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You might not realize it, but the field of illustration shapes the world we live in. It is at once highly visible while being invisible, and it has an influence that transforms our visual culture to give people a voice and our lives more meaning. Based on that, what exactly does illustration mean? Simply put, illustration is visual imagery that is best known for interpreting, depicting, explaining, and/or decorating the words in books, newspapers, and online media. An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or a visual explanation of a text, concept or process. Designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, video games and films. An illustration is typically created by an illustrator. Digital illustrations are often used to make websites and apps more user-friendly, such as the use of emojis to accompany digital type. Illustration also means providing a pictorial example of a written media or concept.
When thinking of illustrations, most think about book, game and animation illustration. Important aspects of the illustrations are both characters and scenes. In this assignment, we will be focusing on how to illustrate characters, both their physical appearance and their backstory.
When thinking of illustrations, most think about book, game and animation illustration. Important aspects of the illustrations are both characters and scenes. In this assignment, we will be focusing on how to illustrate characters, both their physical appearance and their backstory.
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PIXAR'S TIPS FOR DESIGNING A SUCCESSFUL CHARACTER When a Pixar artist is designing a character there are a number of areas they explore to ensure a successful character design. Research, Reference and evaluate It can be helpful to Study life references to evaluate and look over key characteristics. When Disney animators where creating the characters for the lion king, they brought in Live lions and the character designs sketched them and sure those sketches are the primary point of departure for Simba. https://ohmy.disney.com/movies/2015/04/14/8-amazing-behind-the-scenes-photos-from-the-production-of-the-lion-king/#Andreas-Deja-Brings-Scar-to-Life It is also helpful to look at the characters and think about what makes some successful and what in particular you like about them. Visual impact Whether you're creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people's attention. Exaggerated characteristics Exaggerating the defining features of your character will help it appear larger than life. Exaggerated features will also help viewers identify the character's key qualities. Colour Colors can help communicate a character's personality. Typically, dark colors such as black, purples and grays depict baddies with malevolent intentions. Light colors such as white, blues, pinks and yellows express innocence, good and purity. Conveying personality Interesting looks alone do not necessarily make for a good character; its personality is key as well. A character's personality can be revealed through animations, where we see how it reacts to certain situations. The personality of your character doesn't have to be particularly agreeable, but it does need to be interesting (unless your characters is purposely dull). Expression Expressions showing a character's range of emotions and depicting its ups and downs will further flesh out your character. Depending on its personality, a figure's emotions might be muted and wry or explosive and wildly exaggerated. Building back stories If you're planning for your character to exist within comics and animations then developing its back story is important and sprnkling it am. Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character. Sometimes the telling of a character's back story can be more interesting than the character's present adventures. |
CHARACTER Development
What is character design? Character Design is Character creation, the process of defining character illustrations. Character design focus on the appearance,traits, backstories clues etc (from Pixar) Character design is a vital component of Pixar's work. Character is what drives the story and breathes life into a film. Pixar's character designers work with the director as the script is still being written to bring the characters to life through many phases and changes until they have created the perfect character for their story, Process of Designing a Character Pixar's artists use traditional media to draw the initial design of their characters. An artist typically does hundreds, sometimes thousands, of sketches before they are satisfied with the design of their character. At Pixar, character design begins with pencil sketches. Sometimes the artists have a clear idea about the character, sometimes only a vague notion of the character’s personality. The character designers draw thousands of pencil and marker sketches to refine the look of each character. Pixar has to decide how cartoony, how iconic, and how realistic they want each character to appear. The Basic 3 Step of Creating a Unique Cartoon Character Design
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Step one: Brainstorm/ moodboard
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Develop a strong aesthetic for your characterBring your character and their world to life with a moodboard. It's a great way to both gather and brainstorm visual details about your character including their appearance, interests, environment, and backstory.
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Step Two: Sketch and visualize your character and scene
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Sketching is visualized thinking. This is they time try out ideas and see if they work
Your character must
To sketch your character you can do one of the following\
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Step three: Final Drawing ( vector Lines
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take your sketch, now that you have decided on the look of your character and scene to illustrator/ gravit and create a clean line drawing. in the end this should kinda appear like a good coloring book page. ie not coloring yet.
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Step Four: Digital PAinting
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back in photoshop bring your finalized line drawing to color. make sure to consider, value, hue, mood, etc
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Student work
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AssignmentUsing a photo or drawing for inspiration. Students will create a character. The character will be composted of different hierarchies of lines (an art element) and basic shading. Students are encouraged to exaggerate/ design any features (for example of they want larger anime eyes, they can incorporate it) this character must be an original design! No rendering of an already two dimensional character will be accepted.
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