Yngvill Thon Sørensen

“Appraise the issues relevant to character design in various contexts.”

The first and most important thing about character design is to manage to tell a character’s story without the use of words. Regardless of medium, target group or age, the character needs to visually communicate its personality, history and intent to the viewer. There are several ways of portraying and underlining a character’s personality. Taking basic human communication to begin with, facial shape and expression combined with body shape and posture will always give a pretty strong first impression and are important issues to concider when visualizing a character. Another important factor is colour. Having a basic understanding of how humans are affected by different colours and colour combinations can be a very helpfull tool. Not just putting together nice colours to get a pretty picture either, sometimes the “wrong” colour would be a more powerfull statement (i.e. giving a macho cowboy a pink hat). In addition to these things, props and accessories are great tools to underline what you are trying to tell about the character. They are good indications of the characters history, intentions or role in the story.

In order to use these things properly it’s important to really know the character and the story, and this is also where target audience, age and medium comes into the picture. It’s important for the artist to be aware of who she is trying to communicate with and take this into concideration before starting to plan the character.

How obvious the character’s personality is displayed will also depend on the age of the viewer. A child will need stronger visual clues to understand the personality and intent of a character than an adult. Which is why it often is neccecary to have a higher use of visual clichés when telling stories to children.

As for creating characters for different types of media, the same principles will apply, but the artist has to take into consideration how much of the character will be seen by the viewer. In a game you might just see the character from behind, or even only a pair of hands or a gun, the player also needs to understand what the things she can see is going to be used for. Movies are able to show the character from every different angle and in a much higher variety of poses, and this may pose a need for more subtle visuals. If it’s a play, the viewer might be quite far away from the actors and tiny details won’t be seen.

These are all important issues to concider when doing character designs, and though the same principles apply to every kind of character design it’s important to understand how to use human psychology and the workings of the differen types of media to your advantage in order to create a convincing character for any story.

“Make informed choises relating to the creation of artwork designed to meet professional requirements.”

This is demonstrated throughout the process of arriving at the final designs for my ICA submissions together with the explanations for my choises as written under the post for learning outcome 5.

ICA submissions:
http://yngvill.com/blog/?p=274

Learning outcome 5:
http://yngvill.com/blog/?p=254

“Investigate and synthesize visual research into the creation of original concepts.”

This is demonstrated in:

References page 1 of 1
http://yngvill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/page012.jpg
And throughout the process to
Alien polished page 2 of 2
http://yngvill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/page101.jpg
Where the research is clearly represented in the finished design.

“Evaluate and defend own work in the context of contemporary practice.”

When we first recieved the aztec brief it was all pretty loose and we could basically do whatever we wanted to. So in order to get the best possible end product and to keep my progress organized I set down some frames for myself to work within. I decided the story would be for a game with an adult target audience, and I started developing the character’s story and personality so that I’d know what I needed to communicate to whom ever would see it. Having these things set before I started doing any artwork gave me clear guidelines which prevented me from straying in all different directions and wasting time on work that wouldn’t need to be done.

Seeing that my character would be made for a game I needed to make sure that his personality and status was clearly communicated through his visuals. Subtleties can be difficult to pick up on when playing a game so I wanted to give him a clear silhuette to distinguish him from the other aliens when seen from a distance. His amputated leg and humped back clearly sets him appart from the others and will at the same time indicate a twisted or grotesque mind and personality. When seen up close, his damaged face will add to this impression.

I also needed to portray that this character is no heroic character. If I had left out the humped back, his injuries might look like they had been inflicted during battle. His twisted physique gives the impression of birth defects in stead. I  wanted to add to this by making the scars on his face look like scars from infection, and him being born with something equivalent to a split lip on humans, as opposed to scars from fighting. Having these things showing him as being physically quite weak will also indicate that no heroic deed or strength during battle will have earned this character his place as the kings advisor. To have come into this position he will have had to rely on his intellect, which in turn makes him much more dangerous to the humans than a brute or warrior.

His position amongst the aliens was something I also needed to make clear. In this aspect I had some very good guidelines to follow with respect to the brief. The bright colours used by the aztecs toghether with decorations made of prechious metals and feathers made it simple to choose a colour palette for the aliens clothing and jewellery. All I needed to concentrate on was to make the outfit look natural on thir bodies. The jumpsuit is something I imagine all the aliens will be wearing, and I wanted it to expose their chest which is the organ they use to feed on humans. For a human this would be seen as an overhanging threat, knowing that there’s nothing between them and certain death. At the same time as it would show the unafraid attitude of the aliens, exposing a voulnerable part of their body without fear of anything or anyone being able to harm them. As for the jewellery, this is something my character uses both to camuflage his injuries and to show his position. The mask servs ceveral purpouses. First off it shows his vanity, him not wanting to show anyone his grotesque face, but at the same time this is a symbol of him hiding his true face/ true intentions. It also makes it easier for the viewer to recognize his face from a distance. His staff, which is a ceremonial weapon, servs both as a symbol of his position and as a crutch, which again underlines his reluctance to show his weaknesses. All these above things make him a character with a clear part in the story, and whom is distinguishable from the other aliens and easily recognizable both in shape and colour.

I do feel like I’ve managed to reach the goals I set for this character. I think Ive managed to create a design that would communicate the personality and intent of the character to a potentioal viewer, and that it would be acceptable if working on a professional level in the industry. Technically I believe I’m able to communicate my ideas, and to improve in this area all I need is to do is to stay concious of the choises I make during my work process. I do however feel a need to improve my knowledge of anatomy and to better implement it into my work. I don’t mean to create more photorealistic or “real life” looking characters. Looking at Nico marlets character designs (img. 1 + 2) there is some really exaggerated anatomy there, but it is not wrong. There is a clear structure to the characters and the exaggerated anatomy, poses and facial expressions are helping to communicate the character’s personality and mood. I have a tendency to force anatomy into my drawings and go with what “feels” right in stead of thinking about it from the start. I need to get better at building the character up from the inside out, and take advantage of what I already know or use references if I’m uncertain. I’m also a bit afraid of exaggerations when I pose my characters and in they often end up with a vague or boring pose that doesn’t say much at all.  Aditionally I feel that I often get stuck on ideas too quickly. Allthough this is something I believe I have improoved at, I can still gain from spending more time at the sketching stage when creating a design. Comparing the evolutionary process of the the lead female character from Enslaved (img. 3 + 4) to my own I see that there is a much wider span from start to finish of Trip’s development. Taking time to go through these changes is an important tool to create the perfect character for any given project. And is especially important if one is working for a client. I think exploring a bigger variety of sketches from which to choose the final direction would be very beneficial to my work and improve the final outcome of my character designs.

Img. 1: Nico Marlet, How to train your dragon, viking designs.

Img. 2: Nico Marlet, Kung fu panda 2, character design. 

Img. 3: First sketch of Trip from Enslaved by Ninja Theory.

Img. 4: Final design of Trip from Enslaved by Ninja Theory

“Explore and evaluate the appropriate skills relevant to the creation of character design.”

Exept for the obvious skills needed to do a character design, like drawing, colour composition and souch, there are a few things that are very important to keep in mind if you want to be a character designer. When doing a character design you will always work from some sort of brief. Either if it’s a personal project or commissioned work you will have anything from an idea to a tightly written document to work from. The ability to follow a brief, no matter how much your creative spidey-sences urge you to change things up, is extremely important. Especially if you’re on a tight time budget. Although a client might be open to ideas and suggestions, most of them just want what they asked for (no matter how vague it might seem).

Having strict guidelines does not neccecarily mean you can’t be creative. However, being creative doesn’t mean you have to invent everything from scratch. This is where research comes in. Being able to do proper research and gather and understand references is extremely important. Even if what you’re creating is pure fiction, if it’s rooted in reality it will most likely be much more believable and accepted as something that could actually exist. On the other hand, if you’re creating a historically correct character, research is absolutely crucial.

Examples of research material and implementation into artwrok:
- Aztecs and Aliens – References – page 1 of 1
http://yngvill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/page012.jpg
- Aztecs and Aliens – Alien polished – page 2 of 2
http://yngvill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/page101.jpg

Another very important thing is to be able to create alot of quick sketches, thumbnails and speedpaintings to communicate your ideas clearly. If a client has a lot of choises, from which you can mix and match and build on, it’s easier to arrive at something that satisfies their expectations and wishes. If you work only for your self it is still an important part of the process, it’s a way to make sure you don’t get locked into one idea before you’ve explored other options and directions. I find that when I work this way I often end up at a very different design than I expected, but with much more confidence.

Examples of thumbnails and sketches:
- Aztecs and aliens – Alien silhouettes page 1 of 2
http://yngvill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/page022.jpg
- Aztecs and aliens – Aztec chief page 1 of 2
http://yngvill.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/page042.jpg

When it comes to producing the final piece of artwork after getting the design down, it can always be helpfull to be able to work in different styles and techniques, but the most important thing is to be able to clearly portray the character and make no doubt to what kind world he or she would fit into.