Concept Art Specialism

Early Development and Self Set Brief

For the third module of this year, we were given nearly entirely free reign to work on an area of the animation industry that most interested us. The options ranged from animation fundamentals to rigging to concept art. We were also given trial lessons in order to help us pick, which I found incredibly useful and cemented the fact I wanted to do Character Design. Below are the silhouettes I created in that class as well as a preliminary designs I sketched.

This design was one I worked with and tried to develop for a while as I figured out exactly what work I wanted to create. However, the further I went, the more I realised it didn't quite fit anymore as I decided I wanted to keep my designs animation friendly should I choose to pitch the project for a group project. 
So, I decided my project was going to follow the idea of a potential pitch for an animated show. That way, I could ensure I kept my designs simple yet appealing for an audience.

Initial Thoughts and Plans

After playing with a few different ideas, I came up with the idea of an adventure story centered around a party of animals that have all adopted the classic Dungeons & Dragons classes. I wanted to keep the animals based on woodland animals we might see here in the UK but that would be very easily recognisable anywhere. I ended up with four different main characters, allowing for the potential of extra side characters to be introduced throughout the series. They consisted of:

- A mouse barbarian

- An owl wizard

- A fox rogue

- A deer cleric

I was happy to play into a few widely accepted associations for my characters - such as owls being wise or foxes being sneak - so that they would be easier to immediately understand for audiences.

Character Development

Once I had my characters decided, I began to start with a few sketches where I was figuring out the accessories for the wizard. I wanted to make it obvious that he was a wizard but would still maintain the owl silhouette. 

For example, as much as I liked the hat and it did give him the wizard feel, it felt far too busy and also meant I lost the silhouette from the head feathers. So, I stripped the design right back to only the glasses and the staff from design 2 as well as a hood that a peer suggested. This all culminated in the design to the very right which was then further refined in his final character sheet.

Character Sheets

Once I had the designs finalised, I began work on making clean character sheets for them. These included a full body, turnarounds, expressions, and any props they might carry. This sheets are used to give a clean idea of how I would pitch them and can also be used as references when drawing. 

Other Characters and Sketches

Storybeat Concept