ISA #2, Design a Character Concept Art Page

For your 2nd Independent Study Assignment, we'll apply what you've learned about sketching the figure and head to a character concept 'style guide' page. This type of artwork is commonly used in the film and television, video game and animation industries.It usually shows the character full figure, as well as showing their head close up from front and side views. Here's an example of a typical style guide page:

We will use the video game development assignment you did for Mitch's course as a springboard for your character concept sketch. Choose a character from the video game you are developing for Mitch. If the game characters are very cartoony (i.e. do not have realistic human proportions) then you will need to redesign them into realistically proportioned characters. For example, if you chose a game like Super Mario, your characters should reflect the proportions of the humans who played the characters in the Super Mario movie.

Your assignment has four parts, which should each be sketched on their own page. 

Part One: Brainstorm sketching Fill the page with sketching related to the subject matter of the assignment. Try sketching your initial ideas for several different characters from your game. Think about the typography you will incorporate in your page design and try sketching some stylized letterforms, think about and sketch props, environments etc.

This is your 'In-class' sketch assignment for this week. Go to the dropbox for naming convention information. 

Part Two: Basic Shape Construction On the first page, break your character down into it's basic shapes. As you see in this example, sketch the whole figure using basic shapes of your own choice that reflect the appropriate size and shape of the character's body parts. To the side, sketch the shapes (as shown) and describe which part of the character's body they comprise (eg. "The Head: the head is constructed by combining a circle and a semi-circle to create an egg shape.") Remember to use guidelines when sketching your letterforms!

This is your 'Sketchbook' sketch assignment for this week. Go to the dropbox for naming convention information. 

Part Three: Thumbnail Designs for Your Character Concept Page Character concept pages are organized in many different ways depending on who is the designer and what the creative team on the project requires. In this case, you must include a minimum of one full standing figure and two heads; a front view head and a side view head. However, you are more than welcome to include additional figures, partial figures and or heads, as well as any props relevant to that character (eg. a weapon they carry). Create four thumbnail sketches on one page showing four unique ways you can organize your page elements. Google "character concept page" to see countless variations you can use as inspiration.  

IMPORTANT: your page must include the game title and a short description next to each visual element (eg. "Front view of head" or "Side view of head" or "Relaxed standing pose") Remember to sketch guidelines above and below all your letterforms!

The thumbnail sketches goes in the ISA #2 Dropbox. Go to the dropbox for naming convention information. 

Part Four: Your Final Character Concept Page Choose one of your four thumbnail sketches and develop it as a full page, comprehensive drawing. If you plan to add colour, take a photo before you colour the page. You can submit both versions, but the b/w version is the one I will be marking. Leave all construction lines visible for the face and the figure on the b/w version. You can erase them in the colour version if you like. here are a some examples of successful pages created by the last class of students:

The comp goes in the ISA #2 Dropbox. Go to the dropbox for naming convention information.