Extended Design: Designing the Hero Part 2

After drawing with graphite and ink, I scanned in the designs and began to draw completed characters which were influenced from both my sketches and my research. I also added colour to the lineart as to generate ideas for a colour palette. Comparing the colour so far, I came to a conclusion that the character had to have red in the design in order for the character to stand out as a main character. This didn't have to necessarily be the prominent hue however after using blue and green with the character designs, the red dominated the colour scheme making him stand out. With the lineart I really liked each design, the one that stood out most to me personally was the last figure. I loved the cheeky grin the pose, the hair and jacket. However for the target audience it needed to be simpler with the outfit, even though I loved the jacket, I knew I would have to get rid of the jacket if I wanted to be able to animate well. I also liked the facial features however they were to much like my original style, which is what I wanted to stay away from for this project. I wanted a mixture of Western and Japanese illustrative style, which is why I decided to continue to develop the middle lineart. The middle design was muted because of the colour scheme I chose, but apart from that the design worked well, he looked heroic with the hair and head band as well as the simple costume. I decided not to continue with the first design as his outfit and hair looked more like a secondary character which I would love to develop for a companion character. 

First design

From the middle design I continued with testing both the costume and the hair. I didn't like any of the costumes so far, I loved the jacket and as I stated earlier, animation wise I wouldn't be able to animate the jacket that well. I continued to draw a slight jacket just in case it clicked with some ideas for the final design. I did however like the hair without the little flicks of hair near the neck. It made the character seem slightly older but more heroic, I found that the flicks made him seem less courageous. I also found that the boots and laces needed to be simplified, as much as I enjoy drawing boots like these it didn't work with his character. I will definitely consider using these boots in the human companion designs as I believe this would work more successfully with a secondary character.

My next set of designs included simpler designs and colours. I decided to get rid of the rosy cheeks as even though they were a design choice, it made the character seem embarrassed all the time and that was not the approach I intended. I kept the blushed nose as I felt that it worked quite well with the design and facial features. The simple shape to the shoes worked so well compared to the previous design; I tried to add different hues for the shoes but I preferred a navy/grey colour rather than red and brown. Out of all the designs I preferred the last figure with the baggy pants and vest top, however I didn't like the hair colour that much, I wanted to go back to the original hair colour as I did love that desaturated blue, it was different and I believe it would work with the red.

Considering costume

Costume, colour and hair experiments

Here are the final designs of the main character, Cy (full name Cyrus). I changed his design quite alot compared to the previous set of development. I made the bandana ties longer with the aid of feedback from my peers which stopped it merging with the hair design. I gave more detail to the vest, making it lighter and darkening the baggy trousers and desaturating the shoes. I really like the final design, with the final design I was able to add the bagpack to his design. I didn't spend too much designing the bagpack as I wanted to look plain and simple however absorbing a touch of supernatural aspects, hence the addition of the eye. I wanted the bagpack to be able to carry as much as possible, like a bottomless pit, where the zip would rip open into a mouth as it took items into the bag. I also lightened the skin colour as it was too dark when matched with the clothing, making it abit lighter helped the red and blue of the hair stand out more to the audience. In addition I added an iris colour to the eyes, it made the character look finished. As much as I liked the black eyes, it made the character look like he was day dreaming or just gormless, I wanted the character to have a spark in his eye which is why I needed the addition of the irides. 

Final three pose turnaround

New and Old design comparison

Overall I really like my final design, it worked well with the shadow character and I also preferred the type of shading I had used on the designs. I would love to add this to the animation however this depends on the appearance of the backgrounds and time left near the end of the production part to the module. 

Dusk (Shadow)  and Cy (Main Character)