Playing around with design ideas

Creating another character sketch page 



Now that I have had a proper think about the look of my candy based characters and have created, as well as researched into, a initial idea of what their clothing is going to look like I thought it would be a good idea to just keep the ball rolling and just get on with doing some more design work. The few weeks I have left before my deadline are very quickly beginning to slip away and I am incredibly concious of this and so I know I need to crack on if I want to get everything I have planned done on time. So as this was the plan I decided to get to work on something that I have been wanting to draw for a little while now but haven't been able to as my ideas weren't solid enough but now that I have an art style down, I have been able to work on a character sketch page. This is simply a step up from the last character page I did as this time instead of just faces, this page contains a few drawings of my chosen characters looking more expressive and actually performing a few actions as well as wearing a possible outfit designs.

As much as I made this is a page to show the progression of my design ideas, I also just wanted to draw all of my candy characters together as I am actually super passionate about these designs and I am really fond of them so drawing each of my characters one by one was a lot of fun for me. I wanted to create some work that just captured ALL of my characters personalities in one place before I have to pick and choose which designs I want to take further and I think that it has turned out quite well. This originally started off as just a regular page of outlines but I felt like I couldn't just leave it like this as I am trying to focus on both expression and colour in this project and so It didn't feel right to leave the canvas simply black and white so I decided to add some colour to my designs. I used each of my characters basic colour palettes which I created back in BA3A for reference on what colours I should be using, as well as actual photographs of what the sweets they are based on look like and I just went from there. Some of my characters stick very close to colour palettes I made and others I tweaked until I was satisfied with how they looked because some of the colour combinations just didn't work or didn't portray their chosen sweet well enough. I am actually really pleased with this page of sketches as I feel I have been able to capture how I wanted my characters to look pretty well and that I am now fairly confident to be able to move on and pick 2 or 3 characters that I want to design further.

All 7 of my original candy based characters

Anatomy class update

Still modelling the lower part of the body 


I have just realised that I haven't done an anatomy work shop blog post in a while so I thought I'd better bring everything up to speed and just re cap on what I have been doing over the last few weeks. So essentially there have been three sessions since I last updated but we have only made a little bit of progress on the leg each week and haven't actually gotten that far ahead so there isn't a lot to write about. We have mainly been working on creating the thigh muscles, building them up bit by bit to make sure we know how each part works and we have also started focusing on a new part of the lower part of the body which was the foot.

This was nice to have a go at modelling because it was actually really simple to do and we went back to using the original white wax we had started with at the beginning. As the foot is made up of very very tiny intricate bones, obviously we weren't going to add this level of detail to the model otherwise it would be way too fiddly so we worked on building up the foot in bit chunks instead as it is a lot simpler to do and made sure our model was more structurally sound. We did however all had a look at the plastic models that Ron had bought in that show each foot bone in detail so that we knew what that area actually looked like for reference. Honestly this was the fiddliest bit we have worked on so far as trying to get the toes to stick and bend the right way was a bit of a challenge as the parts were so small but I think we all got there in the end. I have as per usual popped a few visual examples I found online of the area we were focusing on down below.

Visual examples of the areas of the body we are modelling 

I am actually pretty pleased with how my model is looking so far as with the little extra muscles and adding on the feet it is starting to come together a bit more. I am still really excited to keep working on it and building it up week by week as honestly these have been my favourite classes we have ever had at University. I think they have been really helpful for us to learn about the bodies shape and how the muscles work and I wish this is something that we had been taught right at the beginning of year one as I feel it was have benefited us more then but even so I am still really happy we are getting to do this. It is a great class. Below are a few up to date photos of what my model is looking like so far from a few different angles so you can see the front and the back.

Thinking about my characters clothing

Getting some style inspiration 



Now that i've spent some time figuring out what my chosen art style was going to be and drawing out some ideas of what my characters could look like I decided it was time to move onto the next step which is thinking about clothing. This is an area of the character design process I have honestly been a little stuck on, although have known pretty much from the start what I was aiming for with my characters appearance, what style of clothes they were going to be wearing changed every time I thought about it. All I have really been able to pin down is something colourful, cartoonish and a little over the top but with no particular style influences so far so I thought it would be a good idea to do some image research to see if I could solidify my ideas in anyway and come up with something that works well.

An similar example of what my characters clothes may look like would be the Japanese clothing style 'Harajuku' as it is usually bright, colourful, a little wacky and has a lot going. I have always loved this fashion trend as it is just so eye catching and different to the usually quite dull colour scheme and style that you usually see people wearing so I think this would work nicely as inspiration for my characters clothing. So essentially what I want to achieve is to create some clothing that is partially influenced by the creative style of Harajuku street fashions but with some candy looking elements incorporated to help portray each characters assigned sweet. Obviously I will also make sure whatever my characters are wearing will suit their personality so I wont, for example, have a character like Mintim who is smart and sensible wearing crazy clothing, he would wear something different like a waist coat and bow tie. I knew already of some different items of clothing that have been influenced by different types of candy as they were worn by the famous pop singer Katy Perry in her 'California dreams' tour. She had a look of different candy inspired outfits on her tour so I thought these would be good to look at for some visual inspiration and I have popped all the images I have looked at for clothing influence down below.

Doing a little design practice 

So after doing some image research into different clothing influences I was feeling really inspired to actually do a practice drawing of what one of my possible candy based outfits could look like. This would just be an initial design to get my ideas down instead of just floating about in my head and so I could see where to possibly develop it from there. I thought I was be a good idea for me to not design any clothing for any of the character I had thought up so far and to leave that until later when I do some more character development work and so for now I should just come up with a different design idea just to use as an example.  I though that the best type of candy to use for this visual example would be a lollipop as it is just so colourful and reminded me so much of some of the 'Harajuku' clothing styles I had looked at so I decided to use this sweet as my base and to try to draw an outfit based off of this sweet. So I have just popped down below a couple of images of lollipops that I used as influence for my initial clothing design so that I could focus on incorporating the right colours and shapes as well as my finished practice design. 

I tried to just have a little fun with this design and play around with the sort of look I am going for. I wanted it to be very colourful and not too realistic, so still keeping a cartoon like feel to it, as well as trying to incorporate a few candy based style flairs here and there to make sure the design was obviously based off of a lollipop. Honestly I could have played around with this for ages, just trying lots of different combinations but I didn't want to get too distracted as I knew I would be doing this sort of thing later on with my other official candy based characters and so I kept to just doing one simple outfit design. I think because the design was so colourful I didn't want to add too much detail to the actual outfit but overall It turned out pretty well and shows the sort of thing I aiming for clothing wise. So now that I have given this a test I can now move onto doing some more expressive character sketches and have a go at roughly drawing out some of their outfits and interactions. 

Beginning to draw all my candy characters

A sketch page of possible design ideas 


So after doing a little character practice piece just to help get the ball rolling and also so I could have a quick go at testing out the art style and colouring method I am planning to use for this project I decided that it was time for me to crack on and have a go at drawing all of the candy based characters I had planned out. Now this is just something I have been wanting to do for a while now because I have all these visions of what I want my characters to end up looking like at the moment and have, over the course of BA3a and BA3b, have been able to narrow down my ideas so that I know what kind of art style I am going for so I thought it would be a good idea for me to draw each of my characters in this chosen style just so I could get my initial ideas down visually before I start progressing with developing them any further. I have just popped the character sketch page I recently completed down below so you can see how my ideas are looking so far and have colour coded the sketches so you know who each character is.

Originally my first idea was to create a sketch page of my characters as full body drawings but I haven't actually decided on any clothing styles yet, which is what I need to do next really, so I thought just doing a page of head shots would be easier where I could have a little experiment with initial possible hairstyles and expressions for each of my characters. Doing this sketch page has really helped me visualise the type of look I am going for design wise and also allowed me to have a think about what my characters facial expressions would look like in order to portray the type of personality I want them to have which was a lot of fun to do. I am pretty pleased with how this page of designs came out as I think I have been able to capture my characters quite nicely so now what I need to do is move on from this point and just keep developing them further.

Continuing with my candy based project

Doing a initial style practice and colouring test 


Once I had finished planning out what kind of body shape I wanted for my characters as well as doing a little bit more of my own personal drawing again and also revising all the different character ideas I had thought up in BA3a, I thought it would be a good idea to keep my creativity flowing and just continue with getting some more work done. As I have been feeling motivated to do some more artwork digitally as all my more recent pieces have been drawn onto a tablet and I have been really pleased with how they turned out I decided that, just to get the ball rolling, I would have a go drawing and colouring one of the candy based characters I had planned out so that I could use my chosen art style and colouring technique just to see what it would look like as a finished piece and to see if I needed to make any tweaks to what I had chosen.

I actually did this previously at the beginning of BA3a to help me get me get my project kick started and so that I could properly visualise the type of look I am aiming for so I just decided to have another crack at this again and just draw out the same character I chose before to see how far my idea has progressed. This and also because I am really excited about my project and I just really wanted to draw one of the character designs I have had stuck in my head for a long time now as I am pretty passionate about it. I have popped the piece I did last term down below as well as the new piece I have just finished so that you can see the small progression of my character Bubblelina.

My original design idea

Experimenting with my chosen art style and cel shading

Although this was just a fun little experimental piece I wanted to do before I actually started focus properly on my characters features like her clothing, hair style and set colour scheme might be I am pretty pleased with how this has turned out.  I am really enjoying drawing digitally at the moment, ever since I got the programme Paintstorm Studio really as I find that it is so much smoother and nicer to use for drawing than Photoshop is, however, that being said they are both compatible with each other so I can open my files in each and I usually end up doing my colouring in Photoshop so I use a bit of both. Although I am slowly getting used to doing some more stuff digitally I have also been craving to go back to pencil and my pro markers so I might have a go at that to do some more sketchy stuff later on. Either way this was just a bit of fun to see how my art style would look as a final piece and I have to say I am really pleased with it so I am going to continue down this route design wise. 

Developing my characters a little further

Thinking of potential names 



Now that I have been starting to focus more on the design of my candy based characters I thought a good thing to do would be to have a little review of the ideas I had had in BA3a about what I was planning to do character wise and how my ideas have progressed. So all my different characters are based off a type of sweet, almost like personifications of them if you like, and I have been shaping their individual personalities with what I personally believe a living representation of the candies I have chosen would be like which has been a lot of fun to do. Overall, in my head I have been able to visual my characters pretty well so far so now that I have thought about them I just need to start implementing that into my design work really. I have popped a little reminder of what I had been planning for my characters in BA3A down below which is things like what their chosen sweet is, what their personality is like and the colour palette I had made for each of them using photographs of the chosen candy as reference. I have to say thinking of different candy inspired characters wasn't as easy as I thought it would be as there weren't as many workable options as I thought as I started to look a different types of sweets but I am pretty pleased with these finalised concepts so far.

Chocolate 

relaxed, smooth and calm

Bubblegum 

bubbly, friendly and positive

Liquorice 

moody, negative and quiet

Marshmallow 

soft, gentle and kind

Mint 

mart, neat and sensible

Popping Candy  

hyper, energetic and vocal

Sour lemon sweet 

bitter, rude and sour

Although I now have a very clear idea of what I want to try and make my characters all look like design wise, the one thing I have been struggling with a little bit is trying to think of their individual names. I already know that the game I want them featured in is called 'Pick & Mix' but as for the actual names of my characters I was stuck trying to come up with something for a little while. This is always a part of the design process that I kind of forget about and then when someone asks me what the character I have just drawn name is, I go blank but thankfully I was finally able to come up with something. I've decided that I might be a nice idea to incorporate existing names into the names of the sweets I have chosen for each of my characters so, for example, If I was designing a female character based off a lollipop I would call them Lolapop. I few other examples I had was, Bellascotch, Candicecane and Carymel. I just thought this might work well so I had a little brain storm and gave it a try and the finalised character names I came up with I have posted below in a font that helps represent their personality. Admittedly I couldn't think of a single thing that would work for Popping candy, it was really hard trying to incorporate a name into that and so, for now, he will be referred to as PC. I am pretty happy with these names as I think it suits what I have planned for my characters so now I just need to get on and draw them. 

Still feeling motivated to keep on drawing

Another piece of  'Welcome To Hell' fan art 



Well I think the title for this blog post really does sum everything up but I still feeling really inspired to keep drawing at the moment and just riding the creativity wave because who knows how long it is going to last. It has been really nice feeling motivated to get some art work done as I feel like through BA3a I was in a bit of a slump and wasn't getting a lot done which made me feel a bit down but now I am feeling so much more positive about the art work I am producing stuff so I am just going to keep on producing it, whether it is fan art or not, because I just feel like it right now. The character I have drawn this time is, once again, from 'Welcome To Hell' because I adore that animation and I wanted to play around with drawing a more apathetic looking expression so here it is.