-Currently Ongoing- Character Design.

Character Design (The First Attempt)


To start, this process was rather enjoyable (if not stressful) but also extremely time consuming, especially with me deciding to draw something highly detailed which i had never previously drawn before. My original character bio make my character out to be an over sized lizard, very similar to a dragon in appearance but lacking in wings and general fire related abilities. He was going to be incredibly clumsy and fairly absent minded.

Within the original back story, i wrote about how he burst off a cliff edge in an attempt to catch a bird and suffered from a fairly major head injury, almost entirely destroying his long-term memory. This meant that all aspects of fear and doubt were entirely removed, leaving him clueless for the most part. As he would have to re-learn and experience the world.

The impact which struck him on the head also damaged his 'Medula Oblongata' which within crocodiles caused the aggressive/ violent nature. With this being damaged, a lot of the previous natural aggression brought on by instinct could be disabled or forgotten. (Don't question the logic, at least i didn't state it was via 'Magic'.) This meant that the character could quite easily develop a wide array of facial expressions and emotions that would generally be unheard of within the animal kingdom.

I spent an extremely long time looking at reference images of dogs, horses, lizards, snakes and general dragon artwork to try and learn the proportions. Annoyingly, physically drawing my own style that still looked natural took an entire A3 sketchpad away from me and left me with a huge array of failures but through a lot of trial and error, i finally drew proportions that i was happy with.

Starting with the 'Learning Experience', this was the first set of attempts with the body proportions;

Attempt No1.

I attempted to draw what i thought a dragon's body would look like without wings, using a fairly large body with a long neck protruding out from a realistic location. Using the body shape as a reference, i tried to draw legs similar to those of a dog but with much longer paws. It did not go well in the slightest, leaving me with what looks like a very round, stiff-necked giraffe, wearing high-heals. It may have failed but i refused to give up.

Attempt No 2.

These attempts felt far more promising. The lower Drawing was an attempt at drawing the skeleton of a reference image i found in an attempt to understand the general shapes and structure, similar to a day of life-drawing. After drawing it, i spent a while studying the anatomy and tried to once again draw my own style above it.

Starting with the basics such as the two circles which make up the body shape, i began defining the shape more and attempted to draw both legs and a neck with the same structure as the previous reference. At first i believed it was quite an improvement, until i took a step back from it. It had more realistic proportions but had one key problem; i had managed to draw a Shetland pony which couldn't have been any further away from what i was looking to achieve.

 
Attempt No 3.

For these small attempts, i tried a front view in an attempt to draw the proportions from a different angle. The vast majority of them were not too effective as i was simply trying to draw the shapes in a symmetrical view, something i am far more comfortable with. A lot of them ended up looking fairly disfigured apart from the centre one and bottom left drawing.

The centre drawing got the proportions quite decently but the bottom left drawing looks extremely out of place. I managed to draw decent canine proportions with a huge lizard's head placed on its shoulders. It was worth a laugh, looking back at it but ended up being fairly useless currently for anything beyond practise. 

Attempt No 4.

I gave it one more attempt at drawing the front view and managed to finally arrive at something i am mildly happy with but it looked far too much like a monkey, especially with the saw i drew its arms. One benefit to this drawing though is that i was slowly beginning to learn how to draw the proportions required, especially with the feet, neck and lower legs, increasing the chance of drawing a successful body for the character.

Attempt No 5.

This was the final sheet of attempts before i arrived at the correct proportions. Using the first drawing attempt of the bone structure, i tried to re-draw the proportions using the knowledge i had gained through trial and error previously. I was extremely happy with the outcome as it left me in a position where i could take an entire A3 sketch page and roughly draw the proportions i wished for my character to have. I also attempt a few perspective drawings of the head for more general practise . The extremely happy image in the centre was the first attempt at the front view but due to the lack of A3 paper left, i was forced to re-use this piece for further sketches. 

Final Proportions.

using my previously gained knowledge, i took one last look at a few images such as the general shape of a horse and began drawing the true proportions. I starting with extremely simple shapes and then added more definition to complete the shape. Once i was happy with it, i then added some extra details to give it the dragony/ lizardy look that i was originally aiming for.

The only problem was muscle definition and i did not have a clue how to even start which would have re-started the entire concepting phase once more. On top of this, drawing the head at a slight angle took far too many attempts than i wish to count, making the concept decent by my standards but taking it any further would leave me too far in the grey and promote much larger problems and concerns later down the line, especially with the orthographic view.

 
Character Design Two. (A slight change in variation)

Due to the constraints and problems i encountered with the previous character design, i decided to take a more human approach with the proportions but still stayed with the original dragony/ lizardy theme. For this, i looked a lot at the argonian race from the Elder Scrolls game series where they managed to successfully combine both human and lizard characteristics which in turn made it a lot easier to create a animistic face structure with the ability to show quite extreme human emotions.

As i did not need to draw as many sketches for practise purpose due to the life drawing reference i have, i created two basic sketches to show the body. As the proportions needed to be quite humanoid, i just drew the bone structure and proportions using basic shapes. I sketched round the simple ribcage and pelvis shapes to create a near human form with a few obvious deformities such as a larger upper torso to make it look far less generic.

On top of this, i added some rough details around each join in the form of creases that i could then draw jagged spikes around to represent scales. The hands were fairly awkward to draw so i took  picture of each of my hands in the desired pose and used them as a reference to get the proportions of each finger correct. I used the same rough shape for the feet as used in the previous character design but generally made them shorter and skinnier to match up with the body.

After this, all that as left to do was to add a few more defining features such as both large and small scales over the body and a jagged, spiky edge to each limb to distance it as much as possible from the human form whilst also adding some creative features. With the back of my character, i wanted to make him look fairly intimidating whilst keeping his features quite natural. I did this by adding a wide selection of large scales which are generously organised across his back, arms and legs whist avoiding joints, ensuring that movement is not effected too much and the basic dragon features are still present.   

Whole Character Bio

He will be a reptile/ human combination, holding on to key features noted on humans and dragons. His skin will be extremely scaly with the odd larger scale scattered around his proportions. Bone structure wise, he will also have a very dragon like head and a long neck. With a fairly large rib-cage, his chest will look slightly out of proportion but this will make him extremely durable. He will be very spikey in general to emphasise on the reptile features and for self-defence, making it fairly hard as well as dangerous to grab him.

It would be similar to trying to hold on to rose thorns. His feet should be very dragon like with his heals raised off of the floor, allowing him to run much faster and more efficiently with a spring in his step. In terms of his hands, they should be human like to allow him to function within society but also include claws to distance this resemblance.

As his body is too rough to allow him to wear any form of armour, his should have armour-like scales scattered across his back, alongside various spines without reducing manoeuvrability if possible. He will generally look very intimidating from the back but only wishes to learn about the world, protect/ serve those that care about him and generally live a creative life.

Basic History

He lived in a secluded area of swampland with his father, near a local fishing village. His father was extremely aggressive and would often lash out at any living thing, making life extremely difficult and stressful.

The village had very rarely seen this kind of creature before, making them generally fearful. After hearing what sounded like a monstrous animal and seeing the destruction my character’s father was capable of, the village formed a hunting party. After a rather vicious encounter with my character’s father, a few villagers were injured and the father ran deep in to the swamp, abandoning my character. When my character was found by the villagers, they attempted to kill him out of fear due to what his father did previously.

He was saved by the village leatherworker who was both generally against hunting and saw that my character’s claws could be very helpful for both cutting and shaping materials in his workshop. My character then saw him as a second father, learning his trade skills and helping within the workshop. Many villagers found his appearance intimidating so he was forced to wear a leather overcoat to cover up the vast majority of his scales in public. This was both uncomfortable and demining so he eventually used his basic leather working knowledge to tear it down and turn it in to a mildly effective bag.

As he grew in age, his scales grew larger, his claw grew sharper and his face became more defined. All of these gradual changes made him look more intimidating to the villagers and more like a weapon to any of the village guards or huntsmen. When people began avoiding him or generally began to tremble when he approached, he started leaving the village for trips in to the swamp in an attempt to find salvageable materials to help his adopted father/ the leather worker. The swamps felt more homely and often brightened his facial expression.

After the guards/ huntsman began attempting to recruit him and became rather pushy, these trips in to the swampy lands became longer and happened more often as the traumatising childhood experiences alongside his adopted father’s view of violence turned him entirely away from the concept of fighting.

By this point, his old home had been destroyed by flooding water, leaving very little beyond a small mound of dirt within the swamp with the ruins of a stone house scattered across the area. This became his quite place, allowing him to simply relax and think, even about his original father at times, not because he missed him but to think of where he could have possibly gone for all these years.  


Character Face/ Expression Sheet

Attempting to incorporate human emotions in to a character which has a dragons/ lizards face is an extremely difficult task so i designed the head from the ground up to display these in the most natural way possible. After looking at a fair few cartoon images due to their simple nature, i began developing an understand of what would be required.

I needed to draw the mouth in a way that it could position its jaw to both smile and frown, a nose that would look flexible enough retract slight in a similar fashion to a dog to display anger or unhappiness, a general eye shape that would be large enough to give some form of character, pupils that can increase in roundness for general emotion and translate in to more of a cats eye shape to show intimidation. The final thing required to allow it to support a wide range of emotions was eyebrows.

I found that the easiest way to do this was to make them extrude slightly with the bottom halves taking the appearance of simple semi circles which could be adapted and angled and the top halves leading towards the back of the head to support its horns, even if they are not currently display in the second/ final character concept. Taking all of these points in to consideration, i came up with a variety of natural looking emotions whilst still using the dragon/ lizard theme.

Highly Detail Character Face. (Front View)

Using what i had learnt previously, i decided to make a much larger, fully detailed drawing of my character's face to show the character in a better light, a small look at the style and end quality I'm hoping for and to generally practise my skills.

This the the basic line version of the face, similar to the expression sheet but on a much larger scale, allowing me to add detail where it previously would not have been entirely visible. My construction lines are still on the drawing, showing how i originally drew a large 'V' shape with a large box directly above. inside the large 'V', i drew a smaller one, drawing a line across the top, ensuring that it was all in level with the top edges. I then drew a dot in the centre of the smaller 'V's top line and drew a box large enough to fit the centre section of my characters snout. Offset to the left and right, above this box, i drew two more boxes for the eyes.

For the eyebrows, i then drew a semi-circle around the outside of each eye box with a rough spike shape sketched out the contain horns and the very top sides of the head. Using all this construction for reference, i could then redefine the details without any risk of having a disproportionate character face. Drawing the teeth seemed like quite a challenge as each one had to look extremely similar. As i drew the teeth on either side of the mouth to lean out slightly, mirroring them took a lot of trial and error as well as a fair few construction lines.

Once i decided that i was happy with the proportions for the face, i began to shade it. I wanted to simulate the light hitting its snout, leaving the inner mouth and sides fairly dark still. This did not go perfectly as some areas seem un-neccersarily dark or extremely light where there should be a bit of shadow. I did all the shading using the softest pencil i had available and then used a basic rubber for general highlights such as directly on the snout.

The final stage was to add the extremely tedious scales. This took an extremely long time and cost me half a pencil as i drew every single scale separately, ensuring that every one was offset in a similar pattern to the bricks on the side of  building, varying in size, depending on how close or how far away each part of the face is to one another. I simply drew the shape 'n' repeatedly, ensuring that my pencil was always sharp, until the drawing was entirely complete.

To stop it from looking like a floating head and nothing else, i drew a rough neck shape below the head, leading off of the page and ensuring that details such as folds were both emphasised by distorted scales and darker/ lighter shading. Once all of this was complete, i sharpened my pencil once more and went over every single line to ensure that they all stood out beyond the scales. I believe this went extremely well but i am perceiving the light as it hits a solid object still needs a lot of work.

-Ongoing- Environment Concepts.

Environment
 
I started my environment concept by looking at river banks, thinking that they could be Incorporated in to an interesting setting for my character. To start, i drew an extremely rough sketch of details that i could see fitting in with the river bank setting. I wanted to have something fairly large and natural which could cover a large portion of the drawing without becoming overwhelming or looking out of place.

For this, i decided on using a tree as this could easily be propped up against the river bank and i could ad some interesting shapes such as roots to add more to the image. As it is a river bank setting, i through that the ground probably would not be too even and generally be covered by both moss and dirt. This left me with a very basic idea so i sat down and thought about what would merge in with the natural environment whilst also adding a civilised or 'lived in' feel.

For this, i then looked at a lot of ancient stone ruins on the Internet and found that partially destroyed/ knocked down stone walls could probably merge in with the dirt fairly well. Alongside this, it allowed me to make the ground far more interesting by drawing more, basic bricks that could have easily spread out due to overflowing water.

A few river bank images i looked at had low, wooden fences surrounding them if cattle was present. Using this idea, i drew a far more primitive variation, sunk fairly low in to the world and positioned one plan resting in the water, showing that the entire scene is old and maintained.

Once i was happy with the overall shapes, i begin to add a bi more definition to the image, using darker lines and adding a bit more detail to areas such as the wooden barrier and stone ruins. Trying to make a realistic wood outline proved troublesome and overall did not go very well. On top of this, the scene only covered half of the total drawing size so in future iterations, i would have to work on both the perspective and proportions to make it look even mildly realistic.

 As the previous drawings were all completed using a graphics tablet due to its ease of rubbing out and tweaking with the addition of layers, i began drawing a more defined and detailed variation on my Sketchpad. I started using a very soft pencil and sketched out the basic shapes within the image whilst looking at the previous digital drawing attempt as a reference.

I followed the exact same concept with the key features such as; the stone ruins, tree, scattered rocks and wooden barrier but changed their appearance slightly and spread them out, removing the need for un-necersary features such as the failed attempt at drawing a pile of roots to the centre right. After toying with the image a few times, i decided to move the dirt bank further back and placed another bed of water, under the horizon line.

This gave me the idea of turning it in to a once flooded ruins where rising water had previously forced the owners of the now ruined house out elsewhere in to the world.

This is still far from done as the ruins on the left side are too clean and angled, very little to no shading is used and i would like to make the skies extremely cloudy with a variety of reflections across both sections of water but it should be suitable to provide an insight to my environment idea and what i wish it to be in the final iteration.

Perspective was extremely difficult with this image and i realistically did not want a single straight line. Even the wooden barrier would be warped or generally disfigured in the case of flooding or long term abandonment and for a more natural look, i would like each stone within the ruins to look entirely different in shape. 

  

    

Gordon In Motion.

This week involved drawing Gordon using the traditional media of pencil and paper. We drew him in three different key areas; the first being perspective, the second being motion and the third being a combination of both perspective and shadow.

Perspective

This focused as a starting point on perspective drawing for many of us as a refresher course for the rest. We all started by drawing a straight horizon line and placed a dot in the centre to function as our vanishing point. After this, i drew a selection of lines from this vanishing point to the rough corners of the paper. I was forced to use a ruler for this as the lines i draw else wise are either far too rough or too feathery. After drawing the rough shapes of a street, Gordon posed for us in a rather obscure angle. I attempted to draw him leaning against the right wall but due to the lack of shadow, he looks as if he's floating. After drawing the rough outline, we were told to draw him, to scale, roughly half way back.

This simply required me to draw lines from each of his defining portions to the vanishing line. Using these lines and the distance between the wall of the right hand side, i was able to draw him about 90% correctly scale and proportion wise. As an added challenge, we were then told to Draw him standing upright as he posed for us almost at the vanishing line. As the pose was different, this seemed extremely difficult so i used the reference line from his feet to create a rough basis of his position and utilised the line for his head as the new shoulder position. The mini Gordon has very little detail but i believe it did not go too badly, especially with the limited time available.

 Motion

The concept behind these drawings was to draw Gordon extremely quickly, within a couple of minutes, several times, in different poses next to each other to show the wide array of movements.
For the first image, Gordon for some strange reason grabbed a pair of nun chucks which was both amusing and terrifying. We had two full cycles to draw but due to the time restriction and my general incompetence when it comes to drawing an image that will physically fit on the page, i ended up drawing an extremely short, disfigured version as seen below.

I did not do a very good job of this first attempt with each proportion being entirely out, just look at those stubby little legs. Using what i had learnt from this first attempt, i had a much clearer idea of what i was expected to do for the second cycle. For the second cycle, i took more time to draw the refined shapes/ boxes that practically made up Gordon and allowed the sketches to overlap ever-so-slightly for a more flowing array of movements. Beyond the slight confusion of Gordon holding up two fairly large blades, i believe this helped me greater understand how the body twists and turns in a wide selection of poses that generally looked unnatural when i attempted to draw them previously.

 As you can see from the images, what looked like an intimidating man holding knives, turned in to a few sketches of him twirling round and round.

Perspective and Shadow

This was the final and longest drawing for the afternoon, taking roughly 30 to 40 minutes in total. Gordon was posed on a easel to the right hand side of the room with his face then being projected across the wall to the left. This was fairly daunting as i was fairly unsure of where to start so i just drew the basic boxes that made up Gordon and then the large square to the left which represented the projection of his face. I spent the vast majority of the time allocated just trying to draw the proportions in the projection as the shapes were far more simple and easy to manage.

Once this was done, i added a small amount of shadow around his fingers and then began adding more defined features and proportions to the real Gordon. I spent too long drawing these features, meaning that i ran extremely short on time, forcing me to rush some basic shading on both Gordon and the corners of the projection in an attempt to give some depth, making it look rather messy. In the future, i am going to try to push fine details to the side until the entire image is roughly drawn in hopes of improving my time management.  

 Yes, i know this image is upsidown, Blogger is simply having a fit at the moment, alongside my desktop so i cannot physically change it at this moment in time, i will alter it the next update though. (Officially, that will probably be the -Thursday Night, after life drawing-.)

Charcoal and Skelingtons.

Week 2

Life Drawing
This week in life drawing, we were asked to try either charcoal or pastels to get out of out comfort zones. I chose charcoal and generally felt quite awkward at first as there was no way of rubbing out or generally removing construction lines or mistakes. After the first awkward drawing, i felt more and more at home using the charcoal as it allowed a lot more freedom with each stroke. I drew a selection of poses but will only display the top two or three  to highlight which i believe show the most progress.

This was my first successful attempt using the charcoal. Highlighting all the key areas such as the pelvis and rib cage, i worked around them using darker and darker lines in an attempt to highlight the key details over the construction lines. I found this to be much easier than pencil sketches due to the thicker, blunt nature of the charcoal which drew attention away from extreme detail. On top of this, i used eight construction lines spaced out across the page to separate each area of the body. I found this technique to be far too awkward though so i doubt i will be using it in the future.
 

With this attempt, we were told to make a section of the body either bigger or smaller. I decided to adopt the head for this. After drawing the body as normal, following the skeleton for proportions, i greatly exaggerated the head, making for a rather comic look. The proportions around the upper chest and shoulders are fairly stretched and unrealistic so i believe these areas need more work within future drawings. I could not physically see his feet at my drawing angle so i had to leave these bare.

I am most proud of this sketch as i believe it shows the most potential.We were given an hour to complete it so i positioned myself closer, sat on a beanbag a couple of meters away from the model. As he was sat in a chair, it make the proportions fairly awkward to draw. To overcome this, i ignored his figure and spent a while drawing the chair with the goal of using it as a reference for the rest of the image. After i had this draw, i began sketching out the body. At first it seemed to be going fairly wrong so i sketched new shapes over the old ones and made it look rather messy. After continuing on with the sketch, it began to take shape so i added simple shading by rubbing my finger across darker areas and leaving areas struck by the light with a paler finish. As i still had time left after this, i began adding further detail such as basic facial features and body hair across the arms, back and legs. With simple shadows to remove the floating effect, it took its form as a finished sketch. I would like to use this media more often as it feels more creative and the shading is far easier for a more realistic look.

 


Skeletons 

Starting in order, the first task i was assigned for this week was to draw the human figure over a variety of skeletons. It was a fairly quick task but was extremely useful in helping me understand the human skeleton. Through these drawings, i learn to draw the proportions of the human body using the shape of the spine, skull, ribcage, shoulder blades and other bones, ensuring that no possible deformities appeared in the final product.

Attempt Number 1.

 Attempt Number 2.

Attempt Number 3.

Starting Progress.

This blog will be used to display the best work created during life drawing and each drawing assignment set within lectures.

Week One.

We will start with the first week's life drawing. This was entirely done using a soft pencil and involved drawing out life model in a wide variety of poses. Due to the nature of the drawing material and the quality of the digital camera, lighter images may be hard to see. I will rectify this in the close future once a higher quality one has been located.

This image was drawn in our first half hour pose. I managed to get the proportions generally correct but due to poor time management and confusion, i did not get very much detail beyond the figure drawn.

These three sketches were by far the most successfully drawn from the entire session. The figure on the left is poorly visible so i will re-upload this as soon as possible but as you can see from the middle and right drawings, i drew simple boxes to represent limbs and linked them using simple, darker curved lines. This made the drawing process much easier and allowed me to draw a fair few complicated poses without many issues. Each pose took five minutes to draw and greatly helped me visualise life as a selection of simple shapes.

Chess Piece

For the chess piece assignment/ general drawing practise i took the idea of the tower. The piece by default is supposed to be a large, emotionless tower with the ability to move any number of squares but only at 90 degree angles. Positioned at the side of the board, they are perfect for both flanking and defending but hit and run tactics/ techniques may be difficult as their path can very easily by blocked. My creation attempts to reflect all of these points, down to both its appearance and characteristics.

For example; a tower may also be seen as the most defencive unit which in turn could reflect on the shield of any smaller unit. Instead of my unit holding a defencive item such as a shield, it has become the shield, a structure whilst also keeping the basic human elements. With its towering figure, it could very easily be seen walking directly through other units in a straight line but due to the size of its visor, diagonal movements would be near impossible, leaving it vulnerable. It takes the form of an very scrappy industrialised armoured suit, utilising makeshift armour and welding equipment in an attempt to create a towering chunk of metal.