Mentor Experiment: Week 3: Kyndra’s Critique

by Krishna on January 26, 2012 at 8:13 am
Posted In: Mentor, News

Kyndra Week 3 Critique

(Click the image above to embiggen.)

The Mentor Experiment critique continues – are you keeping up?

Today I’m analyzing Kyndra’s character designs. Overall, she did a terrific job! Let’s dive in, shall we?

1. Her mad scientist character is a blend of sharp and smooth lines – my suggestion – use sharper angles for the arms if you’re playing up his ‘evilness’, or just go with rounded shapes / forms if he’s the nonthreatening, bumbling type. I really like how Kyndra lowered the horizontal eye line to emphasize the character’s braininess.

2. Her slender, evil queen design is solid – very clear silhouette – I really like this one.

3. The clumsy pirate – I like the pose and the overlap of his shoulder against his head. My suggestion to enhance this pose would be to bend the back a bit more – push the foreshortening of the arm closest to us, and to move the other hand back, to make the silhouette read better.

4. The shrewd / cunning but heavyset police officer. Love the pose on this – she nailed it! Minor suggestion – have a gap between the upper arm and the chin to make
the silhouette read even clearer.

5. Love the lazy cowboy figure. Rounded shapes show that he’s really not a threat – the hat over his eyes gives us a sense that he’s not particularly sharp, and his pose suggests laziness.

All in all, great work!!

-Krishna

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Mentor Experiment: Week 3: Barry’s Critique

by Krishna on January 25, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Posted In: Mentor, News

Barry: Week 3 with notes

Above are my visual notes for Barry’s third assignment, focusing on body proportions. I think Barry did a solid job making the silhouettes for the characters read, by incorporating props to make the characters identifiable. In my notes, I have included some suggestions on exaggerating body proportions.

To convey intelligent characters, try lowering the horizontal axis line on the head, allowing more room for the “brain bucket”. To convey unintelligent characters, move that horizontal axis line closer to the top of the character’s head. With slender or tall characters, try making the legs long, or alternatively make the body and legs both long, with a slender (thin) face to compliment the overall figure.

For muscle bound characters, my suggestion would be to really place a visual emphasis on the chest and arms, making the other elements (head, legs, etc) smaller. You can exaggerate one part of a character’s anatomy to draw attention to their dominant trait, whether its intelligence or strength. How did you do on these exercises? Questions? Concerns?

Sound off in the comments below.

-Krishna

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Other World #41

by Krishna on January 23, 2012 at 8:22 pm
Posted In: News, Other World

Other World #41 teaser

The full comic is now available on the Other World Computing blog. As always, I’m very grateful for Other World Computing‘s sponsorship. They make great hardware products (and have been since they started way back in 1988!) and I’m honored to have them as a sponsor.

-Krishna

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Mentor Experiment: Body Proportions

by Krishna on January 19, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Posted In: Mentor, News

The task for this week is to understand how exaggerating body proportions can emphasize certain physical attributes of a character. Exaggerating body proportions of a character not only adds visual appeal, it also gives the viewer some insight into the character’s physical attributes. For example, a smart character is usually depicted with a large head, compared with the rest of their body. A strong man is usually depicted with a large chest and arms. We can use the flour sack exercises from last week to help us understand proportions.

Your assignment this week is to use line of action, silhouettes, exaggerated proportions, and form to create drawings for each of the following:

1) A brainy, but short mad scientist.

2) A slender, talkative evil queen.

3) A muscle-bound, clumsy pirate.

4) An overweight, but cunning policeman.

5) A tall but unintelligent cowboy.

I’ll add more examples this weekend for further clarification.

-Krishna

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Assignment 2 Critique: Barry

by Krishna on January 19, 2012 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Mentor, News

action poses: Barry critique

I’ve taken Barry’s action poses and applied my visual notes (in black). The main suggestion I have for Barry is to draw through the form using volume and to avoid using contour lines (aka outlines) to suggest the character’s form. Outlines, or contours, tend to flatten the image. By treating the elements of the body as volumetric surfaces that interlock and interconnect with one another, depth is implied. Overlapping forms against one another also gives the illusion of depth. Here’s what I mean:

Mentor Experiment

Barry is using his line of action – and it’s definitely helping his poses. The one ambiguous pose I found was the one on the top left. I surmised it was the punch, so I drew the punch on the lower left. We can see the two key poses – the fist ready to punch (left) and the punching arm fully extended – with the fist drawn larger than the body to suggest that it’s closer to us, thereby implying depth.

Got a character design question / tip? Need further clarification on what was written above?
Share them all in the comments below!

-Krishna

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