This week we focused on the character designs for our World – Sugar Prohibition.
In previous weeks group members have compiled various references to help build the world and the characters that live in it, and the newer members have since added their own ideas and references.
I find character design incredibly tricky but the most fun, it’s where most of the story can be told by a simple look of a character and the details chosen to represent their characteristics. I looked through some art books I have like Into The Spiderverse, Ratatouille and Dragon Age Inquisition to gain some insight on character development and meaningful choices. I found seeing the different design processes and admission of difficulty in desiging some characters was really useful, and helped me escape that perfectionist trait of mine. It did inspire me to try a loose, rough imagine to get silhouettes and shapes.
Silhoutte attempt:
Last week Finn, Kharis and Isaiah grouped together some references for our two main characters – The detective and the Femme Fatale. This is some of the work they shared with the group:
Our main characters are Detective Mo Lars – the protagonist, Sugar Kane and Boss Pontic – Antagonists. With as many of the group as we could gather for a meeting, Finn, Ellie and I filled the Character Design template for the Detective to get familiar with what has to be filled out and to give opportunity to discuss character detail and ideas.
Detective Reference and Research:
Character Design template – Detective
Femme Fatale Reference and Research:
Mob Boss Reference and Research:
I chose to try and do some concepting for The Mob Boss character – Pontic, which is out of my comfort zone and the femme fatale – Sugar Kane which is bit more what I’m used to drawing.
Mob Boss Pontic
For this character I had two different ideas in my head. A large barrel chested character (left), much like Bluto from Popeye. The characteristics of a large chest, shorter legs and a thick neck gives the classic brawny bad guy. This kind of character I image is strong and intimidating but not very smart, and easy then to manipulate which would work for the plot. I had a thought while designing/thinking about all these characters, would the rich and indulgent criminals be bigger or smaller in size? Would they indulge in sugar or would they completely avoid or hide it to put off suspicion? This is mostly the reason I wanted to try different body shapes, to see if it fits with the story and character.
The other character design (right) has main inspirations from both real life mobsters like Al Capone, who had expensive tastes and habits with characters like Kingpin from the marvel universe. I like this design as he looks like a classic Mob Boss, but he looks smart and methodical.
Sugar Kane
Sugar Kane is the real mastermind behind the sugar prohibition trade in the City it is set, New York. While studying colour theory, I designed the Sweeteasy to be in luxurious, playful, passionate and fun colours like pinks, purples and red. I had learned that blue can be interpreted as a cerebrial colour and I thought that it would be a subtle hint that Sugar was much smarter than she let on.
Like the Boss Pontic I thought about her body shape especially. The classic femme fatale would be tall with an impossible hourglass figure, but I wanted to play around with the idea that she would weigh more or less. For her heavier look I was inspired by a very specific character: Sophie from Anastasia. I love her proportions, and how her clothes fit to her body and the character herself is very affectionate, romantic and comfortable in her sexuality.
The other body type I took a lot more reference from Yzma from Emperor’s New Groove. She is a lot thinner and boney, becuase of her strict avertion from sugar. Yzma’s design is much more angular, making her seem less trusting and kind off the bat. I rounded out my design so she would come off softer but gave her a more squared, thinner body shape to reflect the illegal sugar trade situation.
