested style, his most recent film; Hotel Transylvania, worked as an example. This week’s homework required researching Genndy Tartakovsky’s style and coming up with some character concepts.
Something resembling an army mermaid was the idea I had in mind for my character. I then used my character concept with a round face and eyes focused on Mavis Dracula, the character from Hotel Transylvania. Regarding the body shape, I’ve focused on Ashi, a character from Samurai Jack Season 5 that was also designed by Genndy Tartakovsky. Investigating several of Genndy’s Tartakovsky’s designs of different characters also inspired other ideas. As I’ve seen more of his character, I’ve come to an understanding that his style in Hotel Transylvania contrasts slightly from his style in other television series and animated films. The reason, in my opinion, is that Hotel Transylvania is more of a 3D animation than the others, which are 2D; without its sharp edges and straight lines, it has conveyed a completely different impression of his style. His other work included simple forms and lines and was blockier. I changed my character’s design from an army mermaid to a broken, cute, and eerie doll as I was making progress on it. This concept was inspired by another project I’m working on according to the Animation Studio module. After changing my idea, I have concentrated more on Genny Tartakovsky’s 2D characters to develop my own character employing his methods of applying basic forms and edges.
This few simple designs that I’ve thought of when creating the character.