Rotation 8: Character design – Animation Year 1

Final turnaround sheet + PDF submission

*PDF summary is very short to keep it to one page, for more details please check the other posts on myblog for this rotation.

Character design development (01-02.11.21)

The prompt I chose was winter, I chose to draw a character based on a snow bunny I made last year.

Intial sketches of my character + some iterations of what the final could look like:

(other iterations were lost due to file crashing, but I salvaged this)

(The ears are actually hair tied into a loop shape, so the middle is see through)

I chose this hairstyle because I wanted it to resemble bunny ears and I feel like this hairstyle does that well.

Words I chose to focus on: cold surrounding, warm feeling, graceful, cute.

I was worried about the snowflake skirt idea being too detailled visually (for animation), but because I simplified it to how it is in the image above, I think it looks effective enough to stay for the final drawing/turnaround sheet.

Facial expression iterations + character expression sheet

Experiments while considering different eyes, nose and mouth that my character could have.

This was done while trying to finalise the design overall.

I would’ve like to explore more expressions and poses in the sheet below but because of time constraints I decided to move on.

Green line is the line of action, added in just for clarity

Character construction sheet + colour iterations

I wanted to try making a construction sheet too, just for practice. This helped me to think about how this character would look animated and what to consider noting down for others about how to keep her appearance consistent.

It also helped me to finalise the design of the character ready to make the turnaround sheet next.

Actually I ended up with two versions of the characters face seen in the construction sheets below. I like the one without the nose more due to personal preference, but I will be choosing the one with the nose to move on with because I think it does a better job at showing what animal my character is based off of.

I added a green skirt to match the holly leaves and her hair bands (it was the first colour I tried out after implementing red for the eyes and berries)

The next colour I tried after this was grey, I prefer this to the green because it makes the red stand out more.

Other colour iterations I tried can be seen below:

The brown was nice but it reminded me too much of a deer or a Christmas pudding. The first blue I tried (seen below) contrasts the red better than using just green like I did initially, but this shade of blue is too strong for the mood that I want to go for.

Final construction sheet + Colours:

I changed the blue to an eggshell blue colour so the appearance is less harsh on the eyes. I then decided to make the green and red lighter to make the overall colour palette more cohesive.

I feel like the softer tones suit the character better, since I envision her to be a soft and gentle fairy-like creature.

Thoughts I have moving into the character design rotation task. (+ chosen artist references)

After today’s lecture, I was left thinking more about diversity and different body types and shapes a character can have.

The character designs I’ve created in the past for my personal project(s) do have different body types and face shapes in my mind, but I feel that my current skill level isn’t high enough to show it well.
As a result, the majority of the differences in build, face shape/structure etc. is lost due to the way I tend to stylise my work.

This week I want to work on showing these differences better in my drawings and make an effort to more actively challenge why I draw in the way I do.

For this week’s rotation I decided to pick these two artists to focus on for inspiration: Takegarou 竹画廊 (Take, 竹) and Ramdaram (람다람).
For a long time these two artists have been a source of inspiration for my art style in general, but this week I want to look more specifically into the way they choose their colours and shapes for their character designs.

Both their designs are used in animation, (Take’s work is also used in video games) which is different to what I’ve made my character designs for in the past (which was more for comics and conveying a narrative through illustration rather than animation). I want to start practicing making designs for animations and thinking more about what to consider when making characters more suited for this medium.

Firstly, Takegarou 竹画廊’s character design work can be seen in Pokémon Sword and Shield and World’s End Club:

Even though I know the bare minimum about World’s End Club, I can still infer what each character’s personality is just by looking at their design due to her effective use of shape and colour.

Next, 람다람’s work features characters that they use in animated music videos that tell vague stories. I think their work has a strong aesthetic I would like to draw inspiration from.

The characters themselves have a wide range of different colours and outfits/accessories which is the focal point of what makes them unique, rather than a range of different body types & skin tones (this is seen better in Take’s work). The coloured outlines are effective for making the design stand out too.