Ideation
One of the most important elements of this assignment is the designing process of the character which I will be modelling. As the final model shall be based off the art style of Genndy Tartakovsky, I had to research his art style and find out how he designs characters, what makes them appealing, why he designs characters a certain way, and how I can replicate this to the best of my ability whilst still creating my own character and model. Immediately when I found out that this assignment would revolve around Tartakovsky’s art style I immediately jumped to thinking about creating a character in relation to the Star Wars universe, as not only am I a big fan, but his rendition of the universe with the 2003 Clone Wars animated series was one of my favorite works by him and I have always thought about creating my own Jedi, as most people who grew up with Star Wars seemed to have done.
Basic Concepts
I started off my design process by drawing three different designs for a Jedi while keeping the art style that Tartakovsky in mind, using very prominent shapes and using them to help determine the personality of the character, for example the design on the right looks a lot more sharp and simple, giving the character a more regal and strict look, while the middle design has a more squared looking head, which gives his face a stronger and stoic look.
It is important for me to make these three different designs and it is a very integral part of character design as a whole to create multiple different experiment designs as you may not hit the nail on the head every time you start, in fact you are more likely to make a design that is weaker than others which may come after it, as you can refine what you are imagining the design to look like and try some new things that you may not have been thinking of from the start but end up keeping it as it adds to the design as a whole.
Of course I had to choose only one of these three designs to keep and develop further and I think it was very clear to me that my favorite design was the one in the middle, but there are reasons why I would not choose the other two designs, for example: [left design] – I believed that this design resembled Tartakovsky’s most famous original character Samurai Jack far too closely which I did not want, as I wanted to challenge myself to not make a character that looks like one of his own so I can focus on how he designs his characters and use this knowledge to inform my own design rather than copying. I also believe that this character looks somewhat evil which I wanted to stay away from as I am creating a Jedi who are mostly portrayed as heroes in bright clothing, when designing this character I was envisioning him in darker clothing which would parallel Sith clothing. [right design] – If the left design looked a bit evil, then I think this design definitely looked evil, even in the design he looks like he is looking down on the viewer. The sharper shapes I used to create his head also gives off a look of cunning, manipulative villain and his design also resembles an already existing Star Wars villain, Count Dooku who has a similar personality as what I had just described, the most similar part of this design to that of Count Dooku is the attire this character wears which has the same type of button jacket which crosses over so far to one side of the character. I also believe the clothing he wears also looks far too simple to use for such an important assignment and will prevent me from learning many useful techniques when modelling; even though I previously said in the research blog post I made that Tartakovsky uses simple designs as a signature part of his designs this is far more simple even compared to these designs and as I am translating it to 3D later in the pipeline, I will have to make a design more intricate and detailed similar to how Tartakovsky’s design philosophy changed when moving to 3D.
Developing the Chosen Concept
In order to get more of a grasp on how I will design this character I decided to gather a lot of images for a source of inspiration for what I had in mind when creating this character and where to take him further and compile them into a single image, my mood board. I have used these a lot over the years when creating my own character designs and have found them helpful to keep me on track. This mood board showcases things like the direct art style I am trying to interpret, with specific parts of these images I will make use of, certain characters who this character will be based off of, from design to personality and posing, to inspirations for very particular details on the character such as the hair, clothes, arm(s) or the prop, which will quite obviously be my take on the iconic Jedi lightsaber, one of the most famous props in fiction. The reason for me thinking this will be a valid prop to have, is because all lightsabers are uniquely made by each Jedi, with their designs reflecting their wielders.
After gathering all of the inspiration I used to create the initial design and to bring the design forward I then started to begin creating the finalized 2D design for this Jedi which included adding colour to the design too, along with this I also made a design for the prop I will make for the character to hold. One of the first things I decided to do was to make the character a lot broader than he was in the initial design concept phase. This helped the overall design fit what the brief was asking for, as a lot of Tartakovsky’s characters have broad shoulders, which helps to give them a unique top-heavy silhouette and adds a lot of musculature while allowing the characters to still feel agile by still having them appear slimmer towards the bottom half of the character. Some of the areas I looked to mostly replicate Tartakovsky’s style – other than just the top-heavy silhouette – were simultaneously angular and smooth facial features, using prominent shapes like squares which as I learned in the Character Design section of the Animation Studio assignment allows for the character to appear safe, reliable, solid and strong, which perfectly describes the stoic personality I had in mind when conceptualizing this character.
When designing the lightsaber I knew from the beginning the blade itself would be green, not just because it is my favorite colour, but also because they appear green for those who are Jedi consulars who focus mainly on the force than on fighting skills, which suits this character’s stoic, calm and meditative personality, but as for the hilt which I will have to take time to design, I mainly took inspiration from those of Qui Gon Jinn and Ezra Bridger’s lightsabers while adding in some gold to create a sleek look with a colour scheme of black and gold. Other small details I added were the button, the grip and a hook to attatch the lightsaber to the belt of the wearer
After I was comfortable with the designs I had picked for the character and the art I decided to create a mini character expression page to show how his face would look in different angles while also emoting. This is a very important part of the production pipeline for an animated project, and while this project may not be animated I can still make use of it to help me further refine the facial design and figure out how the face will look at certain angles and how I can potentially pose the character’s face in the final sketchfab posing output. Below are the images of the final design and the expression sheet:
