Digital art

Character Design

Super Heros & Super Villains

(no capes brief) - Prior Contextual Research

Prior to starting our project, I spent my reading week briefly researching the history of comic books, particularly focusing on the revolution of superheroes & supervillains. This was useful because our brief requires us to craft a visually compelling superhuman, taking inspiration from the iconic comic book characters that have come before us. Throughout the decades, successful superhero and supervillain narratives have mirrored cultural shifts and real-world events. For instance, Captain America emerged during the chaos of World War II, offering a beacon of hope for Americans amidst conflict. Similarly, characters like the Hulk and Spider-Man gained popularity during the space race era, reflecting society's fascination with science and exploration. Each era of superheroes is intricately intertwined with society’s desires and aspirations of its time.

Summary of comic book eras

Platinum Age [ 1890 - 1930s ] - newspaper comic strips: 'The yellow Kid' is a famous example.

Golden age [1930 - 1950s] - Predominantly aimed at children and centered around hopeful and simple story lines. Comics Code Authority stamp (CCA) established in 1954 for censorship after concern about their content. Superman, Batman, and Captain America saw their stories released here.

Silver age [1960 - 1970s] - A shift towards more sophisticated story lines reflecting social & political issues. Saw a surge in space exploration and science fiction interest because of the moon landing. Characters such as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, & The Avengers where created here.

Bronze age [ 1970 - 1980s ] - Darker topics tackling real world issues such as drug abuse and racism through horror. Period of the Vietnam War and civil rights movement. The beginning of CCA's restrictions being relaxed which allowed a rise in anti-heroes, more diversity and representation in their characters. Heros released at this age include Storm, Punisher, and Wolverine.

Copper / Dark / Iron age [ 1980 - 1990s ]

Chrome Age [ 1990s ] - holographic covers & people collecting for the hope of profit

Modern age [1990 - onwards :D ]

Modern age

In today's world, various elements could be considered a defining element of our modern culture. The ongoing advancement of technology, artificial intelligence, & social media play a dominant role in our society. Additionally, subjects such as globalisation, consumerism, fast fashion, climate change, equality and many more topics like these could benefit from a superhero story, to help project a positive outcome amidst the uncertainty and inspire the masses. I thought about all of these things when trying to decide on the kind of super character I wanted to design, but amidst the complexities and distractions of modern life, I simply decided to ask myself what kind of super powers I would want. I personally think that time is a precious commodity that ties all of these subjects together and so If I had the choice to have a super ability, I would want to be able to slow down time. In a moment in history that gives you everything you could ever need, all I could possibly want more of is time. And this skill would, of course, be flipped if designing for a villain; one that speeds up time, decay, mayhem, and who relishes in all the noise. (but I guess you would have to put into question whether having the ability of slowing down time is any different to being a villain because its quite easy to use it for selfish personal gain...)

Summary : I have decided to design a Villain who manipulates time.

Its a long journey down...

Project Overview in Weeks:

Week 1 - ideation & research [Blog task 1] ✓
Week 2 - Silhouettes ✓
Week 3 - Planes of the face [Blog tast 2] , completed Silhouettes ✓
Week 4 - Character turnaround research [Blog task 3] ✓
Week 5 - Colour Exploration ✓
Week 6 - Colour Exploration Completed + Formative Feedback ✓

Easter Break (3 Weeks)

week 1 - finalising front and back design (concept) + feedback ✓
week 2 - Primary reference + beginning turnaround final submission ✓
week 3 - finishing turnaround ✓

Week 7 - Face Turn-around + Reflection ✓

Reference Boards vs Mood Boards

I wanted to write down an important note to myself regarding the differences between a mood board and a reference board. The book by Marc Taro Holmes on 'Designing Creatures and Characters' really helped me make a clear distinction.

Mood board : a densely packed collage of images with a goal to have an at-a-glance visual summary of the project's tone & colour. (anything from products, artists, art history, stock photos etc)

Reference Collage : anatomical collection of images identifying specific structural / scientific details/anatomy. (real life images)

Both types of reference materials should be consistent and decisive; these images should be answering questions, not leaving things open ended.

"what you leave out is just as important as what you put in".

Character Planning

Week 1 - Blog Task (+Checklist)

Brief Description of Character

My super villain 'Entropy' has the power to manipulate the speed of time (increasing chaos). I have chosen this because time is such a mysterious concept which seems to cloud all of our lives and I have recently come across a lot of content regarding the disperse of energy and the concept of time which has helped a lot. The type of hero that would counteract this force of evil could be one which helps the world stay grounded and in the moment, representing patience

I decided to call her 'Entropy' because the most successful and memorable comic superheros and villains normally have literal names such as 'Joker' ' Flash' 'Spider-Man' etc. This is probably because this makes them seem like an untangable concept which feels greater and more powerful than just a common name. 'Entropy' is often considered the 'arrow of time' so I thought it was very fitting to have it be her villain name.

'embrace the chaos it is inevitable'

one of the videos I watched which helped me establish ideas for my super villain.The phrase 'The universe is on an inexorable path to higher and higher disorder' sounds exactly like what a mastermind super villain would say.

Super Powers / In Game Abilities

Her main super power is the ability to manipulate time, this includes:

making things decay, rot, and grow rapidly.
make reactions speed up
manipulate gravity ( gravity effects the speed of time ; the lower the gravitational force, the faster the speed of time)
By absorbing the time in her surroundings, she gets to live each second for longer.

Time Dilation Field: Entropy can create a localised field where time moves faster, causing objects and enemies within the area to rapidly decay. Entropy herself remains unaffected by the negative changes in time, she flows with the speed; moving quickly in the eyes of onlookers (but from her perspective, everything else seems to slow down).

Levitation: Within the time dilation field, objects and enemies levitate due to the altered gravitational forces. (Time moves faster where there is a weaker gravitational force). Just like with time, Entropy is unaffected by this but can choose to utilise the reduced gravity if she wishes.

Time's Arrow : As the embodiment of time's arrow, Entropy's speed within the time dilation field reflects her control over time. She is unaffected by the chaos and decay surrounding her but the weaker the gravity, and the faster time travels, the faster she moves and the more powerful she becomes.

I imagine her main skill sort of working like this; susspending & immobilising her enemies in the small threshold. If you were playing her, the enemies would look as if they are slowly driffting in the air, but to everyone else, they have been blasted in the air and Entropy would have looked as if she moved insanely fast. Time would have appeared to have remained the same to her enemies but they would have rapidly aged or even started to decay within this short period.

Extras

When thinking about my character, I didn't really think about her back story. I was more interested in the abilities she would posses if playable in-game and how those skills would influence her appearance. I also thought about her personality, likes, and dislikes, which would influence her choice of clothing and the way she carries herself ( will be important when designing her in a stationary pose). a few notes on her character / preferences / personality;

she is obsessed with betting / gambling / predicting the future, and is insanely inpatient .
She likes to have a lot of fun... but of course her 'fun' can mean something very different. she would likely go up to people and try to guess how they would look like when they are older, then age them right then and there. Perhaps see how a beverage would inflate and mold in a matter of seconds.

She loves the sound of clocks ticking (which would probably drive a normal person insane).

Key Design features / Iteration starting points

These are just the initial ideas or 'starting points' for her design. By all means I will try to explore a variety of designs that probably contradict these ideas to explore a wide breadth of complexity for her character. She is a villain after all, so naturally likes to contradict and be unpredictable.

Necrosis across her fingertips & body. This would help to visually present her decaying abilities. This was an idea prompted by Craig which I really liked (Necrosis is the death of body tissue). Because if this, I think extremely pale skin for Entropy will work best because the black necrosis across her fingertips / and arm will stand out more effectively. I imagine her hero counterpart to be extremely dark skinned who is embellished in golden time telling ornaments and the embodiment of order so I feel this striking visual contrast between them would be very appealing - as well as for the audience / players/ viewers to easily distinguish between the antagonist & protagonist.
I don't have a specific ethnicity requirement for her character. She could be Arabian, with her design taking inspiration from the Arabian Astrolabe & sand within an hourglass. Or she could be European, taking inspiration from the industrial revolution, steampunk, and the rise in clockworks and pocket watches. This would be something I should focus on if I choose to incorporate a mashup of historical fashion trends in her design to really stress the idea that she is lost in time.
I thought a little bit more about how I could still incorporate clocks and hourglasses in her design without going against her entire purpose & mission (of eradicating the function of time and being the only being that is unaffected by it) . She could use shattered pieces of these items as her shoes. She could also be embellished in these objects through sheer agony; something that she cannot remove, like a a massive clock hand coming out of her shoulder blade which could really show how she cannot be freed from the passage of time whilst also providing that visual cue of her powers to the audience. Long hair could also help to visually show her powers. Although she claims to not be affected, clues such as the necrosis spreading across her arm, and long hair could visually represent how her powers of growth and decay might actually be catching up to her. I need to make sure I demonstrate the dishevelled and decaying side of her. she tries to hide the decaying parts of her by overcompensating and patching them with crazy outfits, jewelry, and colours, but the decaying and abandonment of her health should show through aswell.

Weapon ideas

We aren't meant to think about weapons just yet because we will be designing them in the next block BUT I feel it is necessary to have a faint idea of what kind of weapon she would use because this would affect her phisique.

Two Daggars - which can come together to form clock hands (obviously). that fact that they are broken apart and being used against her enemies really symboises how unstructured and broken in time she is, aswell as how she uses time against people and only for the humour and benefit it gives her.
Frisbee (of death haha) - frisbees look sort of like modern clocks and they are fast and unpredictable. could be quite silly but this would match her childish personality. Comic book super hero stories where originally targeted at children anyways sooo... it would make for a memorable character..
Rifle - Ensues rapid injury which aligns with her impatience
Spear - could take on the appearance of a massive clock hand, legitimately embodying 'time's arrow'
Iron Hammer [metal ball used in hammer throw] - (it is held by a metal string which gives it it's resemblance to a grandfather clock pendulum). she could use her gravity altering abilities to make this easier for her OR decide to design her with a more muscular & top heavy physique.
Massive Sledge Hammer - Hammers can be built to have a similar shape to hourglasses so I could play around with it's design.

I also thought about Crossbows or bows because of their overall pointy and arrow-like appearance but I think they require too much patience for Entropy to handle.

Mood Board

Keywords: Tassography, Gamble, Predictions, Astrology, Diversity, Contamination, Broken Clocks, Growth, Mold, 'Tea time', Disorder, Unpredictable, Shattered, Disperse, Chaos, Decay

Task Checklist

Brief Writting :

super powers ✓
key features ✓
back story ~

Image collating :

Style reference ✓
anatomy reference (body type which alligns to with your character's abilities / fighting style) ✓
Static Pose References x

Analysing Successful Character Designs

There are very few characters I could find who's main powers are related to time manipulation, and even those who did, their designs rarely visually represented it. The only characters who I have found who visually represent their time bending abilities are Ekko and Time Eater.

Instead of limiting it to time manipulating characters, I decided to look at characters that also held an aura of mischief & chaos, examples of successful villains, or had parts of their designs that related to clocks, cogs, or time in some way (despite not actually having the ability to manipulate it). The Joker fulfils the role of being mischievous, chaotic, aswell as being an successful comic book supervillain. Olivia Octavius from Spider-man is also a villain that relates to these themes, but to a less extream extent. Ekko, Jinx, and Shoola from Arcane are very different examples. Ekko and Shoola have visual representations of time and cogs (though still tame), and Ekko actually manipulates time (though not depicted as a villain). Jinx follows the same trend as the villains.

"if you can't make the most out of any given moment, you don't deserve a single extra second" - Ekko [the boy who shattered time].

It's clear to see, just by colour alone, who the villains are. The Villain's colour pallet's all consist of cold purple, along with another toxic, cold pop of colour. the other two who aren't villains, but still complex characters in their own right, also have purple tints and an overall dark colour pallet, but are a lot more earthy in comparison. These earthy tones (mostly used for characters who are on the 'good side') help show how they are still grounded to reality and still have a clear conscious despite going through hardships and stress. Shape language and shape design also help visually convey their character. There are a wide variety of shapes used for these characters but they all remain consistant in their own designs. Characters built using more complex variety of shapes (like Ekko) make for more mysterious and juxtaposing characters, which gives an audience room to make their own opinion about them (they are often the ones used to question stereotypes and convention). However, characters who we want to quickly and effectively show off as evil or good might require simpler collections of shapes. Characters such as the Joker - with an insane amount of pointed edges all chaotically pointing away from his face - is a clear example of this; we should no doubt stay away from him. Ekko is a lot more complex. Since he is introduced as a mysterious character, he is littered with broken shapes. boxy triangles show how he has grown a ridged shell from surviving in a rotting Zaun, but the two triangles that come together to form an hourglass shape helps show his abilities.

Style References & Inspiration

Brief requirements + Analysis

The style requirements for this brief is somewhere between semi-realism and realism. We are required to maintain naturalistic body proportions and render with a good representation of form and texture but we can stylise our use of line, introduce some painterly brushstrokes here and there, and exaggerate a few forms and features to help visually convey their personality and skills more effectively. With these requirements in mind, I will be looking at work done by Knight Zhang (Senior concept artist at Riot Games), Darya Kozhemyakina (2d artist), Alexander Skripnikov (concept artist), and Sergey Kolesov (concept artist). I collected a few of their pieces which I really liked and which reminded me of this brief. I also looked at Alex Ross' impressive semi-realistic super hero illustrations but they look a lot cooler in person than their digital scans.

Below is a closeup analysis and comparison of two successful semi-realistic rendering approaches That I will be aiming to achieve... ironically they both have capes

Cursed Pirate King By Darya Kozhemyakina

Split complimentary

interest lies in the most vibrant reds & greens. Areas of rest uses dark greens.

Colour is something I know I struggle with so it's important to start analysing how professionals go about it. Of course they both used strong examples of successful colour theory.

highest value variety & line art = closest to us

limited value variety, line art does all the heavy lifting = middle ground

no value variety & no line art ; just blocks of base colour = furthest

Jester Falco By Alexander Skripnikov .......

Triadic + Analogous

interest lies in the blue, pink, and gold. Areas of rest uses deep purples.

Anatomy

(Body type) -"If she played a sport, What sport would she play?"

Entropy hates to be kept waiting and thrives on rapid-paced activities, chaos, and unpredictability. She also possesses skills that allow her to levitate objects in low gravity, or even herself if she desires. With these traits in mind, I explored a few sports that align with her personality or which seem to perform similarly to how I imagine she would use her abilities. Examining these sports could be beneficial for choosing the physique she would have aswell as help with outfit design iteration.

Roller Derby - Most chaotic sport I have ever seen. The culture of this sport is very similar to Entropy's personality. The sport is extremely violent and it is held in a circular roller rink track which is fitting as they go round like a clock. Extremely fast paced and the goal is ultimately for the jammer to lap as many blockers as they can (often done by throwing themselves onto the opposing team with their heavy roller-skates)

Speed skating - Looked into this sport because it is pretty much the same as Roller derby except for the fact that the cultural setting is completely different; on ice and in an incredibly formal setting in comparison to the violent play of Roller Derby. I can imagine Entropy acting like a speed skater amidst the rotting and decaying mayhem if she finds it pleasing or satisfying.
Rhythmic gymnastics - playful sport that has the athlete interact with light objects (ball / hoolahoop / ribbon) and they are mostly keeping it in the air. This could be similar to how Entropy decides to use her antigravity powers; playfully.
Ultimate Frisby - Another sport where a light object is kept in the air. Extreamly rapid sport which doesn't allow the athlete to hold onto it for more than 7 to 10 seconds (depending on the competitve level). the athletes are always seen jumping high off the ground to catch the frisby before their opponented and to fling it to their teammates.
Skateboarding -
100m Sprint -
Hurdle Sprint -

looking at these athletes, most of them have quite an average to small body structure with medium to low muscle mass. This physique would make sense for her because she doesn't require to do much heavy lifting within her safe bubble of zero-gravity so a slender / athletic / nimble build is most probable for her character. On the other hand, most of these sports are very centred on leg strength and endurance so she could possibly have a bit more muscle definition in these areas.
Despite this conclusion, however, I would still love to explore a variety of body types for her within the ideation phase.

I don't have any limitations yet so I have the freedome to explore a wide breadth of desing ideas and aesthetics to succesfully portray my theme of time manipulation.

Silhouettes

"the more unique comparisons you can test, the stronger your idea becomes" - Taro Holmes

I tried to be really experimentive for these silhouettes. Since this is the very first step in the visual development for my villain I wanted to make sure I explore a wide bredth of ideas that would enrich the rest of the process. I tried to create silhouettes that portrayed all kinds of body types and aesthetics. To help with variety, I wrote down a list of themes along with their dichotomy counterpart.

(plant) growth/ decay
hero / villain (she is a villain but it would be interesting to explore my idea through a hero)
time telling / time shattering
elegant + agile /stocky + aggressive
maximalist /minimalist

childish / mature
realistic / whimsical
introversion / extroversion
practical / ornately decorated
modern/ historically influenced

Despite my list, I didn't manage to explore all of them. The concept of time was a challenge to visually represent. It was even more difficult to try and represent this concept visually if the character in question is meant to embody the lack of order and tries to break the boundaries of these man made constructs. I tried to find different ways I could show things like cogs, pointy clock hands, steampunk-like shapes, and hour glasses, but this limited design choices.

This was a fun experiment but I feel I haven't explored ideas as extreme as I would have liked. The body types here are all relatively similar - give or take height and plumpness. The proportion variety are also quite tame. In the future I would love to have more fun with extremities in these aspects to get me out of my comfort zone. In the meantime, the current sillhouettes allow for an easier transfer into 3D (well... most of them).

these are the 5 chosen designs that I feel successfully reveal my villain's personality. Number 16 was a clear favourite and I agree that it's probably the strongest visually, but the other four have aspects in their designs which I think I could modify / explore to purhapse enhance design 16 further.

Here I broke down and highlighted certain aspects of my favorite silhouettes. what worked? what didn't?

Note to keep in mind when transferring design to 3D

I have to keep in mind the deformation joints. I should keep in mind the limitations of having details on joints which relies on deformation such as clothing folds or certain knee or shoulder pads etc. To avoid making my life harder in the future, I should make sure to design my character with folds that either end before or after joints rather than directly on them. When sculpting, I also need to be aware of the fact that long and loose pieces such as long ponytails, hanging straps, and animal tails, need to be sculpted straight and away from the character (T-Pose style) just like the arms.

I then tried exploring design 16 further, taking in the previous notes into concideration, adding and taking things away from the sillhouette to see what I could come up with. Most of them are a little too busy and cluttered with details which don't provide effective areas of rest. Despite this, however, they were useful to explore so that I can see the limits I can take with her design.

From here, I made the most of these varieties, and decided to paint over them to finally start exploring outfit ideas, colour, and aesthetic.

Facial Proportions

Week 3 - Blog Task 2

In this lesson, we went over the idealistic proportions of the face. learning these anatomical proportions and 'rules' to achieve the most idolised face is important because it sets a foundation and introduces the boundaries with which we can break and manipulate those rules to create unique characters who are still believably whole and real and relatable. Knowing these also allows you to be in control of whether you want your character to appear dislikable or amiable, trustworthy or evil etc.

We will eventually be sculpting our characters in 3D so we must make sure to design our characters' faces critically. The best way to evoke three-dimensionality in two dimensional line drawings is to break the face up into blocks of values to separate the plains of the face.

Research & Practical tasks:

Analyse industry standard resources & identify major landmarks of the face x
Have a go at designing your own & also break them down into plains. x
Who would you cast for your character?

I don't know many actors or actresses so I don't have the best collection to reference off of. For the purpose of this task though, I chose to paint Raffey Cassidy as if I where casting her as my villain. She has a more amiable face overall (which is why she has mostly played likeable and 'good' characters) but I do believe she has features which evoke a sense of mystery and mischievousness. Her piercing eyes and inquisitive eyebrows has always done well for her in her roles as intelligent characters - aswell as her large forehead to head ratio.

long noses can make a character appear wise but since I wanted to draw attention to her eyes and jaw, I tried reducing it's size and length.
Painting the planes of her face in greyscale was surprisingly difficult. I would always make her look older by painting with extreame values; too dark and bright. I tried to do this because I remember how we should always try to have a clear plane read (especially when we were painting our textures in cubes back in block 1) but this is less necessary for planes that change so subtly.

I am pretty happy with the rendering around her eyes, but the area around her mouth and nose is a little ambiguous and less structured so I should try to focus on establishing more confident planes and values here when working on my final render.

When showing this to my lecturers, they suggested I give her a mixture of both old and young features to further sell the idea of her time manipulating abilities. I really like this idea but it will definitely be a lot harder to successfully execute than a symmetrical face. I am already planning on having a lot of things going on in her hair so I need to see how this would work with the other details I decide to have on her so that I dont crowd her design with too much noise.

Value & Colour

Week 3 & 4

I painted over the silhouettes in a clipping mask. It's facinating to the extent which you can change the vibe of a silhouette just by using certain colours, values, and details. Here my main goal was to explore as many colours, textures, patterns, and design ideas as possible so that I can narrow the search down from here, knowing I have explored a wide breadth before limiting myself.

This was a necessary step for me to decide what kind of aesthetic Entropy would likely gravitate towards. Would she be a punk villain? or one who likes to dress fashionably? What about clownish? or a big advocate for tassography? Would her clothing look well kept or would they look tattered and patched up? Simple and practical? or maximalist and showy?

When completing my paintovers, I was all over the place. I didn't complete any in order, I just worked with the outburst flow of my ideas so explaining the process would be quite difficult. I can, however, divide these designs into 5 groups in relation to the source of how I came to my design choices.

It was around the time I was nearing the end of my iterations when I came across a recently published DC villain Punchline. Her design is so memorable because of her iconic long high ponytail.. the exact kind of hairstyle I was going for ( D: ) so it really got me thinking how efficiently I was visually portraying my themes of time and decay. I really had to ask myself how I could push my design further so that it shouts time and decay throughout her entire design. How can I make it so that my design couldn't belong to just any other villain? I needed to start making design choices which wouldn't make much sense for a character beyond my themes to have in combination. What about different types of ears? (going even further on the clock hand shape language idea) How about going even further on her ponytail design by creating something of more interest there??? how about FILLING her head with white hair to show rapid aging rather than a shy subtle strand? Should she have an eye glass for the older side of ther face??

Formative Feedback

Week 6

It was fun to see what designs people gravitated towards. All 6 designs where chosen for different reasons and I think it's important to find out why they were visually appealing.

N0.1 - outfit appears simple to sculpt but it is effective and fun. it provides a fun use of patterns and it manages to balence noise and clutter well. they mentioned that it could be 'too fun' for Entropy though.

N0.2 - The grey skin colour stood out amidst all the colour. It helps to visually portray her as a villain, and pushes the idea of otherworldliness to her design; unsynced to reality. Since she is mostly in greyscale, the colour on her hand helps to direct attention to that area even with a lack of value contrast. Though the value read is poor here so I would have to work on it.

N0.3 - This one was chosen because of the successful value read. it is a dark design overall but the light areas help break the design down. It is also quite monochromatic so the moldy green and metallic gold stands out well.

N0.4 - The black contrasts well with the pastel & muted colours. It is reminiscent of growth and decay. The spikes and flannel pattern work well together to create an unpredictable apperance; not to be trusted.

N0.5 - ...

N0.6 - Winning design which I created only after formative feedback. I tried combining aspects of N0.2 & N0.3 since they were the most succesful. her skin has a grey tinge to it as if she were forever shrouded in shadow. I also tried to maintain the same ratio of dark and light seen in N0.3 (isn't as effective, needs to be improved). The direction of lines all point down. The white hair and ponytail that splits into two also helps to further visually represent her powers. (rapid aging & clock hands)

Back Story???

This was written after I decided on the visual aesthetics of her design. I kept my options open before deciding on this story because I wanted to explore a lot of ideas without having story consistancy problems. This story only helps to further enrich her design.

I imagine her to have been an editorial editor in London during the early 1900's. She would have been accompanying her writting partner to a scientis's lab where they would be gathering material on the new discovery regarding the rappid growth and preservation of plants. This latest advancement in the ability to alter the speed of plant growth was extremely exciting. What if this was the beginning of human life preservation?! Having the ability to stop the aging process of human cells could be groundbreaking! This visit, however, would yield nothing but tragedy. When in the middle of preparing their work for presentation, one of the new grad scientist students accidentally dropped one of the substances just as Ethel (Entropy's mortal name) was coming back in the room with a stopwatch (as instructed by her male partner to provide accurate numbers for their papers). The explosion of substances made eveything and everyone in the room deteriorate within seconds. The only survivor was Ethel, save for her decaying hand as she was closing the door in shock. This necrosis, because untreatable, would spread and grow uncontrollably, and so would the power of time manipulation she now posseses. The substance would have held itself within the pockets of decaying skin and spread within her blood stream, causing different parts of her body to age faster than others. With the fear of not being able to live long enough to see things progress, she would fall into a long period of deep depression. This would ultimately cause uncontrollable outbursts of decay all around her, destroying everything she cares about and leaving her with only the ticking sounds of the delapitated grandfather clock in the corner of her room. Despite this, she would later learn to enjoy watching the process of growth and decay as she adopts a nihalistic view on the world and would grow to crave the process.

Ethel Horley

(Ethel; Common female name used in that time period which is simmilar to Entopy) (Horley; derivative of the word Horology: the study of time and the art of measuring it.)

Turnaround Research

Week 4 - Blog Task 3

We are required to illustrate our charaters in a front and back three-quarter view. This not only helps save time, but provides an informative view of the character design as efficiently as possible.

We were given another blog task and this time it was to analyse an industry example of a character turnaround concept, so I found this impressive work done by Jianfeng Xing on Artstation to analyse. I was actually struggling to find good examples of three-quarter character designs. Most of them where either 3D models (not good examples for referencing digital textuiring or line work) or where strictly front and back views. Even this still feels a little too front view in my opinion because it leaves out a lot of detail on the shoulders, but since this design is pretty self explanatory withought it, it works fine.

Research & Practical tasks:

Find an industry example of a character design in a 3/4 view ✓ Ideally semi-realistic ✓
Identify and draw over the landmarks of the body ✓ What areas have been exaggerated and pushed in order to portray the narrative of the character?
Do the same with your chosen silhouette x Does yours differ in any way to the industry standard? (I don't think it is necessary right now since I haven't developped it yet)

I decided to explore how I could pose my character for the final submission. The pose for our turnaround should be simple, with very minimal foreshortening so that we don't hide details but I still want to find a way of subtly showing her personality through her pose though. I thought about how she could use her dominant hand to childishly mime a gun, simultaneously showing the body art she has on her hand (tattoo of clock hands across her fingers). I also want to show off her spreading necrosis, and shoes so I need to find a way to do that naturally. These poses are far too showy and posed though so I will obviously not be using them.

Exploring the fidelities of the pose (controposto / triangle..etc)

too playful, seems more like a heroic pose than a villainous one. Would also have too much foreshortenning on her arm in a 3/4 view.

This pose is obviously too stiff and unnatural & her shoulder is too high up

Focused Designing - Front & Back

(Below) Exploring her back design and hair in Biro. I like working in Biro when coming up with ideas because it forces me to not be precious with the sketches and allows me to explore ideas quickly. If i did it in pencil, it would be harder to understand what is going on since my sketches are really messy. For her back I was exploring ways I can make the string have visual depictions of clocks in some way. I also looked at how her hair was going to be wrapped to create that hourglass shape.

I have chosen green to be Entropy's main colour. this is because green is the colour of mold and growth which are the skills she possesses. I found the red and blue designs very fun but they don't help convey the kind of villain she is, her powers / background, and they make her appear too fun and amiable.The toxic, vibrant colours also seem to work really well.

My brother also said the design looked 'blobby' so I'm guessing he meant everything looks too round and repetetive and with no main focus (which I agree with).

The feedback I recieved was INCREADIBLY valuable. I realised that I needed to be decisive on design choices instead of trying to create a mashup of all my ideas. I was still quite hesitant on making her trousers looser because I am not fully aware of the complications it has when retopping in 3D but since it makes her sillhouette look that much cooler, I won't compromise it for digital. I can always make it skin tight if it will complecate things too much but since I tried to simplify it as much as possible, hopefully that won't be the case.

Now that I got rid of the shoulder detail, I tried my best to make her body suite as interesting as I could withought crowding it with too much unwanted chaos. I did this by making all the minor, secondary details painted using simmilar values. I also made sure not to create any horizontal lines in the design so that it wouldn't affect the consistant flow of the vertical lines. If they couldn't be vertical, I tried shifting them to be diagonal instead. This also aided in developing edges and sharp corners all over the place!

I also thought about her face. I had already decided that she would have a greyish tinge to her skin colour but I felt there needed to be something more interesting to look at since her head and hair are the main focus points to her entire design. I decided to add some white body art to compliment her features. White is a good colour to use for this because it allows me to add more time related visual queues to her withought distructing the main focus points - which should be the dark strands of hair and her eyes in this area. I like the cold purple under her eyes because it makes her not only look tierd, but it is a complimentary colour . I think I will have to think about the black eye though.

I still need to finalise the details on her right arm (with the clocks), neck choker, and shoes. They will probably be the most important at visually conveying her powers because they will have dicernable clock features.

Further feedback I recieve from this was that the backside is now visually successful but the front view could do with some more revising. Make sure the shoes share the same sillhouette because at the moment they don't look like it.

Also I should check the colour harmony to see if I can enhance them a bit more. at the moment it is looking quite muddy and feels like it could do with the exciting colour combos I had seen in Darya Kozhemyakina & Alexander Skripnikov's works (who I previously analysed).

Complimentary / Split Complimentary

Broken Combination

Monochromatic + Complimentary

I liked the indigo colour a lot so I was planning on adding this colour to her shoes like some fun graffiti art. Learning the location of the colour on the colour wheel, however, got me doubting that idea. This isn't a inherently bad colour combination. Any colour can look aesthetically pleasing together to evoke a certain mood, its just that colour theory combinations are the most pleasing to look at. The REAL problem the two colours had was the fact that they where equally as saturated as one another. This is perfect to get viewers feeling sick.. I just had to ask myself if that was my intention... well that idea was definitely on my mind when I think of decay and aging etc... but maybe I should try that out another time.

Complimentary

I have to understand that the categorisation of colours are cultural and that the boundry of colours are up for interpretation. Just because a colour appears to fit under one name, doesn't mean it can't also fit under another. In this colour wheel, the swatched colours are the exact hue as the colours circled in black, but since they are darker, I would consider them to be purple and green, and the colours on the wheel to be blue and yellow. An example of this cultual bias can be seen in languages; Russian and Japanese speakers have different names for light blue and dark blue and concider them to be different colours entirly whereas english speakers only consider it as one.

Before Changes

The front looks too leafy. Apart from the fact that it suggests mold, it doesn't hold any significance to clocks or time and the piece of cloth stretched over her torso on the left is insignificant. The monochromatic colour scheme is boring. The watches on her left arm also don't look like it would belong to a villain, more of an average npc.

This Chartreuse 'green' hue I have been using is closer to yellow than green (you can see more of green than yellow left on the bottom bar).

Final Design Concept

I made the most out of the complimentary colours and decided to use a dull indigo / purple for the larger part of her outfit so that the vibrant chartreuse can really shine. I also enlarged the ornamental neck chocker and the shirt pins and added a bit of narrative by ripping the side of her trousers where her roting hand would lay. This idea wasn't approved by my sister because she thought it was gross but I still think it's cool and subtly adds to her design. I didn't paint it very well so I can't blame her. I also made her hair help add contrast to her arms; the white strand goes behind her blacked arm, and the black strand lays behind her pale one. I have to be mindful that the value of her clothing is much darker now. I should lighten it so that the details are readable.

Turnaround

Week 8 - Submission Piece

Thumbnail Sketch

She looks like she is leaning backwards too much because her head doesn't allign with the centre of her feet but this isn't a problem. I drew this quickly from imagination just to capture the vibe and idea of the pose I wanted her to have. I want her to be leaning on one leg to make her look relaxed. I also want her pelvis to lean forward so that I can show her long hair from the front better. Her decaying hand will be sticking out to obviously show the creepy silhouette from both views. I still don't know whether to tilt her head up or down. Both can make her look intimidating but one will look more careless whereas the other will make her look determined. I am also not sure about the pose of her healthy hand. This pose won't let me show both sides of her tattooed and ringed hand so I will probably have to change this for the final submission.

After the thumbnail sketch, I needed a real life reference of the pose so that I can produce the semi-realistic style more effectively. I took my own primary reference image because I get to be in control of the intricacies of the pose. I could use a mannequin (online or physically) to model but it would be much harder to make it look natural. Posing yourself can also help you realise what aspects of your pose don't feel natural or even physically possible.

I realised that her head would likely tilt down rather than up due to the flow of the pose. Tilting your head back would be fine, but it felt straining and unnatural when also trying to have the shoulders rolled forwards. This pose would only work if capturing a movement - as if she where laughing or trying to make herself look more intimidating - or if she had her shoulders rolled back.

Having my reference and thumbnail side by side was immensly helful for me when trying to find a middle ground for stylisation and believability. I often end up make my character illustrations look too stationary and boring by the end of it so I put in extra effort to styalise the motion and flow of the pose at the beginning.

I then sketched in a rough suggestion of her clothing to check the pose. She was looking far too slim and unintimidating. Also there were no areas of interest or importance. Everything just looked repetetive and weak. I should widen her frame and stress an area of importance. This should have been the end of her trousers, shoes, and hair, but I will have to see how this holds up with this pose. Right now the dynamism has been flattened because of her clothing so I need to really think about this when moving forward. I was struggling to balance the exagerated pose and her long trousers.

From here, I widened the sketch and elongated her legs further to make her look taller, more intimidating and capable (The annatomy is questionable I know but I need to see if the pose will work with the clothing first).I then blocked in suggestions of colour and clothing to check how it was looking with clothing once again. This time it looked far better. Her healthy arm no longer looked like a noodle, and I managed to get the silhouette of her trousers right. To help with the value read, I added background gradient but this is just a place holder, I will probably change it so that it harmonises with the design better.

I'm satisfied with how it is currently looking as a rough block in and should move onto establishing the lineart. The main focus should be on: head, healthy hand with rings, and closest shoe. These should have the highest detail and definition. These focus points might be too scattered across the piece so I will have to revise this as I see fit, but as of now, I think these points are nice stops for the viewer to focus on as they move down the design. I swapped her eyes from my concept; having her vibrantly coloured eye be closer to us. I might swap it back though because the dark eye won't be visible if further away but the vibrant eyehadow will be. Also I need to sort out her hair. I really want to show her unique hair succesfully from the front view but right now it is mostly being covered by her body. Also, the line of motion going across her body is like a 'w' on it's side which feels very unnatural so I need to revise this.

before I drew over it all in line art, I wanted to figure out her hear and head positioning. I was struggling to show her hair from the front without blowing it out of proportion so I added a layer on top to paint the head in a different pose just to see how it turned out and I ended up prefering it. It not only helps show her hair, but it also looks more intimidating and unhinged. This works because her shoulders look like they are rolled back instead of forward like I was planning to. I also widened her stance so that she takes up more space and both enlarged and elongated the shoe furthest from us. I need to correct her shoes so that they look like they are lying on the same plain.

(1) I added a white layer over the rough painting and brought it's opacity down so that I could work on the line art. I wasn't expecting to get the design right on the first go so to force myself not to get attached to any lines, I used a brush that has no pressure sensitivity so that it would be enough to start getting to know the character better but not refining it to the extent where I have the ability to waste time refining detils which I will be changed. I needed to sort out her shoes (specifically the one that is being foreshortened because it's at a tricky angle), and sort out her face, hair, and hands (basically everything that was just being vaguely suggested by the blobs of colour I put down). Surprisingly, the lineart made her look as if she where a pirate or some character relating to the sea rather than time which isn't good because this wasn't my intention. I think it is because of the mermish looking hair and the frayed trouseres and big boots etc. She was also looking too static and balanced throught (everything holds the same amount of importance and nothing really stands out ;This often happens when I start committing to a design).

(2) To help combat this, I moved both her legs to the left to bring back that cool rhythm I initially wanted to achieve from my thumbnail sketch. This helped make her look as if she is leaning more on one leg instead of having her weight distributed evenly between both feet. I also enlarged the bun-like hairstyle (so that it's actually visible) and tried to see what I could do with her shoes so that they don't look too pirate-like.

(3) I blocked in colour to start visualising the outcome. the colours are terrible right now but it certainly helped me. I need to push one colour so that there is a fun, vibrant and eyecatching pop of colour. These are always seen in comic book character's designs so will be be an important design asspect I should keep in mind to fulfil this brief successfully.

(1 +2) I changed the background colour back and moved her hair around to see what worked but everything was still looking too stiff, flat, and uncomfortable so I added a semi-transparent layer over it all to draw over it once again. I pulled her left foot (furthest from us) up and slightly to the left so that it looked like she was actually stepping on ground and her foot would allign with her head so that she looks balanced, moved her hair ONCE AGAIN and her hand down ONCE AGAIN.

(3) More revisions of her hair so that the bun looks more like an hour glass, and a value check. I saw what I could do with the background to improve the read of the design and make it more interesting. I like the block of darker colour in the background like that but now I want to put her hand back up so that it can make use of a white outline to shine in that darkness. if it just goes down like that then it dissapears so easily in the composition.

I merged all the layers and set it to greyscale. I then added a Gradient map over it to play around with the colour and work on that 'pop of colour' I talked about previously. SHE FINALLY LOOKS FUN god. Now I can actually start drawing... Up until this point it was just me moving a bunch of muck around to see what worked. The colours here are just suggestive and I will obviously turn it down in some areas but now I know the fun colours I should use in the focus areas (shoes / head / hair /hands etc like I said before).

Feedback I recieved for this was that I should tilt her head back down because she still looks too unbalanced and if I tilt it back down, we will be able to see more of her face.

(1) I added a 'Divide' layer to add the lighting coming from above. I also started developing the rendering.

(3) I find zooming out and painting over an idea in rough, treating it like a thumbnail, has been such a useful way to reflect on the work from time to time. It has been best to do it once I hit a slight plateu on the piece after working on it for a long time. on the far right you can see my attempt at reintroducing the key colours back into the design because it was really lacking that distinct contrast between the iconic colours. Making sure my primary colour pallet is clearly visible helps to make it visually eyecatching and memorable. The middle screen shot has a very confused colour pallet and the far right one - although still looking quit clownish - is more appealing and simple.

It required a lot of back and forth to get to this outcome. It looked ugly for the majority of the process so I'm really happy I pushed through (and annoyed the heck out of my sister for her opinion & feedback hehe)

There are still some areas that need finishing up here like her arm and neck piece but instead of continuing it here, I moved her to a different canvas to start painting the back and to see how it looks all together.

I was running out of time to complete this but I wasn't worried too much because we only have to paint it in block colours.... but it was so simple to just start rendering using the paint that was already there from the front render that I actually think it would be more time consuming to get rid of it all and do line art.

Head Close-Up

Week 7 (10) - Submission Piece

The side profile was actually super relaxing to draw. The fact that I didn't need to worry about anything being symmetrical, it's nice that I only had to worry about one feature at a time. We are only required to paint it in greyscale but it was too easy to do it in colour that I didn't know why I wouldn't to help me out when painting my sculpt. I finished this quite quickly and because I could duplicate it for the other side, it made me feel more accomplished because it looked like more work haha. The hair actually took longer than the face - even though it doesn't look like it - because I had to make the braid make a bit of sense.

the front profile was harder even though I had more references. The side profiles really helped save time and guess work though so I'm happy I did them first. I have never tried to draw a face using boudries like this before so it has been a pleasant find helped me complete my project in time.

I FORGOT TO ADD HER FACEPAINT FOR SUBMISSION! I added it on the side profiles but I forgot to do it when her face faced forward and in the final render.

Reflection

I initially planned my villain to be explosive and fun which you can see through the very first mood-board collage. My idea has changed a lot since then which means I had a lot of fun exploring a wide breadth of her character.

I think the main problem I had with this project is that I found myself holding onto a lot of design ideas instead of choosing one. I had many design ideas which I tried to jam into one design. I wanted her to be too many things at once.

It was a challenge to design an interesting character whilst also keeping in mind the fact that I will have to model it next block. This tamed my ideas a lot because I don't know how difficult it would be to execute in 3d and how well I would manage my time.

Cons

I am aware that she doesn't look like a villain who manipulates time. Most people who would look at this design would probably think of the sea because of the ocean blue and seaweed green colours I have used... This is something I should work on for the future because it is important to be able to easily portray themes visually if I wish to be a successful character artist. I may revise my colours slightly for game production project next block so that she holds more resemblance to time and disorder.

I played it safe with the clothes she is wearing. This is majorly to do with the fact that I was worried about how I was going to model it. Even though I would have loved to explore experimental fashion, I think it was very important for me to start with a basic design so that I can learn from it but still stay motivated.

I really struggled to imply a torn hole in her trousers because; I have never done it before, and I didn't look up any references to help me (which was so smart of me...)

I am happy to see my rendering abilities progress but I do think this outcome might be a bit too illustrative and less functional than what was required. I'm not mad about it because I REALLY wanted to try this out for the very first time but I do understand that this might bring my grade down since we were tasked to create a functional piece of concept work that is easily understood when passed onto a 3D artist (or myself) instead of an aesthetically pleasing piece of marketing work. But I am not here for a grade I am here to improve and experiment and grow as much as I can whilst I still get to :) If I where to improve this to increase it's functionality, I would reduce the extreme aerial diffusion, rotate her so that she faces the front a little more, have breakdowns of her tattoos and a closeup of her necrosis, Remove her long hair pieces, and light her design better so that the details on her front are more visible. Having material callouts would also be helpful, and so would a functional breakdown of how her hair works.

Grade: 88/100 (+10% from Block 2!!)

Previously :

☆*Go back to Traditional Art*☆

Up Next :

☆*Go to Game Production*☆

Google Sites

Report abuse