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Animator vs Reanimator
I had the opportunity to take an after-work character design class taught by some of the best artists in the studio, so naturally I jumped at it. In the first session we were encouraged to bring in characters from outside projects we might be working on; the narrator and accomplice in the Herbert West stories had been giving me problems so I decided to tackle him.
This guy is supposed to be a foil to West - a more or less nice guy who has a conscience and isn't as obsessed with reanimation but gets sucked up in West's pursuits despite his twinges of horror. Not exactly fodder for the most interesting design, but I wanted to make him appealing and as interesting as possible, visually, while not drawing attention away from West. I kind of liked where I was going before, and wanted to keep that sort of look, just make it better. First came the billions of thumbnails:
I liked the one next to which I drew West, and showed it at the next class, but the teacher looked at it pretty close to the end and didn't have much time to critique it much so unfortunately I didn't have many suggestions to work with – the conclusion was basically 'Hmm, that's a tricky one, innit?' I tried to come up with a full-body design to go with it for the next class, but this was easier said than done – everything I tried just looked like a poorly-constructed pillar of a guy with a bland head on top. Eventually one attempt was less pathetic than the rest, and I filled a copy of it in with black as per the assignment ... I got a few notes on ways to improve the silhouette but as for the design we were back at it being a tricky one. Grr. This week the assignment was to do a rotation and a few poses, which was great because that's been my bread and butter for the last five years (not counting stints in the layout and storyboard departments) so I reworked last week's pose a bit, rotated it, cursed baggy trouser cuffs (I need to research how they work and how to simplify them), and hashed out a few poses late last night, including this one:
I got quite a few good suggestions this time, on top of which just seeing the drawings projected on the overhead made apparent really obvious changes that had to be made. After class I went back to my desk, took a blunt Prismacolour to the rotation, and got these:
Not perfect, but progress! (I hope.) The class is over now so I don't have any deadlines or, thereby, much motivation to keep going with this guy, but should free time ever resurface I might be a couple steps ahead of where I would have been otherwise.*
Part of the problem with getting criticism is that I had a very clear image of who this guy is, character-wise, in my head (bland as he may be), but couldn't really communicate it to the teachers, who (with the exception of the wonderful Mr Deja) kept making him the oafish sidekick. I realized about half an hour after the last class ended tonight that what I was going for in the visual relationship between him and Dr West is, essentially, THIS. D'oh. This guy** is rather less dapper than Mr Fry, but the shapes are all there. Oh well, now I know.
*Unlike on my current animation test, which has been stalled at 'suck' since before the design class started. :P
**I really ought to invent a name for him... Suddenly Howard Phillips seems like the only possible choice.
This guy is supposed to be a foil to West - a more or less nice guy who has a conscience and isn't as obsessed with reanimation but gets sucked up in West's pursuits despite his twinges of horror. Not exactly fodder for the most interesting design, but I wanted to make him appealing and as interesting as possible, visually, while not drawing attention away from West. I kind of liked where I was going before, and wanted to keep that sort of look, just make it better. First came the billions of thumbnails:
I liked the one next to which I drew West, and showed it at the next class, but the teacher looked at it pretty close to the end and didn't have much time to critique it much so unfortunately I didn't have many suggestions to work with – the conclusion was basically 'Hmm, that's a tricky one, innit?' I tried to come up with a full-body design to go with it for the next class, but this was easier said than done – everything I tried just looked like a poorly-constructed pillar of a guy with a bland head on top. Eventually one attempt was less pathetic than the rest, and I filled a copy of it in with black as per the assignment ... I got a few notes on ways to improve the silhouette but as for the design we were back at it being a tricky one. Grr. This week the assignment was to do a rotation and a few poses, which was great because that's been my bread and butter for the last five years (not counting stints in the layout and storyboard departments) so I reworked last week's pose a bit, rotated it, cursed baggy trouser cuffs (I need to research how they work and how to simplify them), and hashed out a few poses late last night, including this one:
I got quite a few good suggestions this time, on top of which just seeing the drawings projected on the overhead made apparent really obvious changes that had to be made. After class I went back to my desk, took a blunt Prismacolour to the rotation, and got these:
Not perfect, but progress! (I hope.) The class is over now so I don't have any deadlines or, thereby, much motivation to keep going with this guy, but should free time ever resurface I might be a couple steps ahead of where I would have been otherwise.*
Part of the problem with getting criticism is that I had a very clear image of who this guy is, character-wise, in my head (bland as he may be), but couldn't really communicate it to the teachers, who (with the exception of the wonderful Mr Deja) kept making him the oafish sidekick. I realized about half an hour after the last class ended tonight that what I was going for in the visual relationship between him and Dr West is, essentially, THIS. D'oh. This guy** is rather less dapper than Mr Fry, but the shapes are all there. Oh well, now I know.
*Unlike on my current animation test, which has been stalled at 'suck' since before the design class started. :P
**I really ought to invent a name for him... Suddenly Howard Phillips seems like the only possible choice.