After doing so much personal work and getting through other modules that demanded my attention, I went back to my character designs and tried to redraw Mary in the same way.
On the left is the original character design I did, and the middle and right drawings are what I tried to draw now. I realised the design wasn't really intricate enough and just didn't look right with my current style and methods. I realised I would need to create a whole new set of characters, otherwise I knew I wouldn't be happy with how they looked. I also knew they weren't very historically accurate and I needed to do more costume work, so I decided to do that too.
Again, I started with the main character, Mary. I started with a set of different heads, trying to figure out how I wanted her to look. I knew I wanted her similar to the original facially, but I wasn't sure what type of face shape and hairstyle I wanted. I decided on the bottom left design, because I felt connected to her the most and she seemed to fit into the era the book is set in (the late 1800's) the best.
I then wanted to do some costume designing to try and figure out what would look best for her. I looked at this website[30], as it had a lot of reference images. I really enjoyed looking through them and trying to make clothing for the characters. I started with Mary.
I used what I learned from 'The Art of Big Hero 6'[8] book where there's a set pose and clothes were drawn over the top. I wanted to try a few different dress types, one being lacy and frilly which I didn't think fit the character as well, the middle one being a bit simpler and plain, like how she's described in the book, and the third one had a lot of pleating which seemed much too busy and would be quite difficult to animate. I picked the middle one, as I wanted the clothes to represent her.
This character design is worlds away from what she was. She's so much more lively and has much more character, with her hair being wild and her pose. I feel my gesture drawing practise helped this as well. I liked the way I coloured her too, with a lot of texture and not too much shading. I learned that over my personal work journey, so I'm glad it's showing through in my current work as well.
So after Mary, I started work on the two boys. I started with Colin.
I wanted him to look grumpy and entitled, like his character. I tried a lot more variation to his face shape and overall look, and decided upon the middle right design. I liked the way his face shape was completely different to Mary's very boxy look, which would give them completely different silhouettes.
Here are Colin's clothing samples. I wanted him to look rich and like he has a lot of money spent on his clothes, as I wanted Dickon to look the opposite because his family is poor. I really wanted him to look opulent, so I gave him a lot of tailored layers. I decided upon the final design, because I liked the contrast of the different shades, having some very light and some very dark.
Colin goes outside in a wheelchair and isn't seen standing up until very late in the book, so I decided to draw him in a wheelchair for this picture.
I really like the way he turned out. I enjoy the different textures and the contrast of the colours. I gave him a blanket over him like he has in the book. I also tried to keep the different shades of grey, instead of making his clothing a certain colour, because I really liked the way the shading came out on the costume sketches. I am leaning much more towards black and white now I've been doing it for a while, so I may end up changing how these look in the end.
Then came Dickon, who has a completely different personality to the two previous characters.
Dickon is a much happier and more jovial character. He loves nature and is quite a free spirit, so I wanted to try and indicate that in his design, making his hair a bit more wild and his expression completely different.
Again, looking at the Victorian clothing, I wanted to make Dickon look much less uptight and rich than how Colin looked. I wanted him to look scruffy and have a slight disregard to his appearance, because he's so much more involved with nature and how his animals feel. This is something I wanted to show with the flow and overall rhythm of his clothing. I picked the last design because I felt his clothes are probably hand-me-downs, and so he would need something to keep his trousers up and they would be a bit of an odd fit.
He's supposed to have red hair, so I enjoyed giving him freckles and a more reddish tinge to his skin. I gave his character an overall red/brown colour palette because of his association with nature, and I feel it works well.
After Dickon, I decided to start playing around with environments again, because I was starting to get more of a feel for the overall style I wanted, and I wanted to see how it would translate onto the page.
Redoing My Environments and Finding My Style
Here was my first environment trial after a long break from it. I wanted to keep it really simple and only have certain shapes, so I could focus on textures. I used charcoal brushes and pencils to create the majority of the texture, and an actual stone wall brush for the wall. It looks a bit out of place, so I decided after this picture I'd stick to creating the textures myself, because it doesn't look right.
I made it in black and white first so I could try my hand at lighting again. I feel I did a pretty okay job creating the contrast and I feel it does have the depth I was looking for, but it was quite difficult. I feel I needed to pin down a light source before just laying down values in future, as it took a while to make it look like the light was all coming from the same place.
I then tried to colour the piece, because at this point I was still playing around with keeping the backgrounds in colour.
The colours didn't feel right. I didn't enjoy the way the textures and the colours mingled together, and that may have been because I did the textures first and overlaid the colour second, but I just felt I preferred the first version of this much more than this version. I decided then that I would change the way I was going to colour my pieces, because I connect so much easier with black and white at the moment.
I decided I would start doing selective colour, only adding colour for the areas where I want the audience to pay attention to the most. This is going to be a challenge, and getting values correct will be much harder with only grey scale to work with, but I'm willing to try and challenge myself and see what I come up with.
I did another forest scene, as I wanted to correct some things I felt went wrong, like the grass and the trees, and I added Mary into the scene with the Robin. I made everything black and white except for her hair, the flush to her face and the robin. I feel this does really draw the eye into her, and the different values of white, black and grey really look appealing to the eye. I love the way texture has been achieved and having a mixture of flat colour as well as texture, to balance the composition.
I tried to give the composition a foreground, middle ground and background, and made it so the values go lighter the further away they went. I think this really helped create the depth I was looking for, and the texture of the trees and clouds gave interest to what would be pretty boring areas.
I tried this technique on a different composition, this time using a previously draw area and trying to change it to fit this style.
I was very happy with this piece when I first did it, but now I feel like it doesn't have the same punch that I wanted it to. I also feel it would look really interesting with the different layers of ivy in black and white. I also feel I didn't really add too much extra interest to the picture, so it's a bit flat.
After drawing it again, I feel like it's got a completely new lease of life. I flipped the values on this one, making them go darker the further away from the camera they went, and I feel that really looks interesting. I knew I wanted the ivy to be the darkest part, so I needed to balance the values out somehow. The off white bushes in the front give balance to the composition.
I added a lot more detail to this picture. It has so much more depth and intrigue for the eye to look at. I really love how it came out, and how the selective colour really focuses the eye and makes you see the most important parts first. I added highlights to the wall, door and floor as if there was a break in the clouds and light was piercing through. I think that also helps to focus the eye and makes the blue stand out even more.
I'm so glad I've decided to change the design and method of these pieces. They feel so much more successful to me, and I'm really excited to see how it translates into future pieces too.
I have a lot of trouble drawing architecture, it's definitely one of my weaker areas. But I do like how this one turned out, and the way the texture adds to it. I tried to make the shading consistent all the way through the piece, and it is successful in some areas but could've perhaps been a bit less scattered. I feel the shadows on the grass especially are a bit too textured, so it doesn't look like a proper shadow.
I wanted to play with the sky and see how a darker, more cloudy sky would look. I made the hill on the right a lighter colour to push that further into the background.
I feel this perhaps isn't the most successful piece, but I have learned much more about values and composition and can take that into the future with me.
So after doing many black and white images, I decided to try and draw the garden, which I want to be in full colour so it juxtaposes with the dullness of the outside world.
I wanted to have the differences between the black and white and the colour, so I decided to frame it looking through the door into the garden, so I could have the mixture all in one image.
The garden in the book is supposed to be overgrown and messy, and have trailing rose bushes strewn everywhere. I tried to give a sense of that by adding the bush of different weeds and normal flowers on the left, and having the roses trail over the trees and back wall. I added the broken off branch in the middle because that was how Colin's mother supposedly died, falling from the tree on the branch.
I really like the comparison of full colour and black and white, and I feel it does represent what I want it to, which is that Mary thinks the entire world is dull and boring and she hates everything, but the garden represents freedom and joy and the thrill of keeping a secret. The bright colours help accentuate that feeling I think, and it does show what I want it to show.
I am really pleased with how this one came out, and am looking forward to doing more of my redesigning of the character.
Continuing With My Character Redesigns
So after decided to make my work selective colour, I had to go back and try to create my characters with that in mind. I started with Mary, because I had already made her into selective colour for my recent pictures and I wanted to draw her in more poses to try out my gesture drawing skills.
I feel my gestures have come along much further than they were at the start of this project. I felt I could draw her posture much quicker and easier now I have built up more of a visual vocabulary of gestures. It definitely needs more work, but it's looking much better than it was.
I also wanted to try different expressions, and I think I did well with them. I wanted to try annoyance, anger, shock and disgust, and I think they do speak for themselves.
I really like the mixture of the colour and the black and white. It looks really interesting, and gives much more focus to her face. I think that will hopefully really help in telling the story.
I think went onto Colin and Dickon, giving them the same treatment.
They also look really interesting in black and white. I really do enjoy how they look in this style, and I think they'd fit into the world I've created well.
After making these characters in the way I wanted to, I decided to create a few more characters. I wanted to make Martha, the maid who is also Dickon's sister, and Ben Weatherstaff, the old grumpy gardener. I wanted to make these characters because they were different from the original three; Martha is a kind but spirited young woman with more of a rounded figure and obviously would be wearing a maid's outfit, and Ben is much older and I imagine him to be quite rotund, which would be completely different to how I draw the others as they're all quite lean.
I started with Martha, and did the same thing as I did with the others. I started with a face sheet.
Martha is described as having a rounded face and kind eyes, so I wanted that to come across in my designs. I really liked the first design I did, so after trying out a few more designs, I went back to that one at the end and fixed the nose as I felt it didn't really show her personality. I then chose that final design because I felt it was exactly how I wanted her to look.
I looked on the website from before again, and drew up some simple designs for her maid's outfit. I knew I wanted her to have some kind of frills on it because I didn't want it to be really super simple, and so I decided on the final design. I really liked the ruffle on the top and having a shorter apron. I felt this suited her better.
I then coloured her, knowing already that I wanted it to be selective colour so I didn't waste my time. I wanted her to be red headed like Dickon and have a flushed face with freckles, so the audience could see the family resemblance. I really enjoyed her design, and feel she would go with the other characters.
I feel the way I draw eyes and facial features has come on a long way recently and the eyes especially look as though they rotate with the face a lot more. I am glad my practise is making my work look better even on things I don't really realise I'm practising.
Next up was Ben Weatherstaff.
I definitely knew I wanted him to look larger and older with lines around his face. I wanted him to have a larger nose and a more weathered face, so he would be a good contrast to the other more youthful characters. I also gave him a flat cap like he had in the book, and played around with different facial hair.
I liked the top two designs the best, and they look pretty much like the same character just with different noses, but I preferred the more rounded, squiggly nose of the first design. I took that face and tried to add the costume to it as I did with the others.
After looking at men's fashion in the Victorian era, I saw a lot of men still wore suits and waistcoats when doing manual labour, so I decided to put him in tailored clothes. I wanted to see how different combinations looked, so I tried just a waistcoat and trousers, adding an apron and having a full jacket. I felt Ben would be the kind of person to be able to hack any weather and not want to get too hot and bothered by a full jacket, and the apron made him look a bit too much like a butcher, so I decided on the first design.
I then made that design into a selective colour picture, cleaning it up and making it look more professional as I did with the others.
As Ben was older and would've had grey hair, I had to improvise with the selective colour for him. I decided to make his hat colourful, as I felt he would've looked too plain with just the flush of his face being in colour. I feel this worked really well, and the textures add a lot of interest to his character.
So after creating all these characters, I wanted to do turnarounds for their faces, because I felt that was a bit lacking in my drawings. So I did a front view, profile view and back view of all the characters I created, so I could work out how their faces would look in 3D space.
This exercise really did help me to see how their faces would work when turned around. I found it quite hard to visualise how profiles would work with their rounded or more sloped faces, but it seemed to get easier as I went along. I feel now I can see the different angles of their faces, and how the planes of their faces would react to different camera angles.
I am so much happier with how these characters have turned out, and I feel much better with how the style is looking. I want to try and create my storyboard and animatic now and see how they turn out with these new characters.
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