Character Design Workshop Week 3...

Our third character design workshop began with a further continuation of the shapes of characters, building on from last weeks basic shapes. We looked at introducing shapes at the key points in the body and drawing interconnecting lines to create our characters. To get some practice in how to use these key points, Justin gave us a randomised group of characters that we had to draw using simple shapes to create a 'naked' outline for each character. I started of with Mushu from Mulan. When i first attempted to draw his shape, i got the idea of key points wrong and found myself drawing circles for the whole body. Justin came round and showed me that i firstly needed to see what shapes the character was made up of then put in the key shapes for key areas and then draw interconnecting lines. After Justin showed me on the page what he meant, I found it a lot easier to map out the shapes for these characters and i ended up doing Daffy Duck, Tigger, and Obelix. I enjoyed doing these drawings, and i felt that i completed them fairly successfully. However, i did notice that they were all rounded characters and if i had chosen a squarer or triangular shaped character, it's possible that i may have struggled more because of their complexity. After doing these drawings we were shown the key stereotype differences between male and female characters and then asked to pick an image of a character and try and turn them into a female. I decided to take Hercules and try and recreate a female version, but this didn't go to plan i found myself really struggling. When Justin came back round, he chose to take my previous drawing of Mushu and create a female version to help me get a better idea. I started to see how elements like more curvacious lines, feminine eyes, smaller features, and longer hair all helped to create this look. Shortly after that, we were shown how to do turnarounds, with Justin using Hercules as an example on the white board. We were then asked to take one of our characters and create a turnaround for another angle of the character. I chose Obelix, and although i was able to draw from the image fairly successfully, i found it extremely hard to make up the rest of my image and therefore i felt that my turnaround wasn't particularly successfull. I really enjoyed this lesson and i felt it gave me a further insight on how to develop the shapes for my own characters. I'm looking forward to integrating what we've learnt so far into my own character designs.