Character Design

Another post another assignment.

This time the assignment was about character design.

I really look forward to this assignment, always when I have work so far I have been lacking of concepting

and drawing my ideas. This time I was forced to do it.



The criteria:



1: Find a piece of text from a pre-1960 story about gangs.



2: Be influenced by this chosen text to design a character that looks part of a 'gang' of other characters.



3: Present your final character design in a model sheet.



4: Model a minimum of three accessories from your character design.

One accessory must be footwear (or barefoot).



6: In the model sheet include renders of accessories ( 2d and 3d elements)

and visualization of character analysis.



7: Complete a minimum of one (1) full color hyper-linked reflective journal post

with criteria outlined number 4 below and here.



1: FIND THE STORY



Well this part turned out to be the hardest. "What do I want to make?" and "what is a gang?" I defined "gang"

like a group of people doing or believing in the same thing or got together for some other reasons.

The thing is they are together, like a group/gang.

Do I want to make mafias? no. to cliché.

What about gangsters? Was there so many hardcore gangsters in 1960 that wasn't mafia?

pre-1960? That means we can go further back right. What about a stone age gang? Indians? Social communities? Book club?















Allot of good ideas but what I ended with was a World War II dog fighting group.

What made me pick them?

The dog fighting gang filled most of my criteria. They existed pre-1960. They had allot of cool accessory and looks.

They got an interesting story and there is easy to find information about them.



The main source of my knowledge.

http://www.354thpmfg.com/

Since there was allot of fighting groups in the World War I decided to pick especially one "The 354th Pioneer Mustang Fighter Group"



The problem here is that, there wasn't a special piece of text describing them.

The text about this group contained more about the war, there missions and what they did under the world war, what they used but not too much who they were.



"The 354th Fighter Group existed on paper only from the 15th to the 23rd of November 1942 and, on the latter date, the first personnel were assigned to it,

the first assigned being one Captain and three 1st Lieutenants, all medics from the 20th Fighter Group. On the next day four T/Sergeants and twenty-four privates were assigned

and joined from Hammer Field. Our little bird was getting its feathers fast."



So there were some medics some privates. Not telling me much. What I do know is that they were mostly North Americans.

There is allot of pictures of the pilots on the homepage. So even though the text isn't describing them I can look at them myself.

 To conclude this. I don't have any specific text but more overall taking information from the whole page and story line.

                

2: Be influenced by this chosen text

As said earlier, there was no "text" and I let myself get influenced by more than just one factor.

When reading the story and watching the pictures I figured

"This guys need stamina and a large amount of attitude to survive this"

The pilots of 354th Fighter Group were often used as escort for the big bombers. Since they flew the new mustang plains, they were the only one to manage such a distance "from Britain all the way inn to Berlin, fight there then flew back again"

The problem is, all this is mental not physical and doesn't show on the character. When i read the story I build a image in my head about this characters.

Brave, strong, intelligent, skilled. But when i look at the images they were all regular men. All taken from different groups mashed together to form this fighting group.

They were privates and medics, some with children and a wife back home, some not.

 So the idea for my character is this:

I want him to be small, because that gives him character.

I want him to have a bit of a South American, Mexican look. Maybe his parent's origin is from there somewhere.

Since that dark hair, and ruff look matches well my impression of a dog fighter.

I want him to have a reason to join the group and that is his father was fighting in the First World War as a pilot,

and he follows up in the World War 2 in the same footsteps.

The pilots is often stuffed with gear that's needed, not giving to much room for changes. But I want to put in something that gives him a unique look.

Maybe some tokens from his family, of who he is, for what his fighting for or something.



Drawing

I had already before the assignement desided to do this in photoshop, but still I did a couple of sketches on paper since the early early rufs are often easier there.

When I got a general look of what I wanted I recreated that in PS without scanning in the paper work.

After the rough sketch I went over it with fine lines on a new layer.

 So here is the character. But he looks boring. And he needs more stuff. The silhouette isn't interesting or appealing to look at I need more details.



3 Present your final character design



Not much to say. I followed the impression I got from the text and mixed them with the reference images I found.

With this references I added more details and lifted the character to a whole new level.

A character with a lot of details and a interesting shape always gets more appealing then a boring one, like my first sheet before I upgraded it.

The upgrade were simply done with watching images and painting black lines on a new layer. Then cleaning it all up and collapse it to the main "line" layer

The final Model sheet needed to contain 3 views of the character, Front, side and back view. Only the front view needed color render.

The back part was the easiest to do after I got the front done. I selected the whole body and flipt it.

Then erased all the details in the core of the drawing and then added details for the back.

The more tricky one was the side view. The best trick I found to work was shaping in the bigger forms with help from the guide lines that you can find in PS.

After that was done it was all about adding the details again. A taunting task but well gifted when done.

The coloring process were fairly easy. I found a color image of some WW 2 pilot gear and just used approximately the same colors.

Having the images floating on my sheet and just using the color picker to get what I wanted.

I must admit, I don't know if the US army have had that much color theory. I think Army gear is more maid for "not get seen" then "hey here is me, look interested!"

            Jamie k. Field posing gladly with his pilot gear.



Profile:

-Jamie k. Field

-38 years old

-His origin is from South America. But under World War 1 his family moved to North America.

-He got a wife back home and 2 children. A boy and a girl.

-He started his carrier as a medic, later got recruited to the Pilot group.

-As a quick learner he picks up fast and was in the air in no time, he's father, that was a pilot himself might have an influence on this part.





I hope the viewer can recognize this character as a pilot. Maybe not exactly WW 2 but at least a pilot from that time period.

I think the viewer can struggle with placing him in a special group of pilots since they look really much the same.

Only think that might hint is a logo from there group.

But as long as they can read it's a pilot from around the right time period I'm fairly happy with what I have made.


4 Model a minimum of three accessories



So the design is set all that's needed now is to model 3 parts of it.

One of them must be footwear so why not just start with that.

I already had a good idea of how this one was going to look. I followed the consept, but in the end I wasn't too happy about the result.

I got some feedback on the model and figured I should do some changes.

Instead of a flat sole, as in the concept, I when with a more dynamic shape. Adding more realism to the object.

I also removed the bolts at the toes because it made it look too much like a builder boot.

The second model I wanted to make was the goggles, since they are really characteristic to the pilots.

Also here I went a bit outfromt the original consept. The consept drawing were more just default goggles, I wanted mine to have more story behind it.

So I made him a pair of his father's old goggles, giving it a more interesting look.

The last model I'm making is he's armband with the high pressure clock on. It might be hard to see since we were not to texture these models.

But it's the clock on a leather strap with fur along the edges (were to be made with alpha maps on planes and a dollar)

"money" wrap between the strap and his arm hanging for represent his nationality.

CONCLUTION

I have really enjoyed this assignment. I have learned a lot when I comes to drawing, something I need to give a lot of credit to the teacher for.

I have never been a painting person, but after this assignment I have started enjoying it and will for sure keep drawing.

The good part is that, drawing was exactly what I was hoping to learn more about this year.