TASK 4: SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE (HAND-IN)

          From brainstorming few ideas for characters using silhouette and shape, I developed a variety of unique potential characters. From these, I chose two. The two that contrasted each other in an attempt to showcase my own talents and to be honest, to also retain my enjoyment in the work so that the second character was as accomplished as the first. Both characters are below.

    I LOVE the first character. With a base shape of a circle, the character was intended to be cute and amusing. I truly believed I have utilised the base shape well. Along with this I like the fur, the colours and the lighting - it's the design I prefer overall. However, on showing my tutor, he said "I like it, but, it's a bit random". In fact, he showed me how he envisioned the initial silhouette - a small goblin in armour. It made sense to be fair. I didn't get his original statement at first, but now I do. All this time I have been learning how to draw and drawing humans, so naturally, I should design a person using shape. Instead, I got carried away and thus, in terms of the criteria my tutor was personally look for, I did not tick the right boxes. Regardless, I still like the character though - my favourite so far.

    The second character was based off a triangle.  Similar to the Pyramid Head off Silent Hill 2, his entire head uses the triangle as a base shape. But with his tail eventually being made up of separate rectangles, I envision my character to be a villain who can be relied upon - a bounty hunter maybe? Although I don't believe it is my best piece of work, I can understand why most people preferred this character - it's the most interesting. 

         Conclusively, I am overjoyed with the work I produced for this task and will eventually use it for my final portfolio hand in at the end of the semester. However, by the time I handed in these two pieces of character work, I was assigned another task - to design and develop a clay model to increase my understanding on 3D space.

NEXT POST: TASK 5 - CLAY MODEL (HAND-IN)

TASK 4: DEVELOPING SILHOUETTES

         Recently, I was assigned the task of designing and developing two unique characters that incorporate the use of shape and silhouette work. Before I could successfully design these two characters I needed a rich plethora of ideas so that my final two ideas where accomplished ones. Obviously some of the ideas would be terrible, but through that, I could learn from my mistakes and at the very least, have two effective silhouette templates to work from - I needed to brainstorm these ideas, just as you should when designing anything from an essay to a game idea. No more is there proof of this than my initial blind attempts below - a fat teacher and an octopus head with a woolly hat that uses its one seamless tentacle to stick to the ground and roll around... I know... terrible. (I still have a guilty pleasure for the octopus head though).

     After realising these ideas, although amusing, where lazy attempts at shape and silhouette work, I decided to start over and brainstorm before continuing. This brainstorm is below.

     The result of this brainstorm was as expected - a variety of different characters, completely unique to each other, that use a different shape as a bases. Although a couple are less successful than the others (the top right and the bottom right), most of them are realised silhouettes that I could easily work with. From these, I have decided to use the top left and the bottom left silhouettes as they are contrasting of each other in terms of shape and character (the top left uses circle as a bases and the bottom left uses the triangle as a bases). However, eventually I will work on the others as a personal showcase of my, hopefully, increased talents in the future.

     I now need to interpret these two chosen silhouettes in both black and white line drawings and in fully coloured with lighted pieces. Once done, I will have two characters to hand in and full fill the task's criteria.

NEXT POST: TASK 4 - SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE (HAND-IN)

SILHOUETTE AND SHAPE ATTEMPT

          In the most recent lecture, I learned two things - how shape can define a character and two, how using silhouettes can be an effective aid for good character design.

    The first of which was shape. In this 30 minute lecture, I learned how different base shapes (triangles, square, circles etc.) can define a single character because of how as humans perceive shape. For example, a character designed using the triangle as a base shape will reflect a villainous character, because of the harsh corners where as a character designed using a circle as a base would be a nice, trusting character because of the elegant shape and ease on the eye.

    One of the best examples of good character design using shape is Silent Hill's iconic villain, "Pyramid Head" or "The Bogeyman".

    There is a clear focus on triangles here, with the head being the obvious vocal point. What is interesting (as my tutor stated) is that the body itself is very elegant. His theory for this is that the Pyramid Head is quite a sexual character, as the game has many sexual themes. It is because of this blatant but unique take on a character that Pyramid Head is so recognisable - the use of shape has resulted in great character design.

     With this knowledge in mind and this example to solidify its effective use, the tutor moved onwards to the use of silhouette in conjunction to shape and how developing a silhouette based of a single shape can help in practising good character design. I was tasked at using shape and silhouette to design a character - I chose the circle as a bases. We had to draw the silhouette, use that silhouette as a bases to develop a full line drawing and finally, colour and light him. The result is below.

    Yes, the drawing was awful and yes, the character is generic and boring, but never the less the technique worked. I had created a character with circle as the bases and successfully represented the shape's common associations when used in character design - a happy go lucky, trustworthy person.

        Now that I had practised the techniques taught to me with success, I was set the next task - to use silhouette and shape to design and develop two different characters using two different shapes as a bases. This task would take my vague experience and knowledge of shape and silhouette in character design and develop and refine it to the next level.

NEXT POST: TASK 4 - DEVELOPING SILHOUETTES