Art Test

I had to create a character using the concept provided in the brief. This concept was made by Sergey Kolesov who uses brush techniques in Photoshop. When i saw the picture I already had an idea of what i wanted and who the character is.

 After several attempts of drawing real life bodies, I gave up and decided to use my own process of making character. I always enjoyed using minimalism and thought to design a character using this approach. I ended up with this as my first character design:

The style can be made for an Indie game and still has that genre of action and adventure. The character covers his face with a cow skull to keep it mysterious and has a feathered cuff around the neck to give it more character. It can be related with the Native Americans cross with the civil war look due to the clothes. I wanted the character to have a gun, so i thought to give him a damaged but working pistol which can add a story to the character.

I wanted a Native American look but with a cross in the start when I first saw the picture to make it more interesting. From Sergeys picture you can roughly see the outlines of the pistol, the head, feet, etc. I used his picture to draw lines on top for where the shapes will be and then worked from there.

The front and back view were a bit difficult because I had to think about the proportion of his body to the mask and inside the mask for his head. Once I done the front view, the back was more simpler.

As well as the damaged pistol I also added a dream catcher to his belt that he can use to look into enemy minds. Dream catchers are used to catch dreams, a myth that's been passed down for generations. I decided to twist that myth for the character and show that the catcher can peer into the minds of future events such as if the enemies are planning an attack, he can use that catcher to look into one of the enemies minds to see what they're doing for a limited time and stunning the enemy as well.

I decided to give him one arm to make the character more interesting and have a bit of a back story. For the costumes I wanted it to be old or authentic in a way to relate to his history. I decided to work with cloaks and robes with a little design to keep it in the past. A purple gown for hot days, a hooded cloak with feathers round the neck for the winter and another cloak with a hood attached. I didn't want to change the characters look dramatically other wise it would not go with his theme of being mysterious in a way.

If I compared geometric shapes to line drawings then I would stick with the shapes as I can create my own style for characters using this technique. Line art is ok, but when it comes to the human body I can't get the proportions right and the hands are more difficult. I like the geometric design of the character because I can play with the moods with the shapes of shade and highlights. I can also exaggerate the character as well with the use of geometrics as it is easier to use than using brush line art.