Digital Skills Acquisition - Character Deconstruction

Various character designers who have learnt and embodied the creative techniques of their predecessors all suggest that the best form of approach an artist can have towards character design is by viewing the silhouette and shape construction of a design before applying detail to their creation. As a reversed approach to this process I am keen to deconstruct the characters I find appealing from the artists that inspire me to investigate a potential formula or common occurrence that makes interesting and impactful characters for the purposes of animation and illustration. 

Above is a photograph taken from my sketchbook depicting a shape deconstruction I completed for both Trudi Castle and Fabian Mense’s character designs

What I did with my shape deconstruction analysis was to script my impression of the design by making remarks on how each shape interacted and the opinion I felt based on the combination. For example, more angular combinations of shapes such as squares and triangles are likely to result in designs that feel threatening and dangerous. Whereas characters that mostly use circles feel appealing and gentle in nature. Combining angles and edges together in one design is a sure-fire method of creating a potentially interesting character design. I will be keeping this new insight in mind when moving forward on this project.

Above is another photograph taken from my sketchbook depicting a shape deconstruction I completed for two more of Fabian Mense’s character designs

What the result of my research into shape forming production regarding character design is, is that I intend to take a series of shapes and turn them into a combination of elements to generate random character designs in a trail and error format. Once I have created a amount of shape combinations I am satisfied with I will take the strongest poses and design new characters as an interpretation of these exercises. From their I will continue to refine my designs until I am at a place where I am confident with applying the new software techniques that I intend to learn against my targets and goals. 

Moving forward I plan to continue my study and research in reflection to this shape deconstruction to refine my insight into character design conceptualisation techniques. A book I have in mind to read is ‘The Silver Way’ by Stephan Silver which outlines several approaches to character creation such as the methods I have discussed in this blog post. Thank you for reading I shall keep you updated as soon as possible.