The homework was to design a character based on a 2D cartoon from the 7 choices given. I chose The Owl House because I really liked the show and had a deeper understanding on it compared to the other choices. Also, envisioning the characters in 3D form wasn’t as hard. I started off with researching and analysing the art style and influences from the character designers and Dana Terrace, gathering a ton of references to use.
The creator, Dana Terrace, has explained that inspirations for the show are witchcraft, mythology, Macabre art (specifically Hieronymus Bosch paintings) and Little Witch Academia. You can particularly see the Bosch inspirations with all the dark visuals and theme but toned down to still make it consumable for younger audiences.
The character designs in The Owl House tells a lot about their personality and story which is why there are a lot of outfits and a unique design each season, reflecting what happened during the story. These designs are a mix between modern and fantasy (elf ears, capes, suits, sneakers) showing the world they’re in, something I should keep in mind while designing my character. While looking through the character developments, I noticed a lot of the humanoid characters didn’t go through major changes with the exception of Luz. Their shape language and character aesthetic mainly stay consistent, for example, Eda’s initial concept remained similar to the final design with her red dress and messy spiky silver hair.
I watched this video which explained the birth and early development of The Owl House which included character concepts and Dana Terrace’s influences. It was pretty insightful as it included quotes from the creator’s interviews that explained her thoughts making the show.
I gathered references of human-like characters to study because I knew before going in I didn’t want to design a creature.
(breakdown of the style shown in the figure below)
I looked at a few concept designs of the teens in the show (because I want to design a student of Hexside) to understand the thought behind these characters. All of Luz’s designs are modern, casual outfits to show that she’s from the human world which is also a huge contrast to the rest of the characters (makes sense because she’s the main character). Willow’s design tells a lot about her character like her glasses and braids showing her neat, nerdy personality, round shapes for a soft and friendly appearance and the very nature-based colour palette and floral/flowy/whimsy/gardener-like outfits which conveys her interests and major character point. The depth of these designs apply towards the whole show.
I will definitely be trying to replicate this, designing my character to have a visually expressed personality using shape language, colour, the world they’re in and some aspects of their role in the story/hobby/power.
Next I just drew some of the existing characters in The Owl House and practiced the art style, using what I learnt from the analysis (round cubes for heads, round hands, facial proportions etc).
