Character Design - Character Bible

Final Character Bible by MeganHowett

Character Design - Character Concepts

Character Design - Sidekick Colour Options

Here are some colour options for my sidekick. As both my hero and villain don't have much colour in their designs, I have decided to have the sidekick more colourful.

I prefer the yellow as this fits best with the character.

Character Design - Prop Development

I designed some futuristic weapons that would have been developed by the villain. In my story, the hero runs from the villain's office when he finds out the truth about his transformation, so therefore he would be the character to carry the guns after picking them up while fleeing.

Here are the final colour versions of the best two designs. I used colours that will appear in some parts of the villains robotics to tie them together, even though the hero will be using the props.

Character Design - Villain Turnaround and Expressions

After finishing designing the body of my villain, I designed these faces for him. I decided to use a combination of the mouth from the first, and the rest of the face from the third image.

Here is the final turnaround for my villain. Justin had suggested adding some kind of facial disfigurement so I added the burn scar on his head, which would have occurred in an accident during his transformation.

This is the final expression sheet for the villain, as with the other characters I chose to illustrate important expressions for the story.

Character Design - Villain Development

As my villain has robotic limbs, I sketched these drawings to help me development him. It helped to look at the structure of bones and muscles.

I took some of the silhouettes I made for my villain and used the overall shape to develop the character.

Character Design - Hero and Sidekick Expression Sheets

Here are the expression sheets for my hero and sidekick. I chose to illustrate expressions that would be important in the story for both characters.

Character Design - Hero Turnaround

This is the turnaround for my hero. I used a mix of the faces, hair and outfits I designed to find the combination I was happiest with. 

Now that I have finished designing the style of my character, I have moved onto painting in colour. Here are some hair colour choices, I personally prefer the light brown colour.

Character Design - Sidekick Turnaround

Here is my sidekick turnaround. I chose a simple design for my sidekick with exaggerated proportions. In my story the sidekick was created as a prototype therefore the robot is clunky and imperfect.

I wanted the sidekick to seem friendly and a bit stupid. As he was discarded and ran away before he could be dismantled by the villain, I have included cracks in his skull, exposing wires for his hair, adding to his imperfection.

Character Design - Hero Development

Here are some of my ideas for my hero's clothes. Whereas the third image shows a more typically 'futurist' outfit, the first two are much more like modern clothes. As the world in my story is a dystopian future, where society has had to repair after a war, I think that the less stylised clothes fit the character and story better.

After deciding on a style for my character's outfit, I began designing some hair styles. As my character is young and meant to look like an average guy I think the first messier style would fit best.

Next I moved onto designing my hero's facial features.

Character Design - Sidekick Development

First I focused on the overall shape I wanted for the sidekicks body. Then I started developing how to build that shape out of robotics.

Just as I did with the body, I started with overall shapes for the characters head.

Character Class Exercises

I was given the task of designing a Demonic Throne Room.

In our next class we focused on creatures/monsters. I designed a small creature that would be found in a mountain environment.

Character Design - Silhouettes Exercise

In last weeks class we looked at the importance of a distinctive silhouette. I was given Neanderthals as a theme and asked to design characters whose silhouettes would show this.

Character Design - Hero and Villain Development

To begin with I sketched some body types and poses to start getting the feel of my hero and villain. My hero is meant to be a mechanic/inventor so therefore needs to look average but at the same time it needs to be believable that he could take on the villain (Villain - left, Hero - centre and right). At this stage the figures seem quite generic and the villain in particular, due to his transformation, needs developing to give a more interesting silhouette.

As my villain goes through a massive physical transformation, I have been sketching different body types and poses for different stages of his development. I have tried to experiment with the idea of him replacing body parts with machinery, as well as him building robotics around his body to enhance it. Overall I want him to be very unsymmetrical to help show that his transformation is destroying his human body.

To see which of my initial sketches has the boldest shape, I experimented with turning them into silhouettes.

Character Design - Story Outline

Genre: Robots and Dystopian

Theme: Truth

3002. 800 years after humanity was nearly wiped out by war, the world is a seemingly peaceful place.

Prior to the story, the hero was working at the villains company. He is a technician, working on inventing better and stronger technology. He finds out that the villain has been using the technology he has created to make an army of robots and turn himself into a super-human cyborg. Before his transformation began, the villain acted as a mentor to the hero, guiding and pushing him to succeed in his inventions. The hero realises that the villain has been manipulating him all along. After escaping the robots he meets the sidekick, a prototype robot, who himself is on the run as he is faulty and doesn't want to be dismantled for parts. The hero initially wants to run and forget what he knows but the guilt over his creations being used to start a war sets him on his journey to stop the villain.

The hero later realises that the villain is one of many biding their time in this peaceful society, waiting for the perfect moment to rise up and take over, bringing back a world of dictatorship and war.

Character Design - Class Exercises

In our first class I was randomly given the genres mutant and pirate and asked to quickly design a character.

During our next class we looked at the shapes that make up characters. This exercise involved taking a character, identifying the shapes within the design and changing them.

For the next task I took an image of Disney's Scar and drew him in a more iconic style.

I was given the environment of a music room and asked to design Anthropomorphic characters using objects that would be found within the space.

Our next exercise was to design a character as a prop, still maintaining the feel of the character. I chose Tigger and designed him as a pogo stick.

Our next lesson focused on understanding the anatomy of male and female characters. I took the character Gru from Despicable Me and focused on the structure of his body. I think the centre image was the most successful. The left image is my interpretation of Gru as a female character.

Next we used structure to change the character. First I designed an overweight Gru, followed by a child-like version of the character. Then we were asked to experiment with completely changing the style of the character.