CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

For this exercise we were asked to collect a lot of different characters from magazines etc and collate them. I have put together a scrap book with different types in it, which I intend to add to but far to many to post here.

I started with a spider diagram to help me think of an interesting character for an ageing rock star, too tight jeans, after a bad gig, drowning his sorrows in the local bar. He's not completely rubbish and comes alive on stage, but not talented enough to make it big.

I then tried to draw him from the side and the back. 

After that I tried to push his characteristics a little further, distorting his skinny legs, and his embarrassingly tight jeans, his jowls and his scruffy hair.

Trying to get some expression into a jowly slightly depressed individual proved quite tricky.

I am quite pleased with some of the images and I feel like they pretty much all look like the same individual, but his range of expressions is very limited.

I took a young thrusting trainee journalist for my second character, quite a sweet baby face but a steely determination to succeed because of her talent rather than looks.

In repeating her, I realised how important hair position and stylisation can be in creating a consistant character. Also however simple the eyes they must have some defining feature; in this case I tried to keep a suggestion of heavyness - showing her serious nature.

Next I tried two other very different characters just to get the feel of repeating a face in different poses.

pretty lady

inventor (not very good one)

I learnt a great deal from this exercise, it was very enjoyable, now the challenge is to put what I have learnt into a style that is more my own. I love the extreme and grotesque characters of Quentin Blake, Ralph Steadman, Dave Mckean, some of the ones that I created here are a bit too comic booky as I was concentrating on consistency, the next thing would be to put a bit more style into the mix... but it's a start.