Character designs - Experimenting with different materials
Character designs - Experimenting with different materials
Daisy Jackson / 06/02/2022
I acknowledge that a large part of this module focuses on experimentation. I will definitely be doing this but decided to start my charater development with digitalised versions of my roughs. I chose one of each design (one for George Washington and one for Marie Curie) and created it digitally. I wanted to see how it would look and think of improvement steps.
After this, my plan is to try out different mediums. A medium I am planning on doing is coloured paper which I will layer together. An example of this will be the face being seperate, with the hair then placed on top. I will draw details onto the paper with a fineliner. I feel like this will definitely be an interesting approach. Other ideas are generally pencil combined with fineliner brush pens as this will create a nice rough piece. I will also experiment with watercolour and maybe even 3D! All of these experiments will be uploaded onto this particular page so everything doesn't become confusing!
Despite only recreating a select few in different mediums, I will evaluate and choose my favourite result. After this, I will make a character sheet which will have all the angles of the character and all the colours used. This will allow me to understand the appearance in more detail.
Digitalising George Washington:
What do I like?
I love the facial expression used. I noticed while searching for images, George Washington appears quite grumpy and well...miserable. I think I captured this facial expression in an accurate way while still appealing to children. I made sure to stick to my survey results and follow the appearance of SpongeBob SquarePants. I did this by making the outline a darker shade of the inner colour. I also made everything quite animated and funny looking. I acknowledge that SpongeBob SquarePants is extremely bright, I will take this into consideration when creating the backgrounds if my colour palette for the character does not match. As well as this, I love how I have captured humour in this piece while also being educational, another result from the survey I needed to follow. I have done this by educating children on the fact that George Washington has his face carved into Mount Rushmore. I thought it would be an interesting approach making the other faces look funny and as though George Washington is being 'haunted' by these faces constantly.
What do I need to improve on?
Firstly, I do not like how dark the colours used for the legs and arms are. I find that these colours contrast too much against the colours used for the rest of the drawing. I would also like to see something more on this drawing. Maybe something dripping or filling the general gap underneath the two added heads, it looks quite empty. However, this can be altered further on if I decide to develop this piece further.
Digitalising Marie Curie:
Once again, I created this piece in Procreate. I am very happy with the results and used photos of Marie Curie for reference. This allowed me to capture the correct colours for her hair and clothing.
What do I like?
I don't usually draw people so I am very happy with the results of this. It captures a person quite well and definitely has resemblance to Marie Curie. I am happy that this resemblance is not 'in your face' and is quite subtle. The detail is not too much, it is simple and just right. I feel like it is not too complex for children aged 5-10 (or 5-12 depending on my final decision on target audience age). I also love the detail added in the hair. Judging from all the references I could gather, this is quite a signature hairstyle for Marie Curie.
What do I need to improve on?
I definitely feel like I should actually draw hands. Since this was a rough to see what the results would be like, I just drew hands on that did not have fingers or thumbs, this is how my non-human characters often look. I will of course include actual hands if I decide to use this. I will even gather reference photos taken by me (with the individual's consent of course) as reference images are very helpful when trying to make a human figure accurate. I have always struggled with this and find it something I can definitely improve on! I also feel like I should include props to this as I want to make the audience have more of a backstory. However, this depends on my final decision on the setting and storyline. I could always used the 'HELLO my name is...' badge that I always see on movies and cartoons.
07/02/2022
For today's work, I decided to develop the original character designs with a different medium! This medium was card and was very different to what I expected! I chose to do card as this was inspired by a participant (in my survey) who said they loved the show 'Noggin the Nog'. This show uses card/watercolour etc to create the effect it does. This is when I decided to buy some coloured card online! I bought it online as I wanted to make sure I had various shades rather than an ugly shade of bright pink and so on.
Here are my recreations of Marie Curie:
I also ran into a problem where the hair did not fit the first time:
Thoughts:
I surprisngly love the results more than I thought I would. When done right, card is quite an interesting and helpful medium. With this medium alone, I am able to animate and set the scene which will be very helpful in the future of this module!
I am very happy with the way everything went together and how fitting the layers are. Of course this process was quite tedius at first in regards to sticking everything together but I eventually got the hang of it! I even ended up adding props to the character (the mixing glass in her hand) and I really love the results! The character design follows my style and is child friendly. An improvement step I will make if I decide to approach this medium again is to make sure my outlines are not as wobbly as well as ensuring these outlines are a darker shade than the inside colour (which is present in Spongebob). I will also perhaps figure out new props such as of course, the name tag. I will also have to figure out how to improve my accuracy later on.
My second card recreation of Marie Curie:
I really wanted to experiment with various designs and I am very happy with these results! I acknowledge that my lines are quite wobbly, this is my style but I can easily alter this if I decide to progress with this medium. There is a lovely balance of colours present in this piece and everything flows together nicely - nothing looks out of place. It is also very child friendly and does not introduce too much realism where it would perhaps frighten a child. I love the addition of radioactivity outlining the character as this can further inspire setting the scene as well as future storylines.
Creating George Washington in card:
Originally, I would have loved to develop this design further and even make illustrations for both Marie Curie and George Washington. However, after creating this design in card, I have realised how boring it is! Now, the storyline and appearance is very interesting, but the experimentation process for this design definitely isn't! There is not as much layering I can do with this, instead I have to draw everything on - which is fine, but I definitely wanted more to it!
I wanted to make the design pop out more which is why I added the props of mini trees stuck to the faces as this resembles how close by a forest is to Mount Rushmore. I can still use this design in an illustration of course but I am definitely leaning more towards having George Washington for the animation!
09/02/2022
Today I decided to tackle my experimentations again! I decided to take a simple approach which included classic pencil and a fineliner brush pen. I was quite happy with the results as I loved the rough look. However, the pencil is extremely boring. When recreating this approach, I will definitely use colour as it is more pleasing to the eye and will follow the survey results more accurately.
Here are the results:
For my next approach, I decided to try 3D with plasticine. I hate using plasticine as it gets everywhere and always seems to gather tons of fluff no matter where you do it. It makes it look messy and tacky! However, I wanted to tackle this approach still incase I ended up loving it. However it turns out my expectations were correct! I did not like the result much in the end. I do not hate it but like I said, it appeared tacky. However, I experimented with wire and different techniques which I think worked well. I loved the appearance of the hair as well! Unfortunately I could only use primary colours which caused me to have to combine pink and white for the skin colour.
Here are the results:
11/02/2022
As a further developed version of my drawing using a fine liner brush pen and pencil, I decided to experiment with applying colour.
Here is the result:
I decided to add colour using a copic marker. I love the effect of how messy it has been applied and that there are white gaps. This is a common theme I have found in children's illustration which I will look further into. I think the roughness is simple and does not overcomplicate the drawing, the same applies for the colour palette used as it is rather simple colours.
CONCLUSION:
Overall, I have enjoyed this experimentation process. To further progress my work, I believe the strongest versions have been produced through card, digital and also pen and a copic marker. I will choose my main medium (or mix them) depending on the development of my story and what format fits it best. From what I have thought about already, I am definitely leaning towards the traditional approach of pen and a copic marker as I love how rough the filling in of the colour looks. However, I can always combine this with digital and even card elements. This will be something I will develop further and think about further into the project. I am very happy with these results!
I am definitely going to focus my project on Marie Curie. I am unsure yet which historical figure will be the main focus of my animation as originally I thought I was going to use George Washington but I definitely feel more gravitated towards Marie Curie for both story wise! This is something else I will have to consider.
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