This week I was moved to group 3, their story is about a world that is cracked and dived with people that have mutated to suit their new environments. We looked at character design. This involved looking at character’s shapes and how this make the character appear to the audience. We also looked at silhouettes of characters and how recognisable they are.
I had to design a character that would fit into the frost/crystal area. First I started with writing the character down using prompt questions that were provided.
After this I compiled research from the internet on what people wear in the snow, hair styles and other things I thought would look interesting and relate to the character.
Now that I knew what the character was like, I started designing. The first thing I did was make very basic sketches of body shapes and faces to warm up. I knew from the start that I wanted a muscular male character.
Next was clothing, since he is living in an igloo in a very cold climate I thought about giving him large coats and skiing goggles however I was not fully satisfied with the results of 1 and 2. I started to look into Norse clothing as inspiration for 3 and was happy with the result. I them tried to combine the more modern skiing elements and the Norse styled clothing for 4 but I didn’t like it. After that I combined my favourite elements from all the designs and ended up with a Norse looking outfit which I was happy with.
Number 5 was the one I went with.
I then looked into colours for the clothing, I referenced different Norse and Viking clothing for the colours. My favourites were number 1 and 4. After thinking about it I decided to go with number 4 as I wanted him to blend in more the cold blue white environment and not stand out as much. The dark colours will help him to not disappear into the background.
Number 4 was the one I went with.
After that I looked into hair styles, I referenced different Viking hair styles. I started with tied up hair with buns and braids. Then I looked at longer hair and ponytail with braids but was still dissatisfied with the results so I combined the best elements of the designs and ended up with a mid length hair in a bun with braids going into it.
Number 4 was the one I went with.
Next I looked at skin colour and war paint, I started with different hair and skin tones then added the paint over the top. I did not really like the full blue skin tone as it made him look a little like a Smurf. I really liked number 3, 5 and 6; however number 6 looked to ordinary with the natural coloured skin and hair. I then thought that the blue on number 3 looked like ice, I decided to make him look like he is half frozen on one side so he had the blue and pale skin tone with the unnatural hair.
The large image is the one I went with.
The last page I did was exploring his poses in a more cartoon and simple style to see how hard the character would be to draw. I drew him in different poses with and without some of his layers to explore what his clothing looks like under his cape.
Overall the character is not too hard to draw and has a nice silhouette. I am really happy with this character; I really enjoyed designing him how he turned out. If I was to do this again I would look into more white clothing and perhaps a more muscular body type.