Character Design

The third week of the 2D-course was spent on developing a character from one of the thumbnails we created during the first week, we were supposed to hand in the original thumbnail, a construction drawing and one complete drawing that is the last step before clean up. (The close up of the face was one of the VG criterias).

For a real game project I am not sure if the character i chose is the most interesting one to develop, but for this course and the assignments I felt it was the best one. The main reasons why I felt that way is partly that we were working a lot with volumes and this character would let me add things that help to show that and mainly because of the challenge of the pose and draping fabric which is very difficult. I did at times regret setting myself such a high goal but I am glad I did and that I managed to do it well.


Character Background
What´s his/her name? - Artemis
Male/Female? - Female
Physical health/handicaps? Athletic, swift, agile, strong, light (leather) armor
Personality? Calm, nurturing and innocent but temperamental and vengeful, young in the terms of a goddess and therefore a bit childish at times. A hunter – determined, patient
Family? Distant family of other gods
Intelligence? Smart, somewhat unaware of the world outside the forests
History? Ancient goddess, protecting pregnant mothers, children, forests and animals since thousands of years, goddess of virginity and the moon and very much effected by it
Hobbies? Hunting
Friends? Animals, a bit of a loner when it comes to humans but not anti-social
Add more here that is of value: Bow, lyre, deer, hunting dog

An early version of the construction, you can see how I have placed the clothing on top of the underlying construction.

I know it is a lot of text but I will post my reflective assigment for the week as well.

I thought for a long time of which character to develop, finally I chose to continue working on my female archer, Artemis. The reason I chose her was because I felt it would be a challenge with the draping of the fabric and I could add accessories that would help show volume. I made several fast sketches to find a relaxed pose to develop but I decided to take this opportunity to challenge myself even more by choosing to position her aiming her bow at a 45° angle. I felt this character would give good practice working on volume, foreshortening and adding things on top of volume that flows with it. I have been trying to either feel or take the pose, imagining how she would feel and look and looking in the mirror to help with difficult parts as foreshortening and fingers.

I need to work on thinking in 3D and how to place clothing, so I thought this would be a good challenge for me. It turned out to be just that, however I think I managed to achieve what I wanted by implementing what I have learned these past few weeks. As I said last week I do not think I could have pulled this off in the beginning of this course.

Her style has been kept simple, with few details as I wanted to portray her as someone who spends all her days guarding the forests and hunting. Another reason for the pose was that it felt most fitting to show who she is, as her greatest interest is hunting. Her love for nature is shown in the choice of her accessories; it is also the reason why I have given her just a simple wooden bow and little jewelry with very simple design. The bracelets have been placed both to show her status as a goddess and to maintain the feeling of volume in a drawn character.

I wanted to keep her a bit young-looking as she is young compared to other gods and sometimes lets a childish side shine through. At the same time I wanted her to portray the wisdom and power of a thousands of years old goddess; therefore I chose to give her quite a strong nose and the expression in her face.