Alana Sofia Othman / 0353451 / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media
Illustration
Exercise Pt 1
Week 2
Lecture Report 1: Character Design Basics
Perry The Platypus
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Video 1.1. Theme Song of Perry the Platypus from Phineas
and Ferb |
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| Figure 1.1. Perry (left) and Agent P (right) |
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| Figure 1.2. Perry with his owners |
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| Figure 1.3. Agent P escaping to his secret door |
Perry the platypus is inspired by… a platypus. He is a simple stylized character. Perry is a house pet that also has a secret personality and identity known as ‘Agent P’ that is unknown to his owners. Agent P is a secret agent for a spy organization and is usually out fighting crime against his nemesis, ‘Dr Doofenshmirtz’, an evil genius that loves havoc and destruction. To his owners, Perry is simply a mindless animal that does not do much and has a “wall eyed gaze”. However, to his Agency and nemesis, he is known to be serious and rarely has any positive emotions, such as smiles or laughter.
Perry’s overall shape is a rectangle, which makes sense considering he fights for justice (kind of) while undercover. It also gives him the feeling of sturdiness with his unwavering values. We can see a slight difference of shape and expressions between Perry and Agent P. In Figure 1.1., Perry’s (left) overall body shape is a shorter, stubbier and slightly more warped of a rectangle, not as long and slim as compared to Agent P on the right.. This could be argued that Agent P has a more straight and serious personality, thus, having a longer and slimmer rectangle shape for his body. Whereas Perry is more of a simple, cute house pet with almost no emotions, especially not a serious one, thus, the stubbier looking rectangle.
There is also the fact that we can see a difference in his face expressions. The simple shapes of ovals that make his eyes are different for both Perry and Agent P. Perry has very smooth oval shapes to make his eyes. This, along with his exotropia condition, a.k.a. walleyes, further emphasizes the personality of an innocent simple-minded house pet that does and knows nothing as his eyes lack any emotions or expressions. However, Agent P’s eyes are not a full oval, being cut off by frowning eyebrows probably, and loses his walleyes, giving him a very serious facial expression.
INSTRUCTIONS
Exercise Part 1: Vormator Challenge
Ideas Round 1
Thoughts Pre Sketches
What came to my mind first when the brief said "create your own character" was just a tiny cookie loving monster that rages. I cant explain why it came to mind, but it just did. However, I was not sure on what exactly a "vormator challenge" was about, so I thought I would look at Pinterest, but nothing really came up under "vormator challenge", it was all mostly cartoon like character designs. It was only later in week 2 that I fully understood what the vormator challenge was about and so I went on with designing my character.
Sketches
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| Figure 2.1. Sketch 1.1 & 1.2 |
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| Figure 2.2. Sketch 2.1 |
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| Figure 2.3. Sketch 3.1 |
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| Figure 2.4. Sketch 4.1 |
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| Figure 2.5. Sketch 5.1 |
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| Figure 2.6. Sketch 6.1 |
For the most part of these sketches, I did not really have any references as I was mostly just messing around with the shapes.
In Sketch 1.1 and 1.2, I tried to create a tiny bear like creature for my cookie loving raging monster. I wanted it to be tiny because of the whole "smaller person = condensed anger" thing people always tell me (because I am a short person with anger issues T.T). However, I also wanted my creature to look cute enough to cuddle. The principles to cute small things usually are small body and a huge round-ish head with huge round eyes. So, I tried that approach. I made sure to give him a huge nose instead of eyes because he can smell cookies from miles away.
His character descibed: The tiny bear with a huge nose that can
smell cookies from miles away. He is a friendly little bear
everyone loves but when he hasnt had a cookie in 3 hours he
rages. When he charges up (after eating enough cookies), he has
the ability to heal his friend’s wounds.
Sketch 2.1 came about as I was trying to create a bunny like creature instead of a bear for my cookie monster. However, as I was creating his face, the character just did not seem to fit. I stared at his hovering head for a little and my mind went to the movie kick ass. I decided to make him a boxer.
His character descibed: Boxing ring bunny. He is fast and throws a mean punch. He knows just where to hit his opponents to make them fall, even if they were 3x bigger than him. His vampire fangs allow him to bite and release venom into his opponents blood stream in mere minutes.
Sketch 3.1 was based off a whole new character. I did not really have an idea of what, I was mostly just thinking of something robotic due to the contstraint of shapes we are allowed to use. The fact that we are not allowed to warp or skew the shapes too, implied some rigidity, in my opinion. I do not mean to complain or anything, it was simply an observation I made that made me think of a robotic character.
Her character description: The singing robot. This robot is a springy, jumpy, happy robot. She emits sound waves that sing a beautiful melodic song to everyone but her aimed target. Her target range is within her line of eyesight.
Sketch 4.1 was just me messing around with the shapes. Once I had the body with the hair and eyes, I added the hands as I was slightly inspired by my Sketch 2.1, the boxing bunny.
His character description: Tiny warrior. He may seem tiny but his fists are powerful enough to smash buildings, crack roads and send his opponent flying.
Sketch 5.1 and 6.1 were more of me simply messing around with the shapes. However, I felt nothing from them and was inspired by nothing, so I could not come up with a character description. They are also not the greatest looking and were not anything I wanted to pursue, just fun experimentations.
Ideas Round 2
Thoughts Pre Sketches
Although I quite liked Sketch 3.1 and 4.1, I did not care much for their personality. I also worried that it was a little too simple for the assignment. They lacked much imagination, depth, complexity to be interesting enough to stand as main solo characters. Simply put, I was just not that into them and was not sure how to move forward with them. I still was really drawn to the cooking loving raging monster character but I felt the character design of Sketch Set 1 was not what I wanted. So I decided to explore more character designs.
References
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| Figure 3.2. Reference for Sketches Set 7 |
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| Figure 3.3. Reference for Sketch Set 8 |
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| Figure 3.4. Reference for Sketch Set 8 |
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| Figure 3.5. Reference for Sketch Set 8 |
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| Figure 3.6. Reference for Sketch Set 8 & Progression |
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| Figure 3.7. Reference for Sketch 8.4, 8.5 & Progression |
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| Figure 3.8. Reference for Sketch 8.4, 8.5 & Progression |
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| Figure 4.1. Sketch 7.1 & 7.2 |
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| Figure 4.2. Sketch 7.3 & 7.4 |
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| Figure 4.3. Sketch 8.1 & 8.2 |
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| Figure 4.4. Sketch 8.3 & 8.4 |
For Sketch Set 7, I went based off Sketch Set 1, only trying to change its bear like features. Sketch Set 1 looked more like a koala bear, so I thought of trying to make it look like an actual bear-ish. I got inspired by The Care Bears, as seen in Figure 3.1. above. However, when I had just the bear, Sketch 7.1, it felt empty and plain. My bear did not seem to have a design that fit a cookie loving raging bear personality. As I abandoned the design, I started messing around again with the shapes, espeically the shapes I have not really touched (the horn looking shape) and came up with a bow. I thought of making my bear a cupid bear instead of a cookie loving raging bear.
Since he was cupid, it seemed fitting to give him wings. I also just wanted to add a little more pizzazz to him. I came up with two different sets of wings but Sketch 7.4 seemed more fitting to his soft sweet features and personality.
Sketch Set 8 came about from trying to get a character design that fit the cookie loving raging creature again. I gave him pig like nose to smell cookies from afar. Horns and a frown to show some raging features. I tried the different body shapes and legs, or lack of them. Basically played with the shapes. The teardrop shaped body paired with the horns made me think of a viking hat. Suddenly, everything came together. Vikings are often depicted with big noses and they are known for their short fuse and rage. So it made sense to have it viking inspired.
Progression
Character Design
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Figure 5.1. Progression 1.1 |
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| Figure 5.2. Progression 2.1 |
I added a beard because it isnt a viking-like creature without a beard. I started to add more details and colour blocking. I changed the shape of the eyes cause I realised it just looked weird and ugly.
Colour Experimentation
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| Figure 6.1. Progression 3.1 |
I played with a few different colour schemes and decided the top one worked best. I liked that his beard and viking hat were this bright orange that seem to be a little bit fiery as it fit his raging personality. It also contrasted well with this bright cool blue body. The second colour scheme did not really make any sense in terms of colour psychology. As for the third one, I did like the light bluey-green for his body but the orange was little too muted and the green beard did not contrast well with the turquoise.
Poses Exploration
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| Figure 7.1. Progression 4.1 |
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| Figure 7.2. Progression 4.2 |
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| Figure 7.3. Progression 4.3 |
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| Figure 7.4. Progression 4.4 |
My character was basically done as I did not have anything else to add to him but I realised that there was not enough in the frame to show his personality traits clearly. So I decided to add some cookies.
In Progression 4.1 and 4.2, I explored the different placements of the cookie plate and my character. I figured that since my cookies are not actually the character, only more of a add on, that I would be free from the constraints of the vormater shapes given. However, after consultation, I was told it was still not allowed.
So in Progression 4.3 and 4.4, I tried to make the cookie platter from the set shapes given. In Progression 4.3, I used 2 teardrop shapes to make a rounded plate and in 4.4 I used 'The Zerk', a.k.a. long semi circle. The cookies were made up of 'The Zerk' aswell, along with 'The Badge' for the chocolate chip bits.
I also added/changed some stuff such as adding the eyebrows, drool and nose fumes while changing the background colour, smoke colour, and bringing the mouth over the beard instead of hidden under.
Extra Details / Final Touches
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| Figure 8.1. Progression 5.1 & 5.2 |
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| Figure 8.2. Progression 5.3, 5.4 & 5.5 |
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| Figure 8.3. Outcome 1 |
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| Figure 8.4. Outcome 2 |
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| Figure 8.5. Outcome 3 |
I continued to Progression 5.1 and 5.2, where I tried keeping the plate colour within the same colour scheme as my character as it is also important to his personality. However, the orange seemed abit too bright so I decided to go with the yellow, it does not draw as much attention but it is still a piece of my character.
In Figure 8.2, I tried different eyebrow styles but within the same shape and idea of it being raised high. The eyebrow of Progression 5.5 are a classic but I noticed the nose fumes did not fit in with them. Instead the nose fumes seemed to fit eyebrows from Progression 5.3. I also figured I should try give him a smile instead of a frown as it would make sense that he is happy he has his cookies, thus Outcome 3.
Final Outcome
Koe Draug
Vikings spoke Old Norse, which eventually developed into the modern North Germanic languages such as Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, etc. The word 'cookie' in each of these languages are småkaka (Icelandic), småkage/kake (Danish), småkaka/kaka (Swedish). Old Norse for cake is 'kaka', which also developed into 'koekje' in Dutch, which translates to 'little cake' and eventually to 'cookie'. The brief history/language lesson is relevant to my work as my character is a little cookie monster, viking inspired creature.
His name is Koe Draug. Koe being inspired by the word 'koekje', and Draug from 'draugr'. Draugr are undead creatures from Norse mythology, which is in no way similar to my character but I liked the word. I figured Koe Draug sounds better than Koe Skrímsli, 'skrímsli' being the Icelandic word for monster.
FEEDBACK
Progression
- Cookie platter needs to be the given shapes too
- Colour contrast and design balance is there
FURTHER READING
Brady, M. (2014) To have your cake and speak it: Norwegian words in English [Online] Norwegian American. Available at: https://www.norwegianamerican.com/to-have-your-cake-and-speak-it-norwegian-words-in-english/#:~:text=The%20Old%20Norse%20kake%20also,to%20the%20English%20word%20cookie.
Language Drops (n.d.) Visual Dictionary [Online] Available at: https://languagedrops.com/word/en/
Brady, M. (2014) To have your cake and speak it: Norwegian words in English [Online] Norwegian American. Available at: https://www.norwegianamerican.com/to-have-your-cake-and-speak-it-norwegian-words-in-english/#:~:text=The%20Old%20Norse%20kake%20also,to%20the%20English%20word%20cookie.
Language Drops (n.d.) Visual Dictionary [Online] Available at: https://languagedrops.com/word/en/
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