Character Design- Mary the Heroine

It was very fun researching the costume for this character.  Since "classical" pirates were around 1650s-1720s, I chose a german style outfit of a working class woman in that time range.  I had a hard time getting personality from my references (that were all paintings in that era) so I had a hard time getting her character.  You can see in my sketches I was trying to go for an in between of "Mother Bear" and "Crazy tough lady".

Concept sketches were also difficult, I wanted to show strength with dynamic poses but I kept going too extreme making my character very insane looking.  

My final piece, the heroine- Mary.  She's representation for all the mom's out there who has this superwoman inner strength but also the loving tenderness of a saint.  Really enjoyed pairing her up with my last character, Ape a pirate she feeds to help her get her baby back!  

Character Design- Ape the Sidekick

Ape, the comedy character/ sidekick was really fun to design.  He was basically a quick doodle that was surprisingly well received by my peers so I stuck with it.  I feel like I put myself into this character because I love eating and Ape is simply just that side of me! 

For Ape's poses I decided to play more with his silhouette because his shape is so fun and recognizable.   Usually I draw Ape and Mary simultaneously because they're a pair, heroine and sidekick so I wanted their poses to work well together.

Final artwork for Ape, the loveable sidekick.  He has a simple personality so I kept his design simple as well.  Of all the characters, he was the most fun to design because I wasn't used to drawing stylized things.  

All Together Now!

Character Lineup: Heroine, Love Interest, Villain, Sidekick.  Didn't really like the required order of lineup because it looks like Ape is Rat's sidekick when he's actually Mary's sidekick!  Maybe this is before Oliver was kidnapped.

This was the original lineup, the only character I kept the same was Ape.  As you can see from the pose below, I tried to change Ape's proportion to be more realistic but the design weakened.  

I was also tempted to make Ape wear a barrel instead of a shirt but I don't think they make barrels that size!

Vector Tools

Using the night time painting I have rendered realistically I created a stylized version using Photoshop's vector pen. 

I decided not to upload my first attempt at stylization which had a confusing mess of line art and flat shading.  I finally got the hang of it when I decided to commit to the flat graphic style using the Pen tool, paint bucket and gradient tool.

Mossy Tree Trunks

Tonal study completed in Photoshop, this is the daytime version.  Every time I walk home it feels like a journey, there's a bridge I cross, a dinky lamp and this never ending staircase!  Inspired by this experience I created this fantasy layout.

This is the night tonal, it was very quick to do because I have created a base tone for both paintings.  For the night time I adjusted the levels of the original base tone and added in a few areas of highlights/ shadows where appropriate.

I wasn't use to overlaying colour masks over my base BW tonal so the colours got muddied and isn't what the desired hue was supposed to be.  If I was to redo this project I would have done the day colours without a BW tone base.

Enjoyed working with the night tonal a lot more because the colour overlays was truer to the selected colour palette.

Anthropomorphic- Muzzle Character

 

Line up for Ram Linebacker.  This character proved to be much more challenging than expected.  Posted below are a few selected process work done rough and dirty in ink to get my ram to look less like a sheep.  My original character was supposed to be a bodyguard but the horns in my design was practically begging me to be used as some sort of tackling purposes!  

 

After figuring out the design for ram the poses came really easy, to contrast the Greaser Cardinal (post prior this)  I wanted a jock character that is also self absorbed for different reasons.  The most difficult pose was the running one because I was trying to manipulate the bone structure of a ram to move like a human would.  At the end I decided to simplify the joints so it has both human and sheep characteristics.

My original bodyguard design, even after watching several "Reality Club Bouncers" documentaries I still was unable to get a strong feel for my character.

 

Found the design of sheep nostrils to be very flowing and unique.  Also tried to have that sloping shape in the face of the ram. 

 

Quick gestures of the hooves by looking at taxidermic sheep. 

 

Experimenting with different types such as Merino, Drysdale and Norwegian sheep.

Rough lineup in preparation for a clay sculpture that I used as reference for the rotation.

Anthropomorphic- Beak Character

Greaser Cardinal Line Up
The cardinal was easy to design because the black design of a cardinal was instantly recognizable.  However I had to compromise the iconic cardinal crown to be combed down for the hairstyle that is typical of greasers in the 1950s.  If I was to redo this project I would enlarge head so the character fits with bird proportions. 

My greaser cardinal was inspired by the movie "Grease", mainly Kenickie.  Wanted to go for a vain and crude kind of guy.