Final Project: developing characters

 In May 2020, I have completed a class on Linkedin Learning about creating cartoon characters. You can access the course by clicking here. It is a 5 and a half hours long course created by Dermot O'Connor. I think this course gave me a great foundation to develop characters for my animation.

 Firstly, and most importantly, I need a list of characters that will appear in my project. My main character is an American Pit bull Terrier, but there are going to be a few more characters I need to develop. 

Here I made a mind map, of what sort of characters I need to create:

Obviously, the most important character is the main character from my animation, which is an American Pit Bull Terrier. I decided to name this character Sully. Sully is not a very common name for dogs, however it is the name of the main character from Pixar's "Monsters Inc.". I did not pick this movie because it was my favorite movie when I was little, but because I think the main idea of that movie fits well with the plot of my animation. I wanted to make a little reference to the movie, that would not be really visible, and I think giving my character this name is a good idea to incorporate that. In "Monsters Inc." the monsters seemed really scary to humans, but in fact they were not bad at all. This is an idea I want to portray as well, that some specific breeds are often seen as scary or aggressive, but they are not - they just look that way. 

I started by developing the main character - the dog. Firstly, I have to concentrate on what I am creating and what  I want to achieve. I want to create a cartoony dog, who is massive, therefore people can get scared when they see it, but it is a very friendly character. The part of the character that gives most of the emotion is, in fact, the face and this makes my task easier. I decided to build a massive-looking pit bull dog with a friendly, sweet face. 

When creating a character, it is very important to know the anatomy of the animal, what are its bones and its muscles and where are they placed. 

To create a sketch of my character, I have used this chart to familiarize myself with the structure and the placement of muscles.

American Bully Standard

I have also watched a video on YouTube explaining dog's body parts. The video will be attached below. 

Knowing this basic information, I could start sketching out my idea. The first thing I did after familiarizing myself with dog's anatomy, was go back to my Dermot O'Connor class on Linkedin Learning and remind myself what are the important things to remember when sketching. 

The first thing was to always remember I am not drawing something flat, but something that has depth, something that is three-dimensional. To achieve something like that, it is important to always draw a sphere instead of a circle and create lines to help myself visualize an object in 3D. 

To explain the difference better, I have created a quick draft of a do and a do not, when drawing a character.

I think this draft can explain better what is desirable when creating a character. 

Another thing to remember is to avoid tangent points. A tangent point is a point where two separate things intersect, but not go through. Those points tend to bring all the viewer's attention and they look odd. 

One more things to pay attention to, is creating both high-detail and low-detail areas. The whole image could not be a high-detail area, because then the viewer would not know what to pay attention to, however if the whole image is a low-detail area, then the character is simply boring. When creating a dog character, it is clear, thet the high-detail area will be its face and the low-detail area will be the body. 

Keeping those things in mind, the next thing I did was actually start sketching, remembering about three dimensions, perspective, dog's anatomy and making the face friendly. I used the app called Procreate for the sketch. In this app I chose to work on a A4 piece of paper and I used my favorite brush for sketching: Crayon Narinder. 

After a lot of time spent on experimenting with different face options, different legs length, I created this sketch: 

The next thing to do is to clean up a sketch. I usually do it by changing the transparency in the sketch, adding a next layer and drawing over it, creating just the lines I want to save. 

What I learned from the Dermot O'Connor classes, is that it is extremely important to not just go line by line, but to actually think what I am creating and how this line needs to look like. Should it be thinner than the rest? Should it be thicker? Is it a necessary line or should I get rid of it? This questions are very important when creating a clean version of an image. 

 
 This is the cleaned up version of the character. I think I did a good job on adjusting the thickness of the lines and making the image clear and appealing. For the clean up I used the Ligne Simple brush in procreate. 

I am very happy with the image I have created and all the knowledge I applied when drawing it. There are still many characters I need to develop and draw, but I think having one I am happy with, is a great start. 

I am going to create more character drawings of Sully, (front, other side, back) and I will update this post when I have them done. 

Here I have created an image of my dog character from the front:

I have also created a character of a dog-chaser. For this character, I have firstly googled villains from animated movies. I found out that most villains have very wide shoulders, that I definitely wanted to incorporate in my work. I also wanted the dog-catcher to be muscular and generally "big", because he is supposed to look scary and strong. 

I am very happy with how the developed character looks like. I think the drawing really portrays how I wanted the character to look like. 

The next character I have developed is the male owner of the dog. Once again I decided to give him very wide shoulders, to show he is a villain. I also wanted to make the character tall, to make it more serious. I also thought it would be really good if I added some smart clothes on the character, because it would also make the person look important. 

I think this character looks very serious and important and that was my goal. I am very pleased with how this character looks.