Cartoons are normally considered stylized design, and it may be the reason why
you find these characters appealing (on top of their interesting narratives
and lore writing). Stylized is like when you change something into something
that has some sort of figment or different kinds of shapes applied into the
character.
- Iconic
-
Stylized designed characters are often iconic that you can immediately
recognise them even in black silhouettes.
- Simplicity
-
This is because simplicity of the design allows viewers to digest and
understand the purpose of the characters easily.
- Unique
-
...which in return makes them unique characters that are not only
memorable, but makes an impact on the viewers.
Principles of Character Design
- Shapes
- Colour
- Emphasis and Contrast *important
- Harmony
- Expressions, Poses
1) Shapes
Shapes design a character's silhouette. It is used to identify a character
from one another.
Image taken from Lecture Video
Think iconic, we must explore the possibilities of combining different
interesting shapes for your design. We can mix and match shapes to
create a new object. We can also add some weight to their personality.
Use your character's persona as the basis of the shapes for your
design.
Image taken from Lecture Video
Think about who your character is, what is their profile and use them
as the basis of the shapes for your design. Circle is used for
characters that are more approachable, friendly and entertaining,
while rectangle is for characters that are bulky and maybe a bit
fearful. It is the default shape for heroes of the storyline. Triangle
is for evil characters like Darth Vader, due to its sharp
spikes.
2) Colour
Colours are used to establish the basic roles of the characters.
They play an important role in determining and separating the basic
characteristics of heroes, villains and even background
characters. Such as red and black, purple, neon green or neon orange
for evil characters. While cooler colours that are kinder to your
eyes like blue or green would represent the good characters.
Think colour psychology! Different colours give impressions of
different emotions and is easily relatable by the viewers.
Image taken from Lecture Video
For example, yellow represents happy, green represents disgust and
purple represents fear.
3) Emphasis & Contrast
We need to exaggerate to memorate. A good character exaggerates
on the emphasis and contrasting visual elements to make the
design stand out by using colours, and different shapes.
Images taken from Lecture Video
5) Harmony
Every element in your design should complement each other. All
shapes, lines, colour, motifs, patterns must be put together in a
tasteful manner. As a beginner, it is best to consult your teacher
or mentor for help in harmony in design.
Think visual hierarchy! Every element in your design should
complement each other as well as reflect the narrative of the
characters.
7) Expressions, Poses
Expressive emotive characters win the audience. Clear
visualisation of your characters' behaviors, quirks, personalities
make it easier to appeal to your viewers.
Lecture 2 -Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro is an italian term which means 'light-dark', and is
the use of light and dark to create the illusion of
three-dimensional volume on a flat surface.
In paintings, the technique refers to clear tonal contrast to
suggest three-dimensional volume and modelling of objects and
figures. Artists who were known to use this technique in their
artworks are Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio
The purpose of chiaroscuro is to increase the scene's dramatic
tension by exaggerating the subject's importance using colour or
light contrast.
Tenebrism
A certain type of painting method in which significant details
such as faces and hands are illuminated by highlights which are
contrasted with a predominantly dark setting.
In other applications of chiaroscuro for visual artworks such as
comic, film, digital works - this is an artistic lighting choice which
the focus point or subject of a scene is brightly coloured or
contrasted with a dark background.
Low-Key Lighting
A style of lighting for photography film or television. It accentuates
the contours of the subject by throwing areas into shade while a fill
light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control
contrast.
You can see this in screen lighting for movies where they use
lights to create emotional and impactful scenes. Coppola and Kubrick
are known to use this approach in their movies and these scenes are
the most memorable ones in screen media history. For example in this
scene where Don Michael Carleone realized that with the death of his
mother, he now needed to kill his brother Fredo.
Chiaroscuro is used in visual narrative because this method is an
excellent lighting choice to differentiate between positive and
negative spaces.
Positive Space - Refers to subject matter or object of interest in a
visual.
Negative Space - Refers to the filled space or background that
surround subject matter or object of interest in visual.
- Increase Dramatic Tension
-
Gives thrilling emotive depth on the look and feel in the
scene.
-
- Create Sensational Effect
-
Helps elevate fantastical viewpoints to emphasise on the
narrative.
-
- Attract Attention
- Establish visual hierarchy, the main point of the scene
-
- Make Tasteful Composition
-
The play on negative vs positive spaces creates attractive
scenes.
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Generating Idea & Character Design
TASK DESCRIPTION: This task requires the student to create and generate
ideas with a prompt matrix, and then creating thumbnail sketches with
circle, square and rectangle shapes.
This is the prompt matrix that I came up with. I came up with most of the
ideas based on whether I would like to draw it or not, therefore keeping
my interest in the activity fresh. I then used the dice-rolling website
(rolladie.net) to roll 4 D10 in a row, and then colour coded the matrix
based on the results. Just because I like all the ideas, I decided to
generate more than 5 just to see my options.
Here are the ideas that were randomly arranged together.
-
Vindictive
Biologist in
Space who
has one tentacle arm.
-
Moody
Chef in a
Fairy Tale Land who
is part cloud.
-
Adventurous
Pharmacist in
Atlantis who
has a comically, unrealistically large weapon.
-
Perfectionist
Mermaid waiting in a
Train Station who
has a clock head.
-
Anxious
Mage in
Space who
is a clown.
-
Narcissistic
Animal/Cat in
Hell who is a
Quadruple Amputee with prosthetics.
-
Anxious
Dragon in a
Supermarket who
is a geode.
-
Timid
Chef working in a
School who
is a clown.
I've also decided to put together the leftover words just for fun.
-
Chaotic
Monster at the
Center of the Earth who
always carries a plush toy.
-
Selfish
Cyborg in a
Haunted Mansion who
has glowing antlers.
-
Cheerful
Detective in the
Apocalypse who is
androgynous/a hermaphrodite.
Some of the ideas that I really like are:
-
Narcissistic Animal/Cat in Hell who is
a Quadruple Amputee with prosthetics.
-
Vindictive Biologist in Space who has one tentacle arm.
-
Chaotic Monster at the Center of the Earth who always carries a plush toy.
I feel that although Idea 1 is fantastic, it may be better suited for a
more detailed art style, as the prosthetics may need a lot of detail. If I
pivot away from the idea of prosthetics, it allows for greater creativity
on the mode of transportation for the character, but it still would
require quite a lot of detail. Idea 2 is ideal for an evil villain in a
story, or even as an antihero. I like Idea 3 because I like the idea of
conceptualizing what 'the Center of the Earth' would be translated to.
Maybe the monster could be made out of Earth's core, and the twist of the
plush toy makes it seem very cute.
The first prompt was
-
Narcissistic Animal/Cat in Hell who is a Quadruple Amputee with prosthetics.
When coming up with ideas for this prompt, I was under the impression
that I was supposed to produce 3 thumbnail sketches of 3 different
characters, therefore I expanded my range from just 'Cat' to 'Animals'
in general, as to come up with more ideas.
My first idea was for a cat. Since the description 'Narcissistic' has a
negative connotation, combined with the fact that the setting is 'Hell',
I wanted to go for more angular silhouette with sharper edges, as I've
learned in class that triangles and shapes with points are used to
convey evil characters. I drew the cat with a sharp chin and two pointy
ears. To convey narcissistic, I gave it a diamond' triangle shaped torso
to give the impression of a puffed up chest. I was leaning into the idea
of a wheelchair for a prosthetic, so I drew the cat with a built in
angular wheelchair and gave it a claw hand and a hook hand.
My second idea is for a Rabbit/Bunny. This idea was slightly inspired by
the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, but a more haughty version. I
based the head shape off of a triangle, and then placed the nose higher
up, to give the impression that the rabbit is 'looking down on you',
thereby conveying a narcissistic demeanour. I dressed the rabbit in
something akin to a suit, with the collars puffed up and a big bow tie,
to show that it values it's appearance. For prosthetics, I didn't dare
go into too much detail and go wild, so I settled for ball joints like a
barbie doll on it's elbows and knees. I also gave it three sharp claws
to further convey a robotic, or at least an unnatural feel.
By the third prompt, I couldn't think of much, so I settled for a proud
bear in a suit. I wasn't satisfied with this idea, but was happy to hear
that it wasn't necessary as I only needed to do 1 character for the
prompt. I chose to expand on the rabbit design as I felt it was the most
polished and best looking idea. When coming up with alternate poses, I
used references for chibi characters that I found on Pinterest as a base
body and tried to find poses that suited the character description as
well as poses that are dynamic. I drew a pose where the rabbit had a
hand near its mouth with the other hand pointing at the
viewer/something, as if it is laughing and snickering at you. The next
pose was of a fall, where the joints and parts of the character popped
and fell off onto the ground, conveying the feeling of it being so proud
that they made a mistake and fell down.
The second prompt was
-
Vindictive Biologist in Space who has one tentacle arm.
For this idea, I wanted a humanoid. Vindictive usually means a negative
trait, but I wanted to try to create a cuter character instead of
another sharp one. The head was designed to be circular, with two large
round hair buns tied on her head like Mickey Mouse. Her body was more
rectangular shaped, with the shoulders curving into a sharp point for a
slightly imposing figure. I dressed her in a lab coat with a turtleneck,
with the lab coat extending past her waist. Instead of a smaller
tentacle which is more typical, I decided to draw a huge, heavy tentacle
that drags on the floor. I guess the idea behind it was something akin
to her being cursed by someone to have this huge, hulking tentacle, so
she sets off on an adventure to go get revenge on that someone and also
to revert her arm back to her normal form. To lean more into the
'tentacle' idea, I decided to make her hair tentacles, similar to a
Medusa with her snake hair. This makes her stand out more as a character
than if she didn't have them.
For the first thumbnail on the top, I wanted to do a sort of fighting
pose where we can see how she uses her tentacle arm. The tentacle is
curled up into a ball in place of where her fist is, which she can then
use to sucker punch someone.
For the second thumbnail, I did a pose where she was terrified, showing
her jumping and her tentacle arm reacting in fear. To convey the
surprise and shock more, I decided to make her tentacle hair buns also
react, jumping out in shock.
The third prompt was
-
Chaotic Monster at the Center of the Earth who always carries a plush toy.
This is yet again another cuter design, based on the impression of it
always carrying a plush toy. This visual, combined with the description
of 'chaotic' gives the impression that the character has a childish
mind. I started off with something similar to a 'core' as the main body,
as in my head, this character comes from the Center of the Earth, where
the core is. I drew a bunch of debris on the core similar to the
continents on Earth, with a large piece on the top like hair or a hat. I
made the arms and legs rocks, with the idea that the feet would possibly
be made out of ice. I thought it would also be really cute to have the
plush toy be a plush toy of the Earth that they carry around with
them.
For the second thumbnail, I drew them crying while running after their
doll, showing its attachment and childlike nature. And for the third
thumbnail, I drew a sort of funny pose where they have their globe plush
in a death grip and it is drawn in perspective.
In the end, my teacher selected three options from my list, the top right tentacle biologist and the top two chaotic monster poses. I decided on the tentacle biologist first because I liked her design more.
Here is the lineart version of the tentacle biologist.
I also made the chaotic monster in lineart just in case, but the teacher and I ultimately picked the tentacle biologist
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