Week 3: (Part IV) Extra Character Resources

Celine had already posted a hell of a lot of resources to you guys! So I'm just going to add the video resources and a few links to some of the images she posted and extras.

Look through your Tuesday Tips book before your start your characters!
Quick reminders (these are pulled out of last class for students).
Straight vs Curve / Complex vs Simple / Big. Medium. Small
Balance your characters with their CENTER OF GRAVITY.

Always establish your LINE OF ACTION

Whether you're designing live action or animated characters you must apply these basics at all times.
Try thinking of which actors and actresses could play the role of your personally designed characters.

These are explorations of Thumbelina and Mr. Toad from Victoria Ying.
Briony Tallis (Actress Saoirse Ronan) from the movie Atonement was the reference for Thumbelina. She was young, naive, perhaps too young to understand aspects of the world, carried a bit of an outrageous imagination which would potentially get her into trouble. She decided to take advantage of her small mouth, short trimmed hair that wraps around her face, and exposing her forehead.

Now the actor Willem Dafoe wasn't referred to because of a specific character he portrayed. He does often play the villain type of character, a bit of a sleazycharacter sometimes, but he does look a bit like a toad doesn't he? The expressions he pulls have such a stretched feature he would work perfectly as Mr. Toad. A bit maniacal. 

The warning for this tip is to make sure you aren't making copies of the actor/actress of reference. Don't just caricaturize the reference, but design it to suit the character that you are designing. Use what is necessary to help flesh out the person you are creating.



Links to artists and other character design lectures below.
http://shoomlah.tumblr.com/post/64883393399/so-i-was-chatting-with-the-lovely-justin-oaksford
http://mayonose.tumblr.com/
http://shiyoonkim.tumblr.com/post/105993520463/old-style-guide-i-did-for-tangled-back-in-the#notes
http://shiyoonkim.tumblr.com/post/104343939843/this-is-part-of-a-lecture-i-gave-for-the#notes
http://jigokuen.tumblr.com/post/116933281475/some-notes-i-put-together-for-my-cda-class-just#notes

Week 3: (Part III) Limited Palette || Mood Boards

Homework #1: Limited Palette

-You are limited to using two colors that are complementary to each other and black and white for shading and tinting.
-It is highly recommended that you use references that are from nature (natural landscapes / animals). You will have more difficulty finding images with manmade subjects that suit this assignment, but it isn't forbidden.
-Have your two complementary colors and it's neutral underneath your image. We should be able to easily relate those colors to your image.

-It is recommended that you use paint/analog, but you may use digital if you'd like.
- Your painting doesn't require itself to be rendered as long as it is an accurate study of your reference image and use those two complementary images.

-It is also highly unlikely that you will be using the saturated/pure color of your chosen complementary hues. The image itself will consist of primarily very neutral colors, often colors have been mixed in with their complementary.

Homework #2: Mood Boards

RESEARCH!!! We are research demons so we expect to see a TON of research next week. Ideally you should be able to fill up two large black foamboards (no you don't need foamboards) or have 15+ tabloid pages FILLED with images and still have more stored in you computer that you couldn't show. Have everything printed by next week!

What you should research:
CULTURE and HISTORY:
Landscape/ Architecture/ Traditional clothing/ Photographs of lifestyles of that culture and time period/ Illustration and Artwork of that culture/ reference actors and actresses/ inspirational paintings and photographs/ Fashion/ Color palettes of that culture

In other words EVERYTHING!

If you have not used Pinterest before I suggest that you do. Researching and looking up/organizing photo will make your life a whole lot easier online.
Do not default to just Google Images. Go through Pinterest, Tumblr, Flickr, etc and you will always find different kinds of images in each search engine.

Researching for your project will create the bones of your images. No research will created a very hard to believe world and characters.

Week 3: Character Design (Part II-Celine)

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Higher than the Sky (Monkey King)

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drawing based on research (from San Diego zoo)

Word list of the character according to the stages of change in personality throughout the story.

Portraying character's personality through acting/ gestures

Bringing character to life through interaction with other characters.

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Phantom of the Opera

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Character sketch & studies based on other artwork and movie shots.

Simple color pass & notes on character attitudes

Greyhound "Dusty" design just cuz dogs are cute.

Not the best character line up. I prefer you guys coming up with something different than this.

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East of the Sun West of the Moon

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Hope these help and good luck!

Week 3: Character Design

Really great and inspiring interview of Bobby Pontillas,

Animator and Character designer at Disney

https://kr.pinterest.com/characterdesigh/
Great pinterest board with full of character design references

Minkyu Lee- Former Character Designer of Disney(Now Director/ Freelance)

Minkyu is one of the many artists influenced by Milt Kahl. Notice the ACTING of his drawings!



Matt Nolte-Character Designer of Pixar

Notice the shape relationship and interaction of the characters here.




James Woods - Former Disney intern and Character designer for Paramount Animation

He's just so cool.


Birttany Myers- Former Disney intern, student of Calarts

One of the few people who can reflect each character's uniqueness and personality just with a line-up



Annette Marnat - Freelance Character Designer (Hotel Transylvania, Moana)

One of the people responsible for creating such charming, simplified shapes.


Chris Sasaki - Character Designer of Pixar ( MU, Inside out, Dam Keeper)

One of the best example of use of abstract shape and innocence in the design.




Carter Goodrich - Demigod

Dang....




Nico Marlet - Demigod

Reason why we can't get jobs as character designer. I want his hands.




Glen Keane -GOD

Best example, inspiration, mentor of how animators can be the best character designers.
His approach is very simple, with just enough gesture and pose and a master of capturing emotion.




Shiyoon Kim- Character Designer of Disney (lead designer for BH6)

One of Milt Kahl influenced (slash Searl) designer alongside with Minkyu Lee.
Amazingly charming, simplified shapes without losing the stylization.

Some of Shiyoon's Note's on design:



















And that's it for now...!

Me and Grace will be uploading examples of our works soon too so keep your eye on!