Wednesday 6 November 2019

Week 5: Blair

I was really struggling last week to create my characters, I was lacking inspiration and was really struggling to create an appealing character design for either of my characters.

I read a book called "The Little Book of Colour" by Karen Haller, it shows you how to use colour in design, in fashion and the psychological effects that each colour has on subliminal level. I know I wanted my character Blair to be cold and stand offish on the outside but she actually has a warm and vulnerable side that she keeps very hidden under her cold exterior shell. 

I decide to go with the classic complementary colour scheme of blue and orange, to quote the book; (insert quote here about the colour blue and orange)

Using these two main colours, I decide to create a mood-board to further help my art block




I now have a very clear idea of what I wanted Blair to look like, and started to come up with some initial designs for the character:




I realised that my own personal style wasn't really working for a character for animation, I really wanted to exaggerate certain elements so it would be more fun to see when animated. I took inspiration from Tex Avery, an artist on instagram named Susana Rodrigues (@susanarodriguesart) and from the newly released pilot of "Hazbin Hotel" created, directed and produced by Vivienne Medrano and her team.

I decided to make the eyes a lot bigger and the head smaller and rounder, even though she has some sharper features.




I decided to focus on two main shapes for her design; triangles and circles, as they are both contradictory to each other. Triangles are unstable shapes, don't offer much support and signify danger or something sharp, whereas circles are a very welcoming shape, something soft and makes you feel safe, however they are also vulnerable, we associate something like a baby, a puppy or a kitten with a circle, something that needs protection.

I'm going to use this design process to help me design the other two characters, choosing a colour scheme, keeping certain shapes in mind when designing them and greatly exaggerate certain elements of their design.



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