Character Design - misc exercise drawings

One of my favorite parts of the character design class that I've been taking (which I wrote about yesterday) has been the in-class exercises. They've been one of the ways I can tell I'm more cut out for design than storyboarding. When my Story Development teacher would say "time for an in-class exercise," I would immediately break out in a cold sweat. When Jose calls for one, I get excited. I really like challenging my brain to do a design in under 10 minutes. It's just plain fun.

The first exercise we did was to just call out random words. Jose would put 2 words together and we'd have to design something to that effect.

"Pirate Batman"

"Octopus Lawyer"

"Alcoholic Clown"

"Rocket Girl"

I really wish I could show you some of my classmates' design solutions for these - there were some seriously brilliant ones. I remember my favorite alcoholic clown having whisky coming out of a squirty flower pin on his lapel. The fun of it was really seeing all the different designs together after we were done. 

The second exercise was to design a character from a shape that the teacher drew up on the board. We could add to the shape, but ultimately it had to be the prominent mass of a character.

Finally, something I drew in class during the lecture. I used to draw in my notebooks all the time when I was in grade school. It got me in trouble because I never paid attention. Not at art school...

P.S.: Dawn of Planet of the Apes was really, really good.

© Gina Florio 2014

Character Design with Jose Lopez

My latest class at the Concept Design Academy is Character Design with Jose Lopez. We're about halfway through the class.

I've been working towards taking this class for two years. When I first got interested in concept art, I wanted to jump immediately to character design, but I knew I wasn't ready - I had to study the fundamentals first. This is a complete list of the classes I have taken so far, in this order:

VisCom 1

Perspective

Landscape Painting

Analytical Figure Drawing

Intro to Digital Painting

Intro to Story Development

Figure Invention for Animation

I took Story Dev and Fig Invention during the spring semester because I was thinking about pursuing a track as a storyboard artist. I subsequently realized that I did not enjoy storyboarding at all - but I don't regret taking those classes. 

Even if most of these classes weren't directly related to character design, I've learned something and made artistic progress in every single one. I don't miss struggling with oil paints in the hot sun. But the landscape painting class made me a much better artist because I learned to pay attention to the big picture, the broader statement of the image. I don't miss calculating precisely at which angle a generic box is casting a shadow. But learning perspective paid off greatly during my character design homework this week when I had to do turnarounds and calculate precisely where my characters' feet would be on the ground.

I would have taken more classes before character design if I had had more time - I particularly would have loved to take Animal Anatomy, and the more advanced Head / Figure Drawing class. But I've been studying those things on my own on the side as I go along. And I knew my fundamental drawing skills were getting strong, but I was sorely lacking in my design skills. I felt ready to tackle a design course.

For Character Design, we were supposed to come up with a story (or choose a classic fairytale) and do designs for 4 characters of our choosing - a hero, a love interest, a villain, and a sidekick. We started off with LOTS of thumbnails, and finally it came down to doing a final design and turnaround for 2 of them.

My characters are Riva, a scrappy cartographer's daughter, Altus, the forest prince, Unnamed Villain, the mayor of Riva's town, and Altus's steed, a creature of the forest.

I did turnarounds for Riva and Altus. I finalized their designs more during the turnaround phase, after receiving a critique on the final design from the teacher.

 

Overall I have been really, really enjoying this class and I feel like I've learned so much. I already cringe when looking back at my earlier design process!

© Gina Florio 2014

Daily Sketches Weeks 13-14

Last couple weeks of work.

Mar 22 - drawings of Zosia Mamet that don't look like Zosia Mamet

(I was still working on the poster at this point so I missed a day)

Mar 24 - initial sketches for a personal creature design project

Mar 25 - I'm slightly obsessed with the BBC's 'Sherlock'/Benedict Cumberbatch

Mar 26 - more Cumberbatches

Mar 27 - preliminary Watson sketches

Mar 28 - gnome lady

Mar 29 - a visit to the Getty with my family, who was visiting

Mar 30 - cartoon versions of family

Mar 31 - some silly easter bunny concepts

Apr 1 - finished Watson

Apr 2 - Moriarity

Apr 3 - Sabor y Cultura Café - Dave's and my drawing/writing spot

Apr 4 - goats - research for the creature design project

Apr 5 - random giraffe professor

Apr 6 - I'm short.

I've now been keeping up with sketch-a-day for 3 months, and I'm so glad I have. Last fall, it was so easy to start my day, sit down at my computer in the morning, and think, "I'll just draw during lunch at work." Then lunch would roll around, and I'd think, "I'll just draw tonight." And then I'd go home from work, cook dinner, collapse on the couch and say, "I'll just draw tomorrow." But now that I've been keeping up with it for so long, it would actually be hard to stop, because I'd be ruining my own running streak. Some days aren't great (Easter bunnies). But some days I go to bed being proud of what I produced that day (Moriarity). And those days make it worth it.

Side note - Becky Kramer's Brother, the band whose poster I drew, had their first concert in a while on Friday night, and I was very excited to see that they had gotten prints of the poster! And not only that - they'd set aside a poster for me and all signed it. I may not be thrilled with the final result - but I have to admit, it was really special to hold a print of my first semi-official commission, and my first digital painting, in my hands. It's up on my home office wall now, serving as a reminder of what I've accomplished so far, and of how far I have still to go.

© Gina Florio 2013