Character Design and Turnaround
2021
Program: Adobe Photoshop
Time Spent: Approx. 10 hours
For my 4th class project, I wanted to branch out from the projects I had been doing so far and attempt to make something that would relate to my field of interest. I ended up deciding to create a character reference model for myself, as if I were a cartoon or graphic novel character.
Company info:
- Adult Swim
- adult-oriented nighttime programming block
- aesthetically experimental, transgressive, improvised, and surrealist in nature
- "a collection of smart animation for more... grown-up tastes"
Audience info:
- The typical demographic of Adult Swim (teenagers to young and middle-aged adults). More catered, however, to those who enjoy animation, especially stylized and avant-garde shows.
demographics: ages 18 to mid-30's, any race and gender, all areas and locations across the U.S., more catered to single or adult-composed demographics than families
psychographics: those who like...
- Adult Swim
- adult-oriented nighttime programming block
- aesthetically experimental, transgressive, improvised, and surrealist in nature
- "a collection of smart animation for more... grown-up tastes"
Audience info:
- The typical demographic of Adult Swim (teenagers to young and middle-aged adults). More catered, however, to those who enjoy animation, especially stylized and avant-garde shows.
demographics: ages 18 to mid-30's, any race and gender, all areas and locations across the U.S., more catered to single or adult-composed demographics than families
psychographics: those who like...
"nerd culture" (comic books, animated shows, video games)
Pop culture outside of that of the uber-modern 2018's to present day
Expressive 2-D animation and the more nuanced facts of the industry
Trends and references from decades past (70's through early 2000's)
Underground, less mainstream and more "oddball" bands
Obscure media of the 90's and 2000's
technology level: basic technology, being accessible to anyone with a subscription of some sort to Adult Swim. May potentially be accessed, to some degree, through social media postings, though this would be on a much less composed and "professional" level
Project Description:
- Pitch Bible
- To give the producers of Adult Swim an idea of what a show involving this character would entail
- 2-D digital art, Photoshop, compilation of various character poses/turnarounds/expressions/color palettes/outfits/etc.
technology level: basic technology, being accessible to anyone with a subscription of some sort to Adult Swim. May potentially be accessed, to some degree, through social media postings, though this would be on a much less composed and "professional" level
Project Description:
- Pitch Bible
- To give the producers of Adult Swim an idea of what a show involving this character would entail
- 2-D digital art, Photoshop, compilation of various character poses/turnarounds/expressions/color palettes/outfits/etc.
In the end, I changed making an enitre Pitch Bible (as this would be near impossible to complete, given the time for this project and the fact that it would be a one-person effort) to just a reference sheet for said self-characterization.
A few new methods and concepts that I tried out when working on this project were modifying the Brightness Jitter slider in the Color Dynamics setting for Brushes (to get the splotchy variation in the colors). As well as this, each step of this project was done completely digitally, as I wanted to begin to branch out from the traditional sketches I had been doing.
While the differences between these two process shots may be slightly hard to distinguish at first, I added shading and modeling to the clothing and hair, so that the coloring didn't seem as flat. A few adjustments to sizing and proportions were made as well, with the main one being that I noticed the side profile figure was much shorter than the rest.
Finally, I tweaked the color filters and saturation filters, until I was satisfied with the final results. Of course, I also updated the reference colors to match the edited hues. For authenticity, I used my logo branding in the top corner.
Overall, I'm fairly proud with how this project turned out. Although I initially wanted to flesh out this reference more, adding alternate color palettes, outfits, expressions, and action poses, I ran into a few extenuating and personal circumstances. If I were to revisit this project, I would start by tweaking a few consistency errors that I notice after finishing, such as the hands, coat, and hair not being in the same position/at the same length or height for each pose. After fixing these issues, I would add the aforementioned components that had to be dropped.
