Chapter 3 Assignment
Chapter 3 Assignment
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Fundamentals of Character Design

Chapter 3 - Visual Association

Chapter 3 Assignment

603

Chapter 3 Assignment

603
Using what you’ve learned about visual association, you’ll be designing 3 barbarians, 2 female, and 1 male. Each character should fit an archetype. One should be routine and orderly, but also timid and shy. Another should be a proactive and aggressive leader who is also selfless and warm. The final barbarian should be a kindhearted peacekeeper that is also slightly sadistic and cynical. You’ll also design 3 props to accompany each character. Take into account the character’s personality and the shapes that define them. I’d also like you to do 10 pages of coffee shop sketches, this time really focusing on shape design. You might want to try being a bit more cartoony and stylistic.
Newest
Jason Hald
2mo
big female (routine and orderly, but also timid and shy) small female (kindhearted peacekeeper that is also slightly sadistic and cynical) medium male (proactive and aggressive leader who is also selfless and warm)
Rachel Dawn Owens
Cool charaters!
Cédric Legault
Hi, This is my barbarian project! I started with the big guy (middle one), after a few sketches, I really like the final design. But I started to struggle when I had to make the other characters fit in the same world... At the end of the day I actually quite like the final trio, but if you have any advice to keep a certain "vibe" throughout any drawing I would be very thankful! Thanks! and don't be shy to critique!
Andres Torres
I’ve never not drawn a more realistic/ anime style so this was…different…
Mark Bustin
My barbarians for the visual association assignment, how did I do with this @David Colman ? My process: started by defining what barbarians are, writing important things down. Then dove deeper into the character descriptions, adding notes that I thought suited the personalities, trying to figure out WHO the characters are. And finally, trying to figure out how I show these personalities with shapes as you taught in the demo. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how I went. I kept the style that you referenced in mind and aimed in that direction. Thanks heaps :)
Genivieve LeDuc
My Barbarians...
Sita Rabeling
Great!!
Adam Chabros
So, lemme say what I was trying to do while drawing the characters. They are drawn in the same order as in assignment. So, first one should be "routin and orderly, but also timid and shy". To show first part I try use some symmetrical cloths design. The second part I try to show by pose and expression. Additionaly I try using more roundness in shapes. Second character should be "proactive and aggressive leader who is also selfless and warm". I try use more sharp edges to show his agrresive part, composing him in triangle, trying give squer feeling for his warm part. The third one should be "kindhearted peacekeeper that is also slightly sadistic and cynical". Maybe it doesn't feel like "kindhearted" but I try to show this cynical and sadistic part by face expresion. I try make her more slim with triangles and asymmetric to show her less predictable nature, perhaps even a dodger. The inked version is "finall" one but I want to show first sketches as well. They may be better in some point of view but I thought they may not be exactly what I want to show. For example the sadistic one - as a sketch I really love result but is too much in "my style". I want make them more cartoon so forms will better seen. Next example is the agrresive one. I want him to look big, very big, so I need to put him near the rest, so he stoped looks like dwarf. And that's all what I want to say about my attempt.
Jesper Axelsson
Nice! I haven't taken this course, but I'll look for some general drawing stuff that might be useful: - I think the two outer characters might be off balance. It might help to add a line that indicates what is vertical in the space your character is standing, so that you can tell if it's leaning too much one way or the other. you could also do an intuitive check and ask yourself "does it look like my character would fall? Which way? How would the character have to change pose in order to avoid this?". - It might help to indicate the ground plane. The feet of the middle character, appears to be on two different planes. - It would be cool if the loose parts such as drapery and hair, even more conformed to gravity. You might want to push it even. The middle characters skirt feels a bit like it's floating. So I guess the common theme is weight. Try to get a strong sense of weight in your next set of drawings. Hope this helps :)
Sita Rabeling
Hopefully some of the characteristics are in these 3 barbarians. The timid that prefers rules, the aggressive but selfless - and the slightly sadistic peace keeper. I forgot, 2 female and 1 male. The first could be transgender then. Most of it was with pen and ink, but then I wanted to shrink the first dragon, then change more things - so I traced it all again in Procreate.
Andreas Kra
Here are my three barbarians. Has anyone a suggestion for improvement? It was challenging to create the sadistic peacekeeper...  
Sita Rabeling
The combination of kind hearted and sadistic I also find not easy. Still have to start with the assignment, but just wanted to write that I like your drawings. Good idea about the orderly one.
Andrew Schlageter
so I've been a bit spotty with my uploading (I am doing assignments, just had a lot on my plate and not a ton of time to scan my sketchbooks and do posts. I did finish the class though!). This was fun and these are actually re-designs of my originals. I don't think I would usually go for this graphic a style but I enjoyed experimenting. Once again I think I would benefit from completing my figure drawing course. Though my understanding of anatomy, pose, and gesture are improving, I'm not completely intuitively comfortable applying these things to design (so no, David, the fancy stuff isn't working yet... not totally). However, I feel I did alright representing these guys. Maybe the peace keeper looks a bit more than slightly sadistic (more like a villain or anti-hero than someone who is kind hearted) but I like how I distorted her anatomy. I feel that the leader's prop could have been more creative and her gesture a bit more loose, but I feel her anatomical design is working for her character. The rule follower has my favorite prop conceptually, I feel his character reads the most successfully, but that may be because as an awkward and anxious person, I can literally feel his gesture XD.
Daniel Sookram
I like the style of your lines and shading they make me feel like I am looking at a story from ancient times, they really suit the title. The peace keeper seems old and wise but still laughing at life and her walking stick looks like a companion who is in on the joke. I would agree with you my favorite is the rule follower prop which has so much character to it, it jumps off the page. I like the way you have the rule follower holding on to him for dear life
@zlojkrokodil
Hello! Had a lot of fun with this, even if the forms of the charakters could be bit more expressive. Also I'm bit struggling with the poses, now they feel a bit random. But still a very cool task, thank you!
Andrew Schlageter
I enjoy your style of line. It feels unrestrained and animate. I think that plays strongly in the gesture of your leader, as I can feel her confidence. I was a bit confused identifying the other two, until I looked closer at your peace keeper's clothing. I might encourage you, in the future, to experiment more with gesture and expression as that is working naturally in your outgoing leader but starts to lose identity in your other two characters. Your rhythm doesn't seem to doubt itself, which naturally works great with aggressive characters, but the other two prompts have gradually opposing mannerisms to that. It may benefit you to start thinking about how this style can demonstrate a character with more reservation or constriction. As for your shape breakdown, you certainly have a great start. Your clothing flows from form to form while remaining separate, details are compositionally great and articulate. I can certainly see the conflicting nature in your peace keeper with his breakdown alone.
Linus Lehmann
Here are my three barbarians. For some reason it took me quite some time to design and draw them, but as for now i am quite happy with the result. I hope one can tell who is supposed to be who. For the final image i unfortunatley used a grey marker to find the pose and to do the construction, and it shows up more than i wanted, well i wil not make this mistake again. I added some color and and some background details to make the picture look better. I think it helped but the general presentation of my picture still doesnt look to good to me. But with some of the later chapters beeing named staging and appeal i feel confident that ill improve in these areas aswell. I really enjoyed this weeks information and exercises on visual association and i am very exited to start with week 4. I will post my city-sketches in the reply-section of this post. Any kind of feedback on my barbarians and citysketches would be very welcome.
Linus Lehmann
Here are this weeks citysketches. I think that most of them are better than the ones i did last week, but i think that i often did not push the shapes as much as i wanted. Any kind of advice on that or any other advice would be very appreciated.
tara
2yr
Here are some of my coffee shop sketches. Apologies for the chicken scratches, I did a lot of correcting as I tried to design the forms a bit and it got messy. I am having trouble getting away from the human form into other shapes while also keeping gesture and dimension. If anyone has any tips for that or critique, I'd be very grateful. Thankyou
tara
2yr
Here are my 3 characters for the assignment. I had a lot of trouble with this. I started off with big shapes but the characters just sort of melded into regular human shapes again. Either way I learned a lot about using straights and curves against each other. Any critique would be really helpful if anyone is still looking at this page. Thanks
Adolfo Chavez
just saw all the other sketches and to be honest so embarrassed to put this here. Apologies in advance
David Colman
Dont be embarrassed. HOw will you grow if you hide in a hole. You have to suffer to reach the next plateau. No pain no gain applies to your art skill as much as it does in the gym. Try working out the shapes a bit more- make definitive decision dont worry about making a pretty drawing. ITs about growth
Elián Rodríguez
Here are my barbarians. I decided to do a second version of each one cause I realized that the first designs were too form oriented and not bold or pushed at all, so I tried to focus more on finding contrast between proportions, and designing simple shapes. I wanted to share both versions though, cause they're really thought-out. I'd appreciate your feedback very much. PD: sorry for my English, I'm still learning. I'd appreciate any grammar corrections as well, hehe.
David Colman
These are fun!!pushing the shapes but now design the forms.. give them their own shape language.
@erica
2yr
I know you created these a while back, but I just wanted to tell you that they're really inspiring to me! Amazing work!
@emmahubner
3! Let’s go!!! Drawing people as cartoons rather than realistic was much harder than I expected. The characters were fun to make.
David Colman
Nice... Try loosening up and drawing through the forms more
david ball
3yr
I really tried to let go and just let the angles and proportions run amuck!
Lionel Bethancourt
I did this with different subjects to practice today's assignment. It was complicated and fun to merge traits into a single character. I'm not convinced about the slightly sadistic aspect on my work, as for the rest I'd be happy to know if there's something I overlooked.
Mud Skamp
3yr
These are my barbarians for assignment 3. I would like to get better at creating interesting poses to show off more of their personality, but I can definitely see how shapes play a pretty key role in communicating character!
Bokdan0
3yr
Third assignment with 10 pages of sketches and barbarian designs. I welcome any feedback.  Completing this assignment took me a lot of time and It was hard. But it pushed me into sketching way more in my sketchbook and was fun to experiment with human shapes. I can't wait to see new challenges :)
David Colman
Good start... try drawing through the forms as these are starting to get a little flat
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Illustrator working in film as a designer and storyboard artist- known as the "animal guy" for my passion for doodling animals. insta @davidsdoodles
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