Character Design - Week 07

Here are some digital inks from last week's sketches of Fink Cretin. These were all inked digitally in Illustrator. I'm definitely getting better with the program. Each one took less time than the last. I think the 3rd one took only about 30-40 minutes. I love how clean the lines look. Next I have to learn how to get some variation in the weight.

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Character Design - Week 06

Homework was to pose out our characters, so here he is, your pal, Fink Cretin!

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I think on the clean up I need to shorten his left leg slightly

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I really enjoy this pose. Really showing what a little psychopath he can be along with his affinity for knives/razors

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This is my least favorite of the bunch. His right arm that he's pointing with is all kinds of jacked up. This one definitely needs some work.

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"Know that this molotov cocktail must be a stratagem, which, cunningly effected, will beget a very excellent piece of villainy!"

I'm going to clean this up in Illustrator this week. I'm also going to try to finish up the turn around for Fink's older, dumber brother, Runt. I want to start posing him out to. Hopefully I'll have those soon.

Character Design - Week 04

For our latest character design homework assignment, we had to do 5 point turn arounds of our own characters. We'll be working with these characters for the rest of the quarter. I decided to go with The Cretin Brothers. I've been wanting to work with them more, so I figure this would be a good opportunity. I'm hoping that by developing them further visually, I'll subsequently be able to develop their personalities and a story for them. I have a few ideas for them rattling around, but nothing solid yet. Anyway, here's Fink Cretin. This is the first full 5 point character turn around I've ever done.

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While I haven't drawn him all that much, I'm really having fun with Fink. This is actually the first time I've ever drawn him in any pose other than 3/4 profile. There were a few challenges, mostly coming from the weird shape of his head. I should have picked up some Play-Doh and sculpted a little maquette. I tried my best to get everything lined up perfectly. From the spikes of his hair, to his ears, to his nose, to his wings, to his crotch, etc etc.

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I'm not too crazy about the way he looks full frontal. I don't like the shape of his head, but it lines up on the turn around.
UPDATE: I think what would make this look better is if his face were narrower. I gave his face the same width as his 3/4, which isn't really necessary.

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This was the pose I started with. Classic 3/4.

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I like how he looks profile!

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This was a little bit tricky, but I think it looks pretty good. Interesting view.

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Not too much to say about this. Pretty boring.

I think I'm going to try and make another turn around before class tomorrow. I'd like to do Fink's neglected brother, Runt. I don't draw him nearly as much as I draw Fink. His turn around should be easier because of his construction. He's made up of more simple geometric shapes. Basically a big rounded rectangle on a circle.

UPDATE: At the suggestion of Aurorah Yarberry I decided to share the original sketches.

This first set was drawn on paper. I started with the 3/4 turn (2nd from left) and used that as the base for all of the other angles. It was a pretty good start, but not everything was lined up. I needed more guides to keep everything on level.

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This second set was done digitally. I started again with the 3/4 pose. I used the one I had drawn above and made a lot more guide lines in Photoshop. I used my original drawings as reference, but redrew 90% of it keeping in mind to make sure everything was lined up.

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There were a lot more guides actually, but because there were so many it was making things cluttered and hard to see/work. Many lines were so close to each other that they became confusing, so I just drew a few at a time and deleted them when I was done. This is actually a better idea of the amount of guides I was using.

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Sneaky sneaky

Just a quick gestural doodle I did to kill sometime before class started last night. This Fink Cretin, one of my own characters and one half of the Cretin Brothers.

Meet The Cretins

Here's a new painting I finished up last night.

It's 28x28 acrylic on (shitty) wood. I had some scrap wood laying around and decided to use it for a quick "eh, I'll kill a few hours on a Sunday" kinda piece. But the lousy quality of the wood and ruff, porus surface made it damn near impossible to get any kind of decent line quality. The original sketch seemed to have much more weight to it that got lost in the painting.

Here's a picture for size reference.

These guys are "The Cretin Brothers". The little one with the switch blade is Fink, and the big one is Runt. They kinda draw from the 19050s juvenile delinquent sorta culture. There's a bit of Ed Roth influence thrown in there (obviously). I first drew them for a T-shirt for my pals/black metal ska-punk heathens/freelance gynocologysts, Stuck Lucky

I've been thinking about developing these guys as characters to be licensed. You know, the whole creepy/cute, gothy-punky, Hot Topic-y sorta thing? I like those sort of characters, but they all seem to be girls (i.e. Emily the Strange, Ruby Gloom, etc), so maybe there's some room for boys. I'd like to do some more drawings with them and flesh them out a bit. Work in some personality. I don't mean to toot my own horn (at least not while anyone is watching) but I think these guys would make great looking vinyl figures.