Grasping the techinques learnt in the character project

I wanted to reflect on what I've learnt over the last 10 weeks and work on the things that I feel need work. For example to progress in character design I would like to improve on my drawing and photoshop skills. I am aware that this wasn't the essense of the project but I feel this is where I lacked more and would like to improve.

So with no strings attached I just started drawing some simple shapes and figures. This lead me to draw this female warrior called "Widow". 

I like the body shape of this character and the power she is showing. I took this into photoshop and I'm going to work on this steadily over a long time, improving the areas that need improving and not holding back. I want to look at different ways I could paint this and make it a bit more dramatic than my other work. Then I'm in photoshop I tend not to experiment with different brushes or customs brushes, I normally stick with the default. So I'm very excited about where this could go and this is what I have so far...

 For the base colour I want to use bold colours to contrast with the black. I'm obviously keeping in mind the Black Widow which is what she is inspired from. Possibly Spiderman and Mary-jane's love child? 

For more reference I will be looking at Lara Croft and Bayonetta because they are very strong female characters with a lusting side.

Anyway let me know what you guys think :D

Synopsis and Character Bios

Colour comparison

Silhouettes and Comparisons

Elliot's Turnaround

Sidekick Turnaround

Rider and loyal steed

This was more difficult than I expected, I wanted the hero to look big enough to be power but I wanted the sidekick to be big enough to carry him. However I didn't want him to be too big because his hyperactive nature would look a little odd and he would be smashing everything.

I'm happy with this turnout, it's good to see the two of them together.

Sidekick Expression sheet

Here is the expression sheet for the sidekick, I tried to capture the playful characteristics of a puppy and the extreme change of emotion they have. I tried hard to make sure each colour was the right one for each emotion.

I thought that these expression down show the full characteristics of the character so I chose to do full body images.

I wanted to show his full nature and found that it is very easy to full in love with this character.

Elliot's Expression Sheet

I've finally sorted out Elliot's look and expressions, I think he definitely looks heroic and power with a hint of charm.

Hero energy outfit

A falling star hits Elliot's space shuttle and causing his shuttle to crash land onto this planet. When he pulls himself out of the reckage he finds the star on the desert sand. He picks it up and feels a huge energy coming from it. After finding inhabitants on the planet and making peace with them he find out that the king is an evil man and is killing everybody on the planet. He also finds out that the king has a machine that will fix his shuttle, but he will not give it up too easily. Through advanced intellegence Elliot is able to make weapons of human and alien technology. He uses the star as a source of energy for the weapons, and creates a component to allow only him to use them.

  

Villain in colour

For the colour palette I tried to stick with purple,red,black equalling evil. I'm very happy with this, when it comes to the final FINAL version, I will put more effort into the blending and shading.

Villain's life Support Machine/Throne

Every night this character has to recharge his small amount of energy that is still in his body. For this I wanted to create a life support machine built in a throne room fit for a vulture type alien. I was thinking that this room is like a heart/nest that has electricity running through and connecting to him throught the night.

This room is placed at the tallest part of the temple, where the villain uses his staff's magic to float up to it. The moment he sits in the room, the wires come alive and stick into the character. The electricity paces through the character and re-energises him.

This is a little close up of the character, as the electricity passes through, his eyes glow with electric blue!

Turn around and Expression Sheet for the Villain

The turn around is looking pretty good, Ivery happy with how everything is working. I may need to do an improved one before the presentation but I'm very happy with this!

I couldn't think of many expressions for the villain, but that's because a villain tends to just be angry or planning something. HoweverI started to think about how he would react to his servants when they return and messed up a mission of some sort.

Once again very happy with these but I will hopefully come up with more. 

Sorting out the Villain

I have so many ideas lately that has changed the villain character, I wanted to consentrate on the personality, appearance and the link to the other characters. Originally I had this character as a really old and withered guy but it came to my attention that if this was so, then what makes his henchmen and servants obey him. 

I wanted to change the legs aswel because for me they were too mamalian, so i have changed them to more bird like. Also I didn't like the idea of a bird alien character having a sit down throne becuase birds don't sit down on chairs with their legs hanging out. So I have changed the legs and the idea of the throne and also I have hunched his shoulders more to give him the powerful presence of a vulture.

Here is what I have -

This one looks too weird and unbelievable, his neck would never support that head.

These drawings are getting close, I like the added evil the large shoulders give the character. However what I don't like is how young he still looks.

I was having another think about this character, and wondered why he would have this rough clothing. If he's the king or ruler of this planet then he must look the part.

Then I came up with this -

I'm liking this guy a bit more now, I made the hunched shoulders into large shoulder padding but kept that hunch in his back. I've given the guy a staff which has a power in it that allow him to create magic, which gives him the power to hurt or even kill who he wants.

Also i have given the character six small eyes like a spider because 1. I was having problems with which eyes to pick and this worked best, and 2. It just looks more evil!


This character I think is almost there, just a few touch ups and accessories! :D

Developing the Sidekick Colour

I wanted to have a little fun with photoshop because I haven't played around with it as much as I should have by now. Heres the result -

This is really starting to come together! AH WOOHOOO!!

The sidekick has been found!

Over the last week or so I've been having some serious trouble trying to visualise this character. However a couple of days ago I had a chat with some fellow students about what this character could look like and act like. They reminded me to go back to square one and come up with his characteristics and personality so that his appearance can be fleshed out on top of that.


My favourite idea that popped up was he could be hyperactive, very energetic and always wanting to move. I hadn't thought of this before and it already sounded like a sidekick. I could instantly think of a couple of sidekick characters that were funnily energetic. For example, "Hammy the squirrel"  voice by Steve Carrell in "Over the hedge" directed by Tim Johnson and Karey Kirkpartrick. Also Twitchy voiced by Cory Edwards from hoodwinked directed by Cory and Tood Edwards.












From this I thought again about the speed and the desert planet that this character will live on. This lead me to think about ostriches, cheetahs, lizards and things. Now I really like the shape of an ostrich and I think the base of the neck would be a great place for the hero's saddle. Also I think that a large head would add a comedic look and large eyes like Chameleon eyes will add innocence.


These are my initial sketches -

I thought that these were going okay but something was missing and I just didn't like it, so I went on further with more research.

So I looked at the Panther Chameleon and the Hadrosaurus, this allowed me to apply a pattern and a horn.

This is what I got -

I really like this drawing, its cute, its anatomy works and looks like a sidekick character. There was many things I was thinking of when I was drawing this character, for example the skull is large to allow the under bone horn to stick out the back and then the neck follows underneath. I want this horn to act like the ears of a dog, and I want it to react determine the emotion of the character. For example when it is happy it will point up, when it is sad it will flop down, if angry then the horn will point back and hard. I gave the character small arms to give another comedy essence and also something to wave around when happy. 

So this character is now working for me! :D

My next step was to draw it from the front, this turned out to be a probelm because it just didn't look right and it started to annoy me!!

This is what I had -

It looks okay but I'm just not happy.

So I asked fellow students again and dan managed to come up with a look that worked. He told me that if I have the eyes at a slanted angle then it wont look angry and thats what i have been trying to get past. I took his advice and came up with this.

 Working a lot better!





For my next task I have to work on the colour of the character. At first I was keeping in mind the colour sceme of the western earthy and hot colours. However while I was colouring the character in I remembered the chameleon's skill of changing colour and thought I could hav the character change colour depending on his mood. Then I came across this blog that describes what colours show what moods.

Basically the colours go:

Green - Neutral, Fine, Envy, Jealous
Blue - Happy, Relaxed and free - however I thought blue was used for sadness? 
Red - Anger, Stressed, Passion , Love
Yellow - Distracted, Emotional, Imaginative.

These colours are interesting but I need a colour that is the main colour of the characters skin. I kept in mind that he is naturally hyper and energetic, also very fast. So I took a look at the cheetah and Springbok, the first and second fastest animals in the world.

I noticed the connection of the golden and black coat that the two have, so I gave this to the sidekick.

This colouring was my first attempt and its ment to look bold and cartoony for the show. I like it but he looks poisonous rather than friendly

This one is a lot better, I tried copying the colour of the cheetah and then added a bit more yellow and brown to get that golden tan look. I like this one a lot more than the first.

Just to finish up, I tested the emotions colours on the character and made the pattern darker to bring out that colour.

Here we have sad, anger and Jealousy. The bottom two (anger) have different colour parttern, this is because I was testing how the much of a change the character went through in each emotion. I also had an idea to have the horn's colour bolder than the body so it makes the horn the maximum emotion area.