Character Design Crashcourse

The aim of this workshop was to develop my understanding on the process of effective character design. An immediate point that I quickly picked-up on was the importance of understanding your character before any visual design work begins. A good understanding of the character you aim to create needs to be established. I also noticed how archetypes can inform my work, and can be manipulated to create an effective story without being too obvious. 

 I found the timeline of design very interesting. The image below shows a gradual transition of style, from basic to realistic, and examples of each. I hadn't realised how concrete these groups were, and how important it is to choose the correct style for the work you're aiming for.

I developed upon the idea of segregated character styles by practicing this methodology on existing material. Below, I have attempted to create a 'basic' variation of the villain 'Cruella' from '101 Dalmatians'. 

 However, in my attempt to simplify, I lost some key character assets that make Cruella recognisable. below is an example with some improvements, showing how I could have kept the characters sharp features.

The rest of the workshop was mostly dedicated to shape theory within character design. The use of certain shapes subconsciously say a lot about a character, and its important to choose shapes that accurately portray a personality and role in a story. 

Overall, i enjoyed the workshops looseness, giving me the opportunity to brainstorm onto paper. The character drawing tasks were a great warm-up exercise for my own character concept sketches.