53: Character Design Shenanigans

Oop, yet another month-long lapse between posts.  I suppose life has simply been keeping me busy, what with senior year going on, show preparation, and (just last weekend) Illuxcon!  It was an incredibly rejuvenating experience and I can't wait to put my nose to the grindstone.  Here's some of the backlog from my character design class while I scramble to catch this place up a bit:

 

We began by simply drawing a personal character of ours so the instructor could gauge where we were, skill-wise.  I chose my gargoyle critter, Grin, and immediately felt rather boring.  The second project helped alleviate those feelings very effectively and made me realize how little attention I've been paying to silhouettes in general.

My first foray into human character design for the class- Claudius and Gertrude of Hamlet.

 

Above are some guerrilla life drawings from my sketchbook.  The gist was that we were supposed to draw the essence of a person; glance at 'em for a moment and configure a character.  Fun x 1000

Hand practice- I should do this more often.

'Jem' character redesign

What's this doing here?!  We were assigned to redesign a 'craptactular' design and I chose Jem of 80's cartoon fame.  Since Hasbro is fond of its reboots, I decided to put a Lauren Faust/G4 My Little Pony spin on Jem and came up with this.  Since finishing, my instructor has drawn over and improved many aspects of the design (most obviously her linebacker shoulders), and I'll be sure to keep his pointers in mind next time I go for this sort of thing.

Mockbee Satyr Expressions

And lastly, an expression sheet for a faun lady character I've been toying with.   Overall I'm having mixed reactions toward my work and motivation in this class; it's fun as hell, but it's also proving once again that group collaboration isn't my forte.  BUT, onwards and upwards, much to learn, etc.