Collect as many examples as possible of different characters – newspapers and magazines are a particular good source. Catalogue these characters as types – babies, children, sportsmen, old women – create your own category headings.

Decide upon a character you would like to create. This might be one from a book or story, or based on an archetype such as a businessman or vicar’s wife.

Begin to brainstorm around your character – perhaps there are characters from the media or your own life you would like to focus on.

Draw your character from the front, from the side and from the back. It may help to draw lines from the neck, shoulder, waist and knees as an aid to scale and to ensure a sense of proportion. (This is known as 360o drawing.)

Draw your character over and over again. Get into role and adopt their mood, expression and personality. It often helps to work out what they are thinking or saying. Try moving the facial features around to extremes and using a few lines and dots to represent the face. Be conscious of the contribution clothing and costume makes in describing a character.

Then try another, different, character. Make sure you come up with someone completely different, not just the same person in different clothes.

OCA Key Steps in Illustration

Character design and illustration was always a field I was very curious about. I have tried my hands on this several times, however never really successfully. I think the issue was that I jumped right into drawing before fully realising what I wanted my character to be. During this exercise I will take a different approach to ensure I am able to create a memorable character.

I started my research as suggested by the exercise looking up different characters and arranging them on a Pinterest board. I was a little stuck in terms of what categories I should go by, but then I realised that this is likely not very important and is just aimed to start to be able to categorise characters and think about what makes them unique what makes them different than any other categories. As such, I decided to first start with a list of archetypes. I have found a list of 12 (I am not sure if this is the gold standard in character illustration) these were the following:

• Warrior
• Child
• Orphan
• Creator
• Caregiver
• Mentor
• Joker
• Magician
• Ruler
• Rebel
• Lover
• Seducer

I tried to collate character examples for all of these. Some of them I have found harder than others due to their conceptual nature.

I also found that some of these are a mix of archetypes like a child warrior or magician temptress. I think mixing these has something to do with making characters more complex and thus more memorable. I spent a good few hours adding more and more pins to my board while I was pondering all of these thoughts. I think for this alone it was definitely worth gathering this visual reference, it just helped me understand that developing compelling characters is not a simple task.

I did some research online to see if I can find some tried and tested methodologies when it comes to character conceptualisation. I thought there must be some sort of framework that I could use to cover more aspects of my character and thus come up with something that is more interesting.

I started to take a character design course on Skillshare to help me with the process, and I found this set of questions that I thought might work.

She also advises that the first things that one should consider when creating a character is the project that the character is made for.

First character – Lydia

I have a deep-rooted passion for video games, and so I wanted to create something for a game that I recently played and felt really inspired by – Fire Emblem Three Houses. This strategy RPG game is full of very interesting characters and I felt like this would be a great universe to design for. I have also purchased an art book called The Art of Fire Emblem Three Houses which I think will provide me with an invaluable resource for this project.

I found this book super inspiring and I wanted to try to mimic the style of the artist behind the character designs – Kurahana Chinatsu.

I found a character called Lonato. He is the Lord of the Gaspar Region, and I looked into his background a little, I found his story quite intriguing. He is the adopted father of one of the students at the academy but her turns against the Central Church because they executed his son Cristopher. The game lore does not mention much about his family situation but I thought it would be an interesting starting point. I decided to design a wife character for him.

I decided to follow the character design course as closely as I could for this first character to see if I can make this as sound of a character as possible using the techniques shown by Melissa Lee.

As such I started by answering the questions on the “Get to know your character” sheet.

• Name: Lydia
• Age: 63
• Background: Lonato’s Wife
• Role/occupation: Lady of the Gaspard Region
• Personality/Attitude: Angry and Sad
• Physical Characteristics: Chubby, Old, Silver hair
• What’s driving them: Throwing over the central church as a way to avenge her son’s death
• What do they like/dislike: They are a devotee of the Godess but hate the Central Church

Started by gathering some references under the keyword “Lady” I wanted how ageing women are depicted usually. I wanted the character to read old and short of bitter, but not overly so.

I gathered a few images in particular to inspire my character.

I decided to go into sketching and try to instigate the character further that way. I wanted to keep in mind all the qualities that I set out. In my final character 360 is similar to the style of that of the art book.

I was sketching trying to find the right balance in terms of the head shape and the size of the features. I think the one with the bun is the best but I wanted to make some small tweaks as I thought it looked a little too cartoony for the style I was trying to achieve.

I first was thinking that long hair might work for this character, but after some consideration I have decided to choose the short swept back style (second from right, bottom row) because I thought this would fit with the character. A woman in her 60s and someone who lost their son, I think they would want to focus on hair-care less, and plotting their revenge more.

Next I was going to think about the costume. I knew that I wanted to make a gown and That I wanted it to look sort of regal, but wasn’t too sure where to start. I decided to look at some figure drawings and work from one of these initially so I can focus more on the designing of the character than the anatomical correctness of the figure drawing. I managed to find one that wasn’t too fashion figure like as for my character I wanted something less slender and more matrenly.

I think I managed to draw. a good range of costumes.I was trying to keep in mind the age and backstory of the character, it was more successful for some than others. Number 9 really stood out to me as something that resonated with the character in mind, however I found it a little too simple. I needed to think about the back story, and how does the costume communicates this.

I decided to go with number 9 with some small alterations, such as maybe a turtleneck neckline and maybe broader shoulders like in number 2.

I was really happy the way the drawing turned out. I felt like the character is pretty believable for the backstory I wanted her to fit and I think the styling was suitable for the universe I have chosen to design the character for. I wanted to ink and colour the drawing quickly t take it to a finalised stage to see. her in full colour.

I think this was pretty successful. She looks stern and sad at the same time. The only thing I noticed towards the end that her posture is maybe too young. I feel like she should be a little more hunched. The other thing was the fact that the dress was a little simple maybe. Some motives of sorts might work to make it more interesting. I kept the style very close to the one used in the book I was inspired by, no shading just the lines and the base colour. Overall, as a first character I am really happy with how she. turned out. I was. a little pushed for time, so I decided to move on and design my second character.

Character 2 –

For my second character I wanted to. challenge myself. by designing a nonhuman character. I had a few different universes in mind that I thought could work in advance to create something that might as a background for this. I was toying with the idea of designing my very own Pokemon. I wanted to create something really imaginative and see how far I can push it.

Pokemon is a great universe because almost anything goes, so the possibilities are limitless. Pokemon usually have their element of 12 types, sometimes 2 of these and these are usually shown in some sort of way. I watched a video about the design philosophy of Pokemon.

This video was super helpful in getting me into the right mindset of designing a new Pokemon. This was super exciting. to me as I have a lot of love and nostalgia for the series. I thought I could come up with a new Pokemon for the current generation. This generation’s region is based on Britain, and all of its inhabitants also have a strong backstory that connects them to the UK.

As such, I wanted to start my research and brainstorm by finding interesting things in the UK that could inspire my new creature.

I started with some simple google searches such as “what are the most British things?” “List of cultural icons in Britain”

I found this list on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cultural_icons_of_the_United_Kingdom

and I collated the below icons as possible starting points:

• Big Ben
• The Beatles
• Britannnia
• Winston Churchill
• Cricket
• Crumpets
• Fish & Chips
• Sherlock Holmes
• Kilts
• Queen (the band)
• Pub
• Red Postbox
• Red Telephone box
• Double decker bus
• William Shakespeare
• Tower of London
• Union Jack

I purposefully excluded things from the list that I know certain Pokemon has been inspired by and anything that I struggled picturing how it would influence character design.

That was a good listen t of things that I thought could serve as inspiration

Next I wanted to collate a list of animals. that are native to the UK. I compiled the following list:

• British Bulldog
• Grey Seal
• European Hedgehog
• Fin Whale
• Orkney Vole
• Bank Vole
• Little Owl
• Curlew
• Common Shrew
• Beaver
• Brown long-eared bat
• Fallow Deer
• Pine Marten
• Stoat
• Weasel
• Slow Worm
• Cockchafer beetle
• Musk Beetle
• Violet click beetle
• Hawthorn shieldbug
• Speckled bush-cricket
• Common rough woodlouse

I found some very interesting animals, so I think I will have plenty to work with. I found the Woodland Trust website an invaluable source of images and inspiration. It describes all these critters in great detail which might be useful when I try to come up with the characteristics of the my character.

I started a board that I wanted to gather some visual references on, to see if this sparks any ideas.

As I was researching Pokemon typing and how they are used, I also realised that there are a few type combinations that don’t yet exist. I thought it would be really cool to make something that fills at least one of these gaps. From My research I found that the following combinations don’t yet exist:

• Bug/Dragon
• Bug/Normal
• Bug/Dark
• Dragon/Fairy
• Fairy/Fire
• Fairy/Ground
• Fairy/Fighting
• Fairy/Ice
• Fairy/Poison
• Fire/Electric
• Fire/Grass
• Fire/Ice
• Ghost/Normal
• Ghost/Rock
• Ground/Fighting
• Normal/Steel
• Normal/Ice
• Normal/Poison
• Normal/Rock
• Psychic/Poison
• Steel/Ice
• Steel/Poison
• Electric/Fighting
• Electric/Grass
• Electric/Rock
• Ice/Poison

That is quite a few combinations! This should definitely give me enough to work with. My favourite typings that didn’t exist yet are: Bug/Dragon, Fairy/Fire, Fairy/Ice, Ice/Poison and Psychic/Poison. In any case, based on my research I am sure I can find something that fits at least one of the above mentioned that 25 non-existent type combinations.

I found an blog article that talks about this topic in quite a depth, so this was actually quite useful too. This person discusses all the unused type combinations to date. Quite an interesting read.

So having done all this research, it was time to brainstorm some ideas. I wanted to look at my 3 lists, and come up with some combinations that I can imagine. To do this, I had an idea that I would gather photo references from my first 2 lists, print these out and see if I can arrange them into some sensible pairs to come up with concepts for my pokemon.

I managed too come up with 12 different combinations that I thought would make somewhat sense.

I think the ones with human and animal combinations stood out the most to me, because these are the easiest to imagine. I will now try do some research around how I could make some of these work and do some further research on my favourite pairings.

I thought that Winston Churchill + Bulldog works quite well, and whilst there is already a bulldog like Pokemon in the series, I could make this one different and very British with some references to Churchill. That way maybe it could even be a regional variant of that other bulldog Pokemon.

I also liked the Little Owl and Britannia combination, I could design a little owl that has some resemblance to her armour, maybe give it a spear. Again, there is an owl Pokemon already so maybe this is not the strongest idea.

I quite like the Violet Click Beetle and Big Ben combination. I can imagine a Psychic type that is able to control time? That would be cool. The only psychic type combination that is left though is the poison+psychic, so I am not sure if the character could fit this… maybe the ability of the creature is poisoning the enemy and then speeding up the time so that they are defeated quicker? This is definitely something I could play with.

I wanted to make some sketches staring with my favourites and see if I can make any of these work on paper.

Luckily, I have access to a large pool of people who are really passionate about Pokemon, so I thought I will share my sketches and see which one people respond to most.

My favourite was the bulldog character, and I was almost certain that would be picked by most people. I was surprised when almost nobody picked this design when asked which one works best as a pokemon. The most popular sketch was the owl. I don’t know if this was because of the big soulful eyes maybe. I thought it looked quite cool and I decided to go with this.

I was thinking that this was starting to take shape quite nicely but wanted to do my character turnaround and perhaps draw the owl in a different position too, not just mid flight. I was thinking that it could have a pose where the trident is stuck into the ground and the owl is resting on the handle. I also wanyed to push the proportions a little bit as I thought the beak was too small, and also the trident was tiny.

I thought the character was started to come together nicely. I liked the stern expression on the face and how the owl looked menacing and friendly at the same time.

I went through peak and throughs with this character at some point I was really doubting wether I like it at all, but I think it turned out pretty good at the end. I went through trying different colour schemes but I settled on a steel blue colour for the bird and a sort of corroded copper colour for the accessories. I think in the end the character could use a bit of extra oomph, but I am not sure how I would be able to achieve that without losing my references altogether. Overall, I am happy with my second character.

I made this small animation to see my character in action. It is pretty rudimentary, but this was the first time ever I tried to animate one of my drawings, so I think it is pretty ok. I like seeing my character in action.

Reflection

I was really looking forward to this exercise and I think I was able to have fun. I never done character turnarounds and I found this somewhat challenging, but at the same time I thought this was really fun. Some details turned into more than they I initially intended them to be as I was forced to thing in 3D. I feel like my characters are a little uninteresting, and that would be something I would need to work on more. I feel like they just lack something that really makes the them stand out. It is not an easy task and I think it would take a lot more tries before I could come up with something that is truly memorable. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of this exercise, and also with my approach to create 2 unique characters that were not just different styles but for quite different genres as well.

Sources

• https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/animals-native-to-the-uk.html
• https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/animals/mammals/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cultural_icons_of_the_United_Kingdom
• https://www.pokemon.com/us/pokedex/
• http://blackjackrants.blogspot.com/2017/01/pokemon-type-combinations-that-dont.html