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From illustration to character desing: critiques and tips please

By guha25 | Friday, April 3, 2015 at 11:20am
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The Daily Sketch

Hi everybody, im new here. I´ve been working on this piece during luch time in my job. Please feel free to critique my piece, but i also want to ask for some tips of what I have to consider to redraw this piece as a character design for animation.

http://sebastian-guha.tumblr.com/post/115738503076/i-ve-been-working-on-this-piece-during-luch-time

guha25's picture
Submitted by guha25 on

Hi, thanks for commenting

Some friends told me something similar about this drawing, that theres something in her torso that makes her looks "mature", but I can´t see it. So

it would be great if you could explain what do you think it is.

: )

jenseseart's picture
Submitted by jenseseart on

I saw the two drawings (both the original and the redrawing) and they are both good drawings. You have a strong sense of design and know how to make things believable. Below is my critique, but please take it constructively:

Since you had the intention of creating the character design for animation, there are some things you will need to think about as you plan things out:

1) Will your character be for TV or feature animation?

2) Who is your audience? (i.e. will it be general, children, adults?)

Based on the detail I saw for both drawings, I assumed that this would be more suitable for feature animation, or perhaps even a video game. But anyhow, once you've determined who your audience is and whether it's for TV/Feature, you will need to decide how many heads tall the character will be. On average, the human adult is about 7.5 to 8 heads tall. A character between 3-5 heads would be geared more towards children. The more heads tall a character is, the older the audience.

Another thing to keep in mind is caricature. Emphasizing/deemphasizing parts of the body will help add overall variety to your design, plus appeal and aesthetic.

But most of all, the idea is the most vital piece in any drawing. You can have a really well-developed and rendered design, but if there is no emotion or idea that the viewer cannot recognize, then the drawing is just an image on a document. You want to be able to draw out adjectives; not verbs. 

If I were you, I would definitely push the 2nd drawing even further than what you have done. Try playing around with the "hourglass" shape female figures have, hone in on where straight lines should be and curved lines should be, and "chisel" more into the drawing. Imagine the drawing to be a big block of marble that you just chiseled into. Keep "chiseling" so that you can discover new surfaces and shapes.

I hope that you experiment with these ideas more, and I hope to see what you come up with next :)