Fantasy Sketchbook: Character Design
My main inspiration has always been the online artist Fukari:
And now more recently; Justin O'Neal (whose work is featured directly below)
O'Neal has his own designs based around the images of Little Red Riding Hood from the Grimm's fairytales, I chose to carry this through my work because I also enjoy re-imagining characters that people recognise and developing them through my style- whilst retaining their main features so that they are still recognisable. I also enjoy trying new things and since I don't usually draw anything other than nature and people- having the main feature of my work be a large animal like a wolf will be interesting and will help me evolve my style- I might find this to be a new strength.
For this piece, I decided to compare my own character that I designed to a famous one like Sailor Moon but drawn in my style. I wanted to make visual comparisons to pin point what it takes for a character to be designed to be so visually appealing that it is recognised solely by clothing or a hairstyle in most countries by many age ranges. To make them oppose eachother visually, I made my design monochromatic with pointy edges instead of curved like the Sailor Moon design who is smooth looking and warm.
I designed this character when I was 15 and had started using the website; Deviantart- where I found the artist Fukari. She designs her own characters and through short but frequently updated hand drawn panels, she gives them each backstories that sometimes intertwine with eachothers and it's what makes them so popular with other members of the website. My main influence for her hair colour was the singer Halsey, who for the beginning of her career, kept it as her signature look. Up until I had seen Halsey, I had always drawn this character in black and white and her hair was an instant confirmation that Fia would have colour changing, uniquely bright hair.
The piercings were a result of my own and the many characters of Fukari who also have many facial and ear piercings.
The following are a few examples of characters I have designed as well as other iterations of Fia and my own change of styles:
No comments:
Post a Comment