Production Principles – Character Design
Includes all my work for this character design rotation
Initial Tasks
The tasks below were for our first character design lesson. I adore character design and was very excited to see the different techniques I could use to improve my own work. The most interesting thing I learnt here was working from the outline first- something I had never considered before. I found these designs were more varied, strange, and somewhat fantastical. The other tasks were incredibly useful too and I will keep the techniques used in mind going forward.
Outline First
Outline First (developed)
Steal The Shape
Inanimate To Animate
Homework Task – Design A Character Based On A Set Prompt
I love making villain characters, but really struggle with round shape language (which usually correlates to hero or mother characters in media). However, our tutor pointed out that you do not have to stick to the traditional shape language, and breaking those rules can make characters much more intriguing. Therefore, I challenged myself to create a villain with round shapes. Another thing I need to keep in mind is that contrast is key for design, as it highlights and enhances different aspects of your character.
In addition, I need to keep what aesthetic means in mind: aesthetic relates to colour palette, lighting, texture, and line.
Character Design – Faces
I decided to design an evil otter for this task since they have such round body shapes, and if you get rid of that they start to read more as a cat than an otter, so it’s quite a challenge!
The prompt I chose was winter. However, I don’t want to go down the traditional snowy route. I wanted to depict more hail, rainy, wet vibe. A bit of misery and coldness. This of course lends itself to a villain character quite well.
Below you can see the different face experiments I did for this homework. Our tutor mentioned we need to avoid ladders – i.e. keeping the face in realistic proportion all the time. I did a realistic otter face (top left) below breaking it in other sketches. I thought a lot of these looked quite silly, so I pulled it back to a more realistic version in my next piece, although I don’t think that pushes the design far enough. I’ll need more back-and-fourth to land on something I’m happy with.
Below, I depicted a face shape I really like (as I personally enjoy a good mix between realistic bodies and stylized ones) but I know I could push it further. The body here is deliberately very normal as I needed to visualize this character’s whole body before developing its shape language further. I also added the eyelash details on the face to make this character look more angular and sharp, adding some villainous vibes.
BODIES
I found it very difficult to land on a body type that incorporated the strength of the giant river otter without the cuteness of regular otters. Therefore, it took me quite a long time to find what I was looking for and figure out the balance of shape language and going against shape language (to avoid creating a boring, predictable design) but I think my final design is very successful!
After I did these sketches, I decided to break down my next one into its key shapes:
I really liked this one! But the design wasn’t looking very villainous, so I experimented further:
Here’s where I made her body sharper and added the shoulder tufts, which become a much more prominent part of her design from now on. Below, I attempted to create a side profile using the above design. However, I really didn’t like how the chest tuft stuck out, even though the triangular shape language looked good. I really dislike when animated female animals have pseudo-breasts, especially when its the focus of design (which is extremely off-putting as most of the examples I can think of come from children’s media) so I removed this later. I find it reduces the character’s personality to just their body and they usually remain a romantic interest and nothing more, which is deeply frustrating.
Examples: Angel from ‘Leroy & Stitch’ and Eva from ‘Rio’ amongst many others
At this point, I created what I wanted to be my final sketch. However, I couldn’t figure out why I disliked the design so I did some annotations. These helped immensely and made me realise that I’d designed the top half completely triangularly and the bottom half completely circularly, so I changed a few key lines here and there and aimed to have curves opposite straight lines and made something I really liked!
Finally, I lined, coloured, and shaded my design. I’m not sure why I went for such sharp, graphic-like lines as I usually don’t draw like this, but I do think it’s successful. Sadly, I don’t think I was able to capture what I loved from my original full body sketch I did right after designing the face. If I were to do this again, I’d probably chose a sketchier and looser lining style. One thing I absolutely wanted to include was lighting though, and I think my choice of it really helped set the atmosphere and tone around this character. In addition, I found my colour choices added to the cold, unapproachable, and imposing personality this character was supposed to have.
(Please right click or Ctrl click on these images to open them in a new tap and view them on a larger scale)
Overall, I’m really proud of my work in this rotation. One thing that really stood out to me when learning was that contrast was key in a design. I imagine that’s to differentiate your character from the crowd as well as highlight different aspects of their design.
Final Reflection:
Note: this is the same writing from my final production principles PDF.
I believe my final outcome for this rotation was very successful, and I’ve created a good piece that I can improve upon with more practice and study. I’m particularly proud of the shape language here, which, combined with the dark colour palette, creates an intimidating yet complex design.
I found it hard to take this animal seen as cute as well as the round shape language and make it seem intimidating, but I found combining circular and straight lines in all sections of the body helped get the balance right. It was a tough task to get the circular and straight shapes in the right places that would highlight the most important aspects of the design, and after a lot of experimenting, I ended up with a silhouette that I was happy with. One thing that went well was the colours, as choosing cold, dark colours easily makes a character seem more antagonistic. However, I feel I could have made the face much more interesting. Otter faces are natural round and fluffy, so I found it very troublesome to make the face more angular without losing the recognisable otter qualities. I feel that if I had broken up the traditional facial proportions more I could gave created a less still design.
Concept-wise, I wanted to challenge myself to create a villain character with round shapes as the primary shape language, which is uncommon for antagonists in cartoons. I also chose an otter, an animal usually seen as cute, because in the wild they’re highly intelligent, vicious creatures which I think would make excellent animated villains. This was incredibly fun to work on, but very difficult and I found myself struggling quite a bit. Because of the fun yet puzzling task, I was able to really push myself and ultimately come out with a better understanding of character design.
My overall experience was good. It was demanding but definitely my favourite and most successful rotation, and I know I learned a huge deal about character design by working on this task. If I were to do it again, I would push myself even more, especially with the character’s face, to create a more intense and effective design.