Character Design

The Next step, before I can begin to animate my work for a screen based outcome, is to work on my character design. Feedback from my previous unit said that I used character design well but I could use more research, so i've decided to look at other illustrators and see how they go about creating their characters. 

This first video is by illustrator Alison Relyea. She develops her characters for children's picture books by doing detailed sketches of the character e.g. a bird. So that she can really understand what they look like and how they work. She then moves on to make them more cartoonish and childlike to suit her audience. I think that this is a good way to work and it is something I will definitely adapt for the character of the dog with in my story.

http://vimeo.com/55789621
This Video is by Irish illustrator Oliver Jeffers. He explains how he creates his images along side his story. He uses lists to aid his work. He begins by starting off by doing lots of basic ideas through drawing and then develops then by using thumbnails and colour tests. I like the idea of creating my images and then working on colours doing colour tests to see what works best. This is something I will definitely use especially for things in the background e.g. the colour of the sky and deciding what would look best against other layers within my images.

This next video is of Graphic designer and illustrator Dori Berkovic. She explains how she gains inspiration by observing the world around her. She also finds reading books the her children (looking at other existing children's picture books) a useful way to begin creating her work. She starts off drawing and painting by hand and then scans in her images to progress them digitally. This is a useful method for me since this unit is screen based and I like the idea of initially creating my images by hand. She also finds it useful to set herself a schedule and stick to it. This is also something I will be doing throughout this unit by following my action plan written in my learning agreement although there may be some variation as I meet and overcome issues as my work progresses.

This video is by illustrator Shoo Rayner. He explains how he has recently been spending a lot of time making E-books, so I decided to look at how he creates his characters for this screen based form of book. Both him and David Coleman (in this video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXoLPU9AklY ) explain how using shapes which can easily be repeated for your characters make it easier when developing characters, especially characters that will be used in moving images. Also that there needs to be a sense of clarity.

This next video is by french illustrator Aurélie Neyret (Clochette) and it shows her approach to character design. It shows her sketching process, working on variations and narrowing down what works well. She then repeats this with her colour selections. Starting off with a variety and then narrowing down to the best option. Unfortunately I don't speak french so I don't know what she is saying but the tutorial shows the stages of her working digitally well and this is useful for me to see as its a technique that I don't usually use myself. 


http://www.guardian.co.uk/childrens-books-site/gallery/2011/mar/10/how-to-draw-characters-gallery