2D Character Design

Project Brief

Straight away, I think the most challenging part about this brief is going to be getting inital ideas for the character. Once I have a base idea for it, I should be able to do plenty of research on games and films to help me get further information about what it should be looking like - body/facial features as well as clothing.

I think creating multiple pictures of different actions could also be quite challenging, which is probably going to be the main part that takes time later on as I get more into creating the character.

Character Design Mood Board

This mood board is my starting point for getting ideas together to create my game character. At this point, I didn't have a good idea for what it would look like, but thought I'd go down the more cartoon-styled character which wouldn't be overly realistic. I think the main theme for it is going to be a human figure in forest designed clothing, similar to that of the mutant character from The Forest.

Next, I'm going to have to try and get ideas for the colours I want to use, as well as some more clothing and tools that would be seen with a character like this. I think I probably could've got some more reference images for this, however, I didn't have a great idea of what I would want to make when I started, so it's good enough for now.

Interesting Images

Thinking into my character creation further, I have felt like I would go down the forest theme for it. Immediately, I thought of camoflage, consisting of various greens and browns, as well as some additional contrasting colours such as red.

These are the three pictures of animals that I chose. I think these would be good to go off of for the pose for my character. It needs to be focused, so looking like it's staring at you through the screen is perfect, and a strong body language is also important. They are also primarily coloured in brown, or various shades of orange, which would probably be the primary colour for the clothing of my character.

I think these pictures of plant life in forests really give me a good idea for what sort of colour theme that I want for my character. The red and green colour theme contrast each other perfectly since they are opposites on the colour wheel, and just look really nice. There is lots of different types of plants and I will probably use the details like on the side of the lily pad or the venus fly trap teeth as a kind of design for any clothing that I do since they would be nice looking seams for in clothing.

For man-made architecture in the theme of forests, I think these images represent it well. The left image displays how you can make something made of twigs look really cool, almost like a spider's web. The middle image is in a style that I'll probably use for any additional designs on my character's clothing and equipment since it'll mostly be made to look rough like sticks and twigs. Finally, the final image shows some nice parking place that could be nice to base off a background for the character around, at least the design of it, since there's lots of different plant life put in a way that looks natural, but could be done to hide a base.

Example Character Profile

Iron Man

Brief Backstory

In the beginning, Anthony Edward Stark was born in New York on the 29th of May 1970. From a young age, he had to face life without parents since they died early on in his life which led to a tough childhood. In the later years, the initial start of Iron Man, or Tony Stark before the suit, saw the character as a successful businessman who ran the company Stark Industries, a weapons manufacturing company. During a war, he was captured and left inside a room with little materials to survive, since he was left in a critical state due to severe heart damage from shrapnel. However, from the scraps lying around, he built the first Iron Man suit which allowed him to recover and escape his captors. He would flee back home and begin a life of engineering his suits which he would use to keep himself alive and defeat the dangers that popped up around the US.

Personality

The reason Tony does everything that he does is to use his genius intellect to improve the technology he uses for both his use and others. This is then mostly used to protect the innocent, but also to improve people's lives. Although he doesn't always display his emotions well, Tony appreciates the people around him greatly and is seen going out of his way a lot of the time to protect and save those who are close to him. His lack of ability to show these emotions could be due to his short childhood with his parents, which has left him quite plain in that part.

Description

Tony is always presented as a well-distinguished man. Although money helps, he always dresses professionally and looks smart in or outside the suit. The main difference that sets him apart is his chest piece, powered by an ARC reactor which protects his heart. When other people may be anxious about it, he embraces it as a part of him, as seen by his suit including it as one of the main features.

Routines

Tony will usually have a set schedule that he applies very specifically to his life. He has a workout routine that he follows very closely to not only keep him in shape to do the activities he does but to also make him slightly more superior to a regular human without the Iron Man suit. He gets a decent night's sleep at around 6 hours and takes good care of his health in many other ways. However, he does like to have fun from time to time by going to parties to still have an exciting life.

Shape Theory

Here, I made 3 characters, each using one shape specifically for them. The shapes were circles, squares and triangles. Circular-based characters usually give off soft, cute and innocent vibes, whereas square-based characters tend to give off strong, meaningful and balanced vibes. However, triangles are commonly used as villains due to giving off quite threatening and powerful vibes which are traits usually found within evil characters.

For the circular shape, the character looks to be quite friendly (eye aside), and wouldn't necessarily be seen as a dangerous or threatening character. I gave it quite a basic shaped model because I don't think these types of characters usually do, especially since they are more commonly found in cartoons which don't include lots of details anyway.

The square character looks like it is really serious, but isn't there to harm you unless you do something to annoy it. It gives off a robot vibe the way I've modelled the body shape, which adds to the uncertainty of the character being good or bad since we cannot fully trust robots at times.

Finally, the triangular character looks quite creepy and dangerous with its long spiky legs and harmful overall body design. The eyes also make it look annoyed and gloomy, something that is maybe a bit unstable.

Additional pictures that show off shape theory well are below.

The first image on the left of a crocodile is really easy to tell that it's friendly due to the soft, round shapes that make up its body. Even the teeth, which should be sharp and pointy are rounded off which just adds to the happy vibe. The eyes are also large, circular balls which makes the overall facial expression very friendly.

The second picture instantly looks angry, which is primarily due to the harsh triangular shapes that make up the majority of the character. All of the hair on the outside is very rigid which gives off an angry theme, and the eyes especially enhance this since they are positioned in a very stern way.

My Character Profile

Remnants

Backstory

The remnants are young adult characters who have been left to roam the forest world alone after a group of dangerous cannibals overran their original camp. They would have been born into a tribe that lived within the forest but are now forced to fend for themselves as most didn't survive the attack. They consist of both male and female, however mostly male. They now train daily to return and get revenge on the group that wronged their family, but trust nobody since a valued member of the tribe turned out to be a cannibal, meaning that they are incredibly hostile to anyone that they find. Remnants do occasionally appear in small groups of 2 or 3 if they escaped together, and although incredibly rare, should be thought of as a max-level threat since none of them will retreat from a battle as they want every bit of revenge possible, even if it means dying themselves. They build small living areas out of remaining scrap materials they can use to build a home to sleep in, and other things like a campfire to cook food on.

Personality

As already explained, these characters are incredibly hostile and will continuously attack until either one of you dies, or if you somehow manage to escape. They have a very determined mindset that is fueled by their passion for revenge and stop at nothing to hunt - animals and anything else. If you're able to view them without seeing you, you can notice their very harsh, rigid movements that could be seen as them struggling to cope mentally when they have nothing to do, except remember the most traumatic experience of their life.

Description

They have lots of scars on their legs and arms from training and battling, as well as some slices on their face which is from being attacked. They attempt to cover them up by painting mud on their arms and leaving it to dry. This also acts as a part of their camouflage which is the whole idea behind their clothing. Remnants wear various clothing, made from the forest environment itself in an attempt to blend in as much as possible. This is because it allows them to creep up on their prey more easily, especially since they only have close-range weaponry such as rocks and tools that have been made out of stone and wood. They try to keep completely shaven since they don't want hair to get in the way or be an annoyance. They wear different leaves and moss to blend into the ground on top of a base layer of animal fur from the prey they've killed for food.

Routines

Every day they do different exercises to keep their physical health incredibly high and improve it constantly. They will hunt for food in the early hours of the morning and later for food during the course of the day. Remnants will also go out to scavenge for materials that could be used to improve shelter, tools or clothing. They will also occasionally return to their tribe home to inspect the area and cannibals, thinking of different ways to complete the revenge plan.

My Character Mood Boards

If I was to draw something like where they would live, I think it would look something similar to these. Clearly made of useless bits of wood and other scrap found around forests is mainly what I'm looking for in the design, and this shows it well. I think I will only really add something like this if I have time though since it's mostly the character that I'm doing.

In forests, there are going to be a lot of trees. Due to the game being set in Peninsula, I researched what kinds of trees are found in this area and the results were: huge western red cedar, stika spruce, douglas fir, bigleaf maple and western hemlock. From these, I will probably make the leaves mostly green and spiky since that's mostly what it is. I can take some of the colour of the bark and use it as the colour for some more of the character's clothing, which is a bit of a mix of brown, yellow and orange. For the most part, they also all seem to have very thick bases to them, which is something that I'll probably include more in the design of any extra things I have in the background of any images/thumbnails that I do.

Lucas Cometto | Wilderness Landscape Photography. (n.d.). Guide to Olympic National Park’s Ancient Forests, Giant Trees, and Old Growth Hikes. [online] Available at: https://www.lucascometto.com/cascadia-olympic-peninsula (Accessed: 19 November 2024)

Here I got together a few character design ideas that I could use. The three similar-looking characters on the left are from the game The Forest, which is where my character is going to be found, so I thought using similar designs to the characters they already have is a good idea. The other images are of other ideas of real-life people in tribes and people who go into the woods with their unique way of dressing. As you can see, there is a variety of different clothing types that I could take inspiration from. One of them uses large leaves almost like spikes like Sonic. I may not use this design specifically, but I will probably use the leaf bandana thing that I will expand on later as a proper design that could be used to resemble something for the character. Some of the clothing from the other people is quite large compared to what I'll probably make in the end, however, they are still good ideas to have, and the remnants were tribal people beforehand who could've dressed like this, so it wouldn't be too bad.

Going back to The Forest's cannibal design, I will have to think about body shape and design if I don't have much clothing. Since the remnants are training hard to get revenge, they shouldn't be too thin, but also not too large since they are now having to scavenge for food which could lead to a bit of starvation.

Here I made a quick little mood board for the headdress that I'll probably have for my character. I was originally going to go down the leaf headdress like from the mood board above, but I might take some aspects from these headdresses below. Using some feathers could be a good way to add some detail, as well as some differently shaped leaves.

Here, I found some images of tools that I would associate with my character. Since they are now out in nature fending for themselves, they aren't going to have access to any high quality tools, if they even ever did since they have been living in the forest forever. I have also got some cartoony styled tools which is probably more the style that I'll be using. 

Doing some Sketches

In this lesson, we focussed on doing some sketches for our characters. I drew a lot of different things that you would class as inventory things, so equipment and things they will wear. I'm planning to have this second page as more sketches of the same thing, but in a different style. I can then choose what design I prefer or take ideas from both for the final part of the design.

I still have quite a few more to do, however, it's a good start.

Drawing Proportions

In this lesson, we drew each other's faces to get some practice for drawing our characters. We each drew our partners' faces with the help of a step-by-step tutorial on how to draw a face with decent proportions. This was quite a simple drawing just with pencil to get the rough basics of a face picture drawn.

After this, we went on to draw a Picasso face portrait. Picasso has a very unique art style when it comes to drawing faces, and I took inspiration mostly from this one Picasso piece that I used as a reference image for the face details. I then went down to the other style where he uses a lot of colours on the face and did this in a way that shows the different light levels. I think in a way, the portrait was better before I added colour to the face, however, the colour made it seem more Picasso.

Character Body Sketches

Here, I drew some more sketches of my character. This was finishing the body sketches, so I would have a better idea for what I would want the final design to look like. I drew on the headdress of what I would probably make it look like, as well as adding some kind of scratches that I could include. I then added a couple of things to the chest design. Furthermore, I then did something closer to a full body diagram to better get an understanding of how the body and legs would look together, which I did by drawing some animal skin as clothing, instead of the leafy thing on the legs diagram, which I think looks better.

Finally, I did some arm pose sketches since I didn't want arms just by his side, and ideally wanted to show the kind of tools they would be using, so I went with the axe design since it was my favourite of the lot. I also thought having one hand on his side would make him look more serious and threatening.

Before making the final design, I know that the legs will probably be the hardest part to draw, since getting the right shape and other little designs proved to be difficult, so I'll have to try to look around for some ideas when drawing it. I also think he looks a bit bare, so I might add some other weapons/tools to add more to the picture. I'd also like to include some cuts, wounds, and mud on the skin, but am unsure of how to actually draw it. Therefore, I might need to do some more research on this as well if I decide to include these details into the final design.

Drawing my Final Character

For bringing this character to life, I decided I would do this digitally, since I could make more adjustments to the design, and it would be easier for me to do since I prefer this to paper. I also had quite a lot of smudging issues when drawing the sketches, so I would want to avoid that. However, one issue that did show up later on was that it's not as easy to do details such as adding nice shading to characters. As with pencil and paper, you can smudge it around and get a decent gradient. Although these tools are available on Photoshop (or Photopea, the free browser version) I don't think they look as good. So I decided to go for a more simple colour scheme with just one main colour, touched up with some little lighter and darker colours to show the light. In the end, you can hardly see it, though, so it was a bit of a waste of time.

Now, here is the starting stages of creating my character. I first drew out a rough sketch which I could use as the baseplate to draw my character on. Already, I don't think it looks too bad, and gives me a bit more room for a couple more ideas of design since I changed some things slightly as I was continuing to draw since they looked better. Doing this also helped me to get a better idea of how it was going to turn out. The head especially was something I changed a bit in this stage because I originally had it quite a bit smaller, which didn't look right in comparison to the body. I'm also not really liking the shape of the body — it looks quite compacted and blocky, but I'm not great at drawing humanoid figures. I think, especially since we know what a human is meant to look like, it makes it difficult to draw one because we can see things that look wrong very easily. I'll be able to touch up some of the designs later though when I start properly drawing it.

Here's the next stage. I just wanted to get the body outline done first, since it was going to be one of the main designing parts of this character. I made sure to keep the lines as straight and smooth as possible, which isn't easy when using a mouse. Making things symmetrical was a challenge as well. Obviously, not everything has to be looking exactly the same, but I wanted each side to look as similar as possible without just copying one side and pasting it onto the other. Doing this would've probably made more work for me anyway, since the arm positioning at least is different, so it would've been a pain to cut some of the chest out and redo it. The only parts of this design that I mirrored were the eyes, eyebrows, and mouth. I wanted the eyes to be mirrored because they already looked odd in all the designs I had previously done. Therefore, it only seemed necessary. The eyebrows took ages to get looking decent on both the sketch and final outline, so I didn't want to waste any more time trying to replicate it. The mouth was also always looking wonky, so I just drew one side and mirrored it. Overall, I'm quite happy with the face. I don't really like the features that much, but you can at least kind of tell it's meant to be a male human. I did later go on to outline the features again since the colour drained the lines a bit, so I should've made them thicker in the first place. I did this to try to get some better detail in, which in actual fact I didn't need to worry about.

The hand that would be holding the axe looked quite decent. Getting the proportions of the fingers right wasn't the easiest, but they don't look half bad. The thumb was a pain to design. I saw while drawing the sketch that just having a little bulge like the fingers wasn't going to be a good design choice, so I had to do a bit of the palm and thumb. I actually got a decent idea for the design of this by using my own hand and seeing how much you actually see from an angle like this, and what I've drawn replicates it quite a bit. I struggled a bit with getting a good-looking thumb, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I've attached one of the sketch designs for the thumb, which I found quite funny at the time since it looks like a noodle. It definitely isn't perfect, but it's good enough.

I do think I may have made him a little too muscular, but I'm not really sure how to make a character that looks lean with a bit of muscle. It doesn't matter too much because they are meant to be characters that train hard to be physically fit enough to get revenge on the cannibals which have destroyed their tribal life. Also, I'm not a great fan of the way I've made the leg definitions look. They certainly make more sense the more highlighting with shadows that you make, however, since I wasn't doing a lot of that, I would just later choose to fade them out to hide it a bit.

I hate drawing hands and feet. I don't really want to say much about them, except that they look terrible. I thought adding extra details such as nails would just make them look even worse — if that's possible — so I left them as they are. Most certainly the poorest part of the design in my opinion.

Here, I went away and completed the axe. Ideally, I probably should've taken more screenshots of the process, but it's a little difficult since I did it in multiple layers. I first drew the wooden handle, which I made look very rigid and random, as most random bits of wood like this are. I used this colour since some of the trees that are in the supposed area have orangey coloured bark, as shown from my mood board above. Although I probably could've made it even more saturated, but it still looks good. I then made a new layer for the stone, I put this behind the handle because it would be easier to see that it is attached with the rope. I just used a regular grey colour, nothing special really with the colouring. With both the wood and stone, I did add lines to give them a bit more depth than just a plain, one-coloured look. Although you can't see lots from far away, I at least made the effort and I think they look really nice.

Next, it was time to add the rope that would basically be holding the two pieces together. Once again, I created a new layer, this time placing it over both the handle and stone layers. I started off with a plain colour that I think goes well for a rope like this. It is a very similar colour to the one in my mood board that I found. I did add some darker lines to make it look like there are multiple bits of rope twirled around, but it isn't very easy to see, so it's mostly just one colour. I also tried to make it look like it steps down a bit as it goes over the wood. However, the way I did it, makes it look a bit strange, but it isn't too noticeable of a change.

Overall, I really like this part of the design — it's probably my favourite part. Although I haven't done anything else with the hand here, it does look quite good, as if it's actually being held. Another time I'd use more variating colours to make the details more noticeable from a distance, but still it looks good like this.

Next up was colouring in the body — oh wasn't this a joyful part. Unfortunately, I completely forgot that I could adjust the fill bucket tool so that it affects more of an area (tolerance). Therefore, there I was, for what felt like forever, sat going around every line of the body with the varying skin colour, filling in the light grey lines that remained. You can kind of see what they look like from the bottom of the torso, since I left this part due to knowing I'd be adding a piece of animal skin as clothing. Doesn't look like much, but across the whole body, it made a difference. It wasn't a complete waste of time since I knew I wanted to add some different colours around some edges to show the difference in lighting, but even now it isn't that noticeable. At least for another time I know to either just go with one colour, or make the shadows and highlights more dramatic, so there are more obvious. The drawing certainly looks like it's coming together well now, though.

I'm not sure if I'm too happy with the skin tone. It looks a little too dark in my opinion, but I believe the skin tone of the cannibals in The Forest don't have ghost-like skin, so it should be alright. Later on, I did go and outline the facial features, which is definitely needed because it is not that easy seeing the features.

I did then go on to add this chain necklace thing around his neck. I gave it a slightly purply colour so that it can be like a mini obsidian spearhead. I don't really like the design of that part too much, and the top loop looks too large, but it's at least obvious what it is. Although, I do like the string thing that goes around his neck. The subtle pattern looks cool, and I would later go on to use this design for other things.

Finally, this is what I think is going to be the complete design. I might add some cuts and wounds later on as some finishing touches, but the main concept of the character is complete. I outlined the facial features to make them a bit more prominent. Not only that, but I also faded out the leg muscle parts. Ideally, I want to add a leafy headdress, however, I'm not too sure how I'm going to do that.

Furthermore, I added the animal skin clothing. It looks a bit odd since I used different brush sizes on the top and bottom parts. The shape also looks a bit strange, but at least you can tell what it's meant to be. The strap for that and the strap for the bow going across his chest are the same as the chain rope. I thought that would be a good idea since they don't have many resources to hand, and so a lot of things are going to be made from the same materials. That is also why I used the same wood colour for the bow as the handle for the axe. At first glance, it isn't that easy to know it's a bow due to the slightly strange shape. I should have made it bulge out more instead of folding inwards, but it still isn't bad for a quick bow design. On the white background, it isn't easy to see the bow's string either, but it is there. On the latest design, I have a simple forest background, which makes it easier to see the string. It's obviously very thin, but I made it the colour of the rope on the axe to have some more similarities in the drawing. Since I wanted his hand on his side, I just made another layer and pasted over his hand and erased the surrounding parts. This then gave the illusion that it's over the clothing.

In conclusion for this project, I think it was kind of enjoyable, since it's something I haven't really done before, but it was challenging to do, especially finding the right look for parts. I'm not a fan of the pose I gave him since it doesn't look that threatening and more like he's a teacher telling off a student. The leg area especially looks quite bare, but I'm not sure what else I could add there. Adding some finishing touches will certainly enhance the picture, but for this, I'm happy how it turned out.

Here, I started to add a leaf headdress, since this was something that I designed from the start, and think it's still a good accessory for my character. I started out by creating a layer for the base of it which would simply be the rope on the front which holds everything together. I once again used the same colour as the axe rope and bowstring. I then made a few little details with a darker colour, which is once again hardly noticeable.

Next, it was time to start adding the leaves. I started by adding a new layer below the base headdress layer. I then outlined the leaves and coloured them in. I used the smudge tool to blend some lines into the design and to make them look more leafy.

I then made two different designs. One was going to be with some orangey leaves falling over his face, and another one with a feather. I eventually settled with the feather since I didn't like how the other leaves were looking. They were quite small and the shape just didn't really fit into the drawing. I was going to do my drawing version of a feather, but I went for this simpler design. However, it doesn't look great, so I certainly would do it differently another time.

Finally, this is the end result. I added in some scar marks that make the body a bit less boring. I did this by finding an image online, removing the background and moving the parts around. In the end, I have a scar going across his face, two slices on his arm, X-shaped cuts on his chest, and another on his leg. I also added a bite mark on one of his hands, which I made by taking one of the cuts, resizing it and then copying it a few times to make the bite mark.

I also added a background to complete the image and giving it a suitable environment to be in makes more sense.

 In conclusion, I think this project went relatively well. There are certainly some things that I would change to enhance the image and make a better-looking character, but this would also require more lessons on how to draw specific things, and having more time to put into this. I do like the overall shape of the character. Due to not ever really drawing a person, it isn't that bad of an outcome. The symmetry is good, especially for something that I did (for the most part) without copying and pasting sides. I also really like the axe. I think the shape resembles one well and the varying lines of different colours add necessary depth to the design. I also like the smoothness of the lines - it doesn't look like I used a mouse for this, and more like I used a drawing tablet. I think the chest muscle definition looks great and defines the shapes well, however, I think he might be a bit too muscular but I struggled to get a leaner look. I also really like the look of the wounds. They aren't perfect, but the chest, arm and face ones especially fit into the design perfectly. Another time, I would probably add a light glow around the outside to show how the skin is redder, but the simple shapes and colours complement the rest of the image nicely. Moving on to what I don't like as much, one of them has got to be the pose. It just doesn't look threatening enough, even with the cuts and very dangerous looking axe. The hand on his side also looks a bit strange, but I can't think of what specifically would make it look better. Moreover, the animal skin clothing doesn't look great. I think the design is very simple, which would not be an issue if it wasn't for the shape also being a bit odd. It makes the guy seem like he's wearing a skirt. I know people did if they couldn't make anything better, but it just doesn't suit him. Another time, I'd try to make it look different by either changing the shape or just the clothing altogether. Lastly, the feet and hands. I knew going into drawing this that they would be the hardest part since I just cannot seem to make them look normal. One hand was saved by having an axe in front of it, but the other just looks stupid. The feet are also looking a bit strange, but they're both things I believe could be fixed if I were to add more refining shapes, instead of just the outlines. 

II, D.H. (2023). Draw Scars On Face - Scar Scars Wounds Bruises Injured Bleeding Scratches. [online] Bodegawasues. Available at: https://bodegawasues.github.io/post/draw-scars-on-face/ [Accessed 17 Dec. 2024].

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