Week 4

Character Design Outcome

For the outcome I was only able to put together about four different poses to add to the previous ones. For these I focused on the character anatomy taken from references of the animals that combine his characteristics.

I wanted to approach these in sketch and greyscale with a few highlights to show his body language that combine curves and a bit of angularity since he’s a young adult male.

I received important feedback on improving his side profiles by properly joining his neck to his body with better shapes and his back legs to his bottom. I made note of these adjustments since I find I have gained the ability to roughly understand character anatomy but with more practice through observation, I should be able to improve structure and hopefully portray my design closer to a blend of animated expression and realism.

Head Structure

Following this we were given an important presentation on head structure. The structure of a human head is quite complex as a whole but once the features were broken down into volumes and shapes each with its own placement in a separate division of the face I found it simple to follow. The cranium which Is the main portion of the skull dominated the base of the structure by composing of a sphere. I made note of the fact that once its sliced from both sides it gives the view of a head being flat on its side but rounded back and forth.

Then came the planes of a face over which the lines were drawn out at an equal distance marking out points for the hair line, brow line, nose and chin. The jawline extended towards the throat at an angle below this. I personally find the eyes to be the most important in a character and this is related to the fact I have really high cylindrical eye power since I was five, why I grew up in an optical background with a lot of emphasis to eye care and the fact that I am partially blind without my glasses.

This is what leads me to always pay attention to one’s eyes because they speak for you before you can introduce yourself and why I have an appreciation for animation that brings out the depth within a character, simply through their eyes in a way speech isn’t needed.

We were given an exercise to draw a reference of actor Matt Damon because the image marked his facial structure quite clearly following the tilt of his forehead to the curves of his mouth and nose. In my drawing I took note of these planes first over which I marked points for his hairline down to his chin. I realized it became much simpler to draw the details of his features once I established a guideline for myself to follow.

I continued lightly painting my layers with a flat brush and adding strokes where necessary. For clothing I gave less emphasis since the exercise was on his head structure which is why that portion is flat in appearance

Outdoor Composition

We were introduced to outdoor compositions and the elements that frame this composition accurately. I made note of all points that are errors I feel I need to improve on myself and often made because I was unaware. The primary factor that the composition was based on, was the horizon line over which no elements should be placed since this would terribly flatten it, which meant they should be in front at all times.

A way to achieve this is through overlapping forms such as cityscapes that have buildings in foreground and background allowing the viewer to take in the depth of each three dimensional form and if combined with a vertical perspective give a sense of massive scale. A big no is to avoid tangents at all costs because this is the point to objects directly touch, which once again flattens the composition so it’s vital to either separate them or overlap them.

The next factor was positive and negative space. Positive is ideally the foreground that catches the eye being a more obvious element. However we needed to focus on the negative spaces here since they framed the background or where the action in a scene would take place. I liked the relationship between both, since one cannot do without the other and thus there needs to be a balance of light and dark.

Following this we went a bit more into detail by discussing straights and curves. In nature there are no straights and if they are found the human eye is immediately drawn to it since its unusual and if there are straights it could signify human life. This is used often in animation or live action scenes where a discovery of human life is found in the sanctity of nature. I find this correlation quite interesting because this theme can be conveyed in many ways. The straights of human life could convey survival in the roughness of a jungle, or they may be the force of destruction in the tranquillity of a forest. Either way the wilderness is a character in itself and the elements within this environment should be treated as such.

I then proceeded to do the exercise we were given, which was to recreate a reference image of a forest in a different angle with importance to the horizon line, perspective, structure and depth. Upon observation of the reference I came to the conclusion that it is going to be hard.

Despite that realization for some reason I felt brave and wanted to experiment drawing it in vertical two point perspective, this may not have been the best decision but I did learn a lot.

The first thing was to pay more attention to the impact the roots leave on the ground, which I did try to recreate with the lighting but my composition got a bit lost from the overcrowding of shadows because the area of the reference I focused on lost its detail, after I cropped and zoomed in.