Illustration and Visual Narrative - Task 1: Character Design Exploration
24/9/25-22/10/25 / Week 1-Week 5
Janice Cheah Pei Ern / 0376497
Illustration and Visual Narrative / BDCM / Taylor's University
Task 1
LIST / JUMP LINK
TASK 1 CHARACTERS
LECTURES
INSTRUCTIONS
Afterwards, I outlined the silhouette. For the colour scheme, I decided to
go with colours that relate to the beach as blue and beige colours give off
a calm and sophisticated look.
Cats are also known as animals who are greedy for snacks so I want my
character to hold a snack to show its love for food. I managed to found a
picture from Pinterest as a reference. ₍^. .^₎⟆
From the inspiration, I drafted out the character's silhouette using squares and outlined them afterwards. However, I changed the character's pose and make it more pointy after letting Mr. Hafiz review my work.
Figure 2.16 Pipe weapon from Half-Life
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For highlights, I use white and blue to draw it out then
select everything again to reduce the opacity and overlay it to
make it blend with the main character colour.
LECTURES
Week 1: During Week 1, Mr. Hafiz briefed us through the module
information and how Adobe Illustrator skills are more important during the
assignments.
Week 2: During Week 2, Mr. Hafiz explained to us about our first
task in which we have to design 3 characters using Adobe Illustrator. He
showed us how we can design our characters using basic shapes like circle,
square and triangle to show each character's personalities despite being in
the same species.
Figure 1.0 Different Body Shapes
Before going into Illustrator, Mr. Hafiz introduced us to the
Bezier Game where we got to test out the Pen tool and how to
control it.
Figure 1.1 & 1.2 Stages from Bezier Game
Afterwards, we attempt to use the pen tool in Illustrator to trace
out shapes. The Bezier Game helped a lot.
Figure 1.3 Traced out shapes in Illustrator
Week 3: This week, I learnt how to change the thickness of the
lines in Illustrator by following the slides posted by Mr. Hafiz. It really
helped me to make my characters more dynamic.
Figure 1.4 Width function to change line thickness
Week 4: I learnt how to use the LivePaint tool to colour my
characters easily just by making sure the lines on the characters are either
close enough or together.
I also learnt how to use the opacity of layer and overlay to add shadows and
highlights to make my characters more interesting.
Figure 1.5 LivePaint tool location
Figure 1.6 Opacity and Overlay location
INSTRUCTIONS
TASK
Final Characters
1st Character
For my first character, I was somewhat inspired by Scuttle, the seagull from
The Little Mermaid which has a quirky personality and self-proclaimed
expert.
Figure 2.3 Venti from Genshin Impact, he has a beret which showcases his
identity as a poet
Figure 2.0 Scuttle from The Little Mermaid
I also want my character to have a calm personality as it stays near the
seaside. To bring out the quirkiness, I decided to add a beret to my
character as characters with beret are usually poets or painters and they
are filled with creativity.
Figure 2.1 & 2.2 Seaside view & Beret
From the inspiration, I used a round shape for its body before adding
details to the shape and turn it into a bird silhouette.
Figure 2.4 From basic shapes to detailed silhouette
Figure 2.5 Outlined seagull with colour scheme
Figure 2.6 Final version of seagull
2nd Character
For my second character, I thought with doing a Halloween themed
character as it is the month of Halloween (when doing this assignment).
One of the famous Halloween stories is Frankenstein and I decided to go
with that direction.
I also thought of making my character cute instead of scary so I thought
of combining Frankenstein and a cat and used Momo from Infinity Nikki as
a reference of a cat standing like a human.
Figure 2.7 Frankenstein
Figure 2.8 Momo from Infinity Nikki
Figure 2.9 Cat drinking from carton box
From the inspiration, I drafted out the character's silhouette using squares and outlined them afterwards. However, I changed the character's pose and make it more pointy after letting Mr. Hafiz review my work.
Figure 2.10 1st silhouette & 1st outline
Figure 2.11 2nd silhouette
Next, I outlined the 2nd silhouette and transfer it into Illustrator.
For the colour scheme, I used pink and green as green will tied back its
connection to Frankenstein while pink makes it less scarier, creating a
constructed lifeform but with a cute twist.
Figure 2.12 Outline with colour scheme
Figure 2.13 Final version of Frankenstein cat
3rd Character
For my third character, I thought of creating one which has a dark
traumatic past. As I have been creating animal characters, I thought
of using lab animals as a reference as they went through cruel
animal testing experiments.
Figure 2.14 Rabbits as lab animals
I also got inspired to make my character to look like a warrior
like Bunnymund from Rise of the Guardians as what it has been
through will make it stronger and a survivor for staying alive.
Figure 2.15 Bunnymund from Rise of the Guardians
I also thought of adding a weapon for the character to hold.
After what it has been through will also make it has a
resourceful trait, using the items around it as a tool. I
decided to use a pipe as a weapon which it probably got when
trying to escape from the cruel animal testing experiments.
From the inspiration, I tried to make the head and body look more
triangular. However, it's body shape look somewhat similar to my
2nd character and too static so I changed some body proportions
and pose to differentiate it from the other character.
Figure 2.17 1st silhouette & 1st outline
Figure 2.18 2nd silhouette
For the colour scheme, I decided to use warm colours with gray to
show contrast between the body and the armour, contributing to the
warrior and survivor feel. After transferring the outline to
Illustrator, I also did some adjustments to the body and ears to
make it look more sharp and alert.
Figure 2.19 2nd outline with colour scheme
Figure 2.20 Final version of rabbit warrior
Techniques applied throughout Characters
I applied what I learnt during lectures about shadow and
highlights into my characters.
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Figure 2.21 & 2.22 Shadows on Character and Properties Panel
For shadows, I use black to colour out the shadows, then
select everything to reduce the opacity and multiply it to
make it blend with the main character colour.
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All Final Characters:
Figure 2.21 Final Characters
FEEDBACKS
Week 3
Specific Feedback: Two of the characters have quite similar dominant
body shape, different poses can be considered
General Feedback: Creating silhouettes may help to get a better idea,
refer to slides posted for further adjustments to the characters
Week 4
General Feedback: Use of pen tool for characters in Illustrator is
good
REFLECTIONS
Overall, I have learnt different functions, from the Pen tool to Live Paint
tool in Illustrator to create characters. I also learnt about using shapes
to show the personality of each character, using poses to make it more
interesting. At first, I struggled trying to use the shapes to design
characters and it didn't reach my expectations. I managed to do it after
reading the slides Mr. Hafiz posted and do research on characters with usage
of basic shapes. It was definitely a good struggle.
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