CHARACTER DESIGN - PHOTOSHOP FILES

We were in the Media Lab today, in our first session in making our final character design files. The files we have to make are:

• CAST LINEUP
• CHARACTER MODEL SHEET
• CHARACTER DESIGN SHEET
• ANIMATED WALK CYCLE
• ANIMATED TURNAROUND

(for more info on these, see this post)

This first session was focused on the still image formats; the first 3 bullet points.

The cast lineup was simple enough. I used my sketchbook more than my original line up for reference, since I had been able to fine tune the characters more there, and were a more accurate representation of them. I added some shading in the way I'd usually do it; making a multiply layer between the lineart and colour layers, and then doing block shading. I feel the block shading fits my art style much better than more realistic, blurred shading.

The model sheet was where I brought the A3 sheet back. Where the sketchbook had better front views of my characters, they didn't really have fleshed out side and back views. But with C2 (my chosen character), it was mostly a matter of changing the size of the forearms and some other small tweaks.

Finally, the design sheet. This was a little more tricky than the pencil sketched one, since we were given prompts; this time, we were on our own. While I struggled for a while trying to figure out what I could do, I realised I could just demonstrate the physics of the character I had come up with. C2 is meant to be amorphous, and be able to control the size and separation of body parts. So using this, I made quite a few of the poses with this in mind. I also kept in a few generic poses, just to demonstrate what C2 would be like when doing more simple actions.

This session was definitely meant to leave us all to our own devices, with everyone just getting on with it, expected to finish the tasks in our own time. I'm certainly very happy with how mine all turned out. They all looked how I wanted, and look a lot better than characters I'd designed in the past because I kept all the new theory I'd learnt in mind when creating this cast. I don't think there was anything I'd change, but I'd like to revisit this cast at some point in the future, when my style and knowledge of character design has improved.