Exercise- Character Development

In this exercise I’ve to draw up a character multiple times from different views and with different expressions to show a clear sense of who this character is. The character can come from life or could be a character from a book.

I started by making a collage of a few images I had collected from magazines and newspapers etc and categorised them as to what they were to start looking at some character inspiration.

My first character I decided to do is a character from a book named ‘The Hollows’  The characters name is Remy and the story is set in post apocalyptic times and the world has been overrun by zombies and Remy is one of the survivors. So my character is inspired by her and based on her book description. In my sketchbook I started to draw out some things that would work for her character such as clothes and how her hair should look.

 

Here’s my first character sketch, coloured with pro markers and some coloured pencil.

A watercolour variation which I didn’t like at all so just stuck to the pens.

Trying out some different facial expressions and different moods she may be feeling sadness, anger, hostility, shock etc

some quick action sketches of different movements she may do.

My second character I decided to base off of witches after being a big fan of the TV series ‘charmed’ I wanted to make this a slightly more traditional witch in the sense of pointy hats and black clothes rather than a modern day witch.

First sketch of a witchy character.

Different facial expressions and playing around with the colours.

I actually really enjoyed this exercise and would like to go back to it in the future and develop my characters further and finesse the drawings into something a little more professional. What I learnt from this exercise is the importance of having a good understanding of figure drawing, It’s been a while since I have done life drawing and I found my figure drawing skills to be a bit rusty so that has spurred me on to get back into it! I think I have met the criteria of the brief as I have drawn and developed two different characters and enjoyed the process of creating different outfits and personalities for them that I’m pleased with. I think It’s part way there to being successful works, I think the drawings need to be a little bit more polished before I’m completely happy with them but with some refinement and tweaking I think the two drawings could look really good! If I had to improve or could extend the project I would finish my characters and try putting them in context and with other characters and try putting them in their story setting. To improve on any weaknesses it would be to start doing figure drawing more frequently to help with body positions and posture. This exercise has definitely inspired me to start doing the type of thing more often and doodle some more characters in my sketchbook more often! After looking at my tutor feedback I added in some more sketches of my characters, more of a 360 view so I was getting more practice at drawing them and binging them to life.