Character research

As I got my story plot done and over with, my next focus was character design. I decided to create character design sheets to go towards my short comic. To start with this outcome, I began by looking at different artists that draw and create characters. My main focus when looking at different artists were to look at their art stlye, use of colour, technique, and the mood of the work. I looked at artists Sarakipin, Phobs, Inntia and Anthony Holden.

One of the artworks I analysed (Sarakipin)

My first artist to look at was Sarakipin, I was in love with their style and decided to analyse their work even more. I looked at the colour scheme and saw how they tend to use alot of warm colour and how they use dynamic poses to help bring the artwork to life. Most charcaters would be drawn simply standing which looks too stuff and dull for which is why I loved how dynamic and fluid the movements were in the artwork. I also looked more into what I liked about the artwork due to the style, fluid strong strokes they used for the lineart etc. I enjoyed looking at different techniques artists used to layout and design characters in general because whilst looking at these examples, it highlighted a few key components of the character design process which were the layout , content and technique.

i had to keep asking myself why the artist chose to draw the characters in a specific way and how they got to that point which really helped open my eyes and see how the artworks consist of focusing towards whats being represented and the mood of the artwork, expressing the feel of it.

although I was focusing on character sheets, I mainly wanted to focus on the style that I would be going with as with the style, the main components are the use of lines and use of colours. As some artists would create artwork with strong bold lines whilst others would create artwork with lighter fluid lines and then when it came to colour, some artists would focus more on cell shading where they block up the colours whilst other artists would focus on blending the colours for which is why it was vital to explore more than one artist to see the different techniques being used.

One of the artworks i analysed (Phobs)

I also looked at other artists like Phobs here for example. When analysing this artwork, as you could see there was a lack of colour however many artists do this in general where they colour in black and white (mainly grey for the midtones) so by looking at this, I spoke about the use of monochromatic colour. Colour theory was one of the main things I was looking at when analysing the different artists work as colour theory plays a huge role in how the mood of the characters come out. If I compared this to the previous artwork done by Sarakipin, you'll see how warm and cool colours clash in with each other and how which sarapikins artwork, it focused on a more analogous colour scheme (three colours side by side, in which case red, orange and yellow) whereas with Phobs, its more focused on monochromatic colour scheme. This would help imply how Sarakipins artwork is mainly focused with the colours, shapes, movement whereas Phobs main concern is the representation, expression and mood in the artwork.

Looking at these different character designs have given me deeper understanding on how lineart, colour and technique play a huge role in portraying what you want to the audience and has really helped me know how to start with my own process towards character design.