http://www.creativebloq.com/character-design/tips-5132643
The first tip states you should decide who the character is aimed at, which is something I have never really considered before, as usually I think more about what kind of character I will be designing depending on the purpose or the genre they fit within.
Another tip is to "make your character distinctive", which is something I struggle with. I feel that I lack some creativity in the designs of my characters, drawing too much from other games I have played or films I have seen, taking little bits and pieces from many things and putting them together to form a complete character.
"Your character design needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people's attention." This is something I need to work on greatly. I have produced some designs that seem to me to be fairly original, in that I have not seen many very similar designs, however they are lacking in something. For example, if I analyse designs from my other module, Computer Arts Practice, I designed a few characters that looked like this:
I took elements from other characters or artworks I had seen and incorporated bits from them into my own designs.
For example:
My character above is a mix of elements taken from the characters seen below. As mentioned earlier, I feel some of my characters are lacking something or are a little boring, this is definitely one of them. I would contribute this to the art style for sure, as well as maybe even the subject matter; he could be more abstract in shape. More texture all around would benefit him greatly, as from the images below that is what they show, a lot of texture, whereas mine is all rather uniform making it look a bit bland.
My inspirations for this character are seen below, taken from ice characters, but made to look almost like rock. The ring was greatly inspired by an artwork called Saturnus by the artist Magdalena Pagowska.
I see great similarities to the character on the left, which is Ancient Apparition from DotA 2, however, because of the very human torso, it gives my character, in my opinion, a very different appearance, less hostile, scary and less alien or monstrous in some aspect. Generally I am happy with this design, and I think the silhouette would be fairly unique.
The last character design I will analyse, is this one:
The chest plate, belt and hair was heavily influenced by the character below, Diana from League of Legends. However, the chest plate is perhaps the only clothing item that is interesting at all, and is the one that is the least unique to my character.
The head piece, is influenced by the depictions of Saints' halos, and is inspired by the photograph below by NakedInvention on DeviantArt http://silent-noober.deviantart.com/art/From-the-Shadows-190159643
I feel like the halo makes the character appear more unique, however, it is the only thing about the design that stands out. To improve the design, I could experiment more with clothing and different hair styles which could create a more interesting silhouette as well as a more intriguing design.
Referring back to the website's tips. I understand the use of colour to aid to the feel or intentions of the character, however, I still feel my understanding of colour is a little off. For example, making colours stand out, I feel my use of colour is a little safe and basic.
Another important thing I need to work on, as seen in my above character designs, is that a lot of the time my characters look static, or rigid in some way. I need to be able to paint them in a more dynamic way to convey a sense of realism to them.
In this post I have discovered what issues I have with my work and tried to uncover the ways in which I can improve my designs.
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