sav668

[sav668]

collaboration

For this project, I was tasked with working in a group and creating a collaborative project. This is something I don't usually do since I am usually a solo artist who does digital work. I mainly focus on concept art and animation. However, I think it's a good thing to step out of your bubble and learn new skills, especially by working with a group of people who are in different professions. Collaboration is important in the world of art since big projects are usually split into parts and given to people depending on their skill sets. Especially in animation, some of these tasks includes storyboarding, backgrounds, lineart, colouring, and shading.

Our project was to create a box that represents us individually as people. So, it means things that interest us, media that we enjoy working in, inspiration from artists we are into, and colour palettes we are interested in. My interests consist of many different topics, but mostly I am into comics, street art, street fashion, adult swim cartoons, and vibrant colours such as orange. As for artists that inspire me: Genndy Tartakovsky,Chris Prynoski, and One (creator of Mob Psycho).

Each person got to design their own and make it completely unique. To tie all our boxes together and somehow make them connected, we all individually made props for everyone's box to add to. Representing how intertwined people can be, even if they are different.

My box process itself was at first complicated to pinpoint a design and stick to it. I wasn't sure what direction to take this since, like I mentioned beforehand, I am a digital artist. I am okay drawing and painting traditionally since that is how I started off after all.

However, when creating something out of different materials, especially a 3D piece, I kept in mind that this is the point of this project, and the collaboration was to get out of my comfort zone and not overthink so much.

The design I ended up making consisted of a box-facing landscape with the front cut out, allowing room to create a visible scene. I planned to have my character standing in the middle as a cutout and have a speech bubble as if it were ripped from a comic book. To add street art to the box, when I painted the outside and inside, it made the colours look streaky and overlapping each other, giving the vibe that it's like a building being repainted after street artists worked on it. For the colours, I used green, yellow, red, black, and orange. since these are colours that I add to my work a lot.

To decorate the box interior I decided to incorporate elements of my room into my work, such as the photos I have on my wall, little items I could find, and my leaves that I put around the box. I think this was a great route to take this design since this is basically a little window into how I express myself in my room. Then it came to adding my element to my group members boxes. I wasn't too sure what it was I wanted to create at first. However, I thought having little cutouts of my persona's head that could be placed in everyone's boxes would not take up much room. So I designed a couple of designs with different expressions. To create these little cutouts, I designed them on paper and used marker-out outline and colour to keep the palette vibrant.

To conclude, working in a group had its ups and downs, such as communication. Mainly on my part, during this time I was struggling to manage my two jobs and family life, and it got in the way of coming in to discuss our project. Also around this time, I broke my phone, which made it even harder to communicate with my group. However, when I got a phone to borrow, I tried to keep in contact with my group members. Another thing with which I struggled a lot in this project was time magazine. After being late to class due to work, I started to feel like I was falling behind. which was extremely stressful; I wasn't sure how much I needed to get done. So, I met up with someone to help me create a timetable in a way I could better understand.

Overall, I am glad I had this opportunity. Learning how to adapt aspects of my style and learning new ideas from people I worked with turned out to be very helpful to my improvement as an artist, and I am 100% sure that this will help me feel better about working with and collab with other artists in the future. There are some things to take note of while working on a project like this.

[sav668]

last part :never stop trying to improve

Last part i talked alot about my improvement . however , i am still an young artist so there is always things i need to improve on . 

What i need to improve on 

I made a couple of notes on what bi need to improve on . First , i need to put more time into practicing again since i stopped for a while since i had uni and work life gets in the way it does that . My time management isn't very good i get distracted or overwhelmed easily . 

next thing i should improve on , i need to learn more to animate and basics into animation . I have my designs down but i need to find a way to transfer my style into animation .

Other thing i need to improve on is , expressions and poses. i have made improvements on theses but i still need to practicing to make my work more lively .

What i can do to improve 

first thing i mentioned that needs to be improved is time management . to do this i have started making time tables on when i should do studying and practicing . It helped so much and i still have to do more with this. I also set alarms on the times so i don’t forget . 

I also been studying animation again . Little by little i am understanding it more and its not as hard . I even managed to make my design of a character move well and her details wasn't lost . i still need to work on this but it still helps .

last thing, i been studying people more again and see how i can stylize them . different types of people and i learnt more making poses fluid by researching artists and watching videos. My expressions are also improving again i did this by making faces taking pictures and drawing them in my style . It helps as a little daily exercise .

a message i want you to take away from this . Character design is a big part of what makes cartoons work so well. No matter how far you are in your art career or early in it . there is always time to improve . Never give up on it knowing your weaknesses is a huge strength .

thank you for reading

[sav668]

my personal journey with character design

So this part will be going into my journey with art improvement and how this helped my character design .

i have always been a fan of animation and cartoons . so when i was younger art was a big part of me even now . i realized through that my art was not improving and my art doesn't have personality . so i began breaking down what i needed to improve on . 

breaking down what i did to improve

With my anatomy i always struggled making them look not stiff or adding personality i kept to reality which is fine depending on your individual tastes . but it want mine so i wanted to change that . at this time i was already around 16 so i thought it was too late but that is stupid its never to late to improve .

how i went about improvement started off very simple . i began just watching youtube videos . this helped me to to info simply at first i realized my regular watching content to tutorials. then i began noting things down and experimenting . one size doesn't fit all so some thins i tweaked to fit my personal tastes. theses videos taught me  how to gesture draw , planes of the face and where parts of the face should be when the characters head moves and line of action.

After this, i still had a lot more improvement i needed to do there is always room for improvement . so i began to tweak my style and learnt stylize this helped me alot to get a groove in art and get my passion back after a very long art block. 

To do this i studied cartoons i enjoyed the style of . I didnt want to settle on one style i was sick of limiting myself so this was very fun .I allowed myself to have fun and my character design improved a lot with this. i didn't copy styles but i studied elements in each piece of media i picked and put the together and make something new . Letting go off strict rules gave my art personality , i still stick with some rules but now i know the basics then putting my own spin on it . Some of theses shows are 90s mtv, samari jack and also studied artists i enjoyed.

lastly , adding my personal tastes helped me alot with bordering my the fashion, details , personality reflecting the character, shapes and style . i really saw my improvement within my work when i started having my own look in my work . Even if i drew in a different style it still had my look . also knowing how to break down styles and character builds help me do styles of cartoons if i wanted to for future jobs .it takes time and its never too late to improve.

[sav668]

elements of character design

this part i will be discussing aspects of  design .

knowing your characters story 

before you go designing. having an idea of what your concept and story are even if it is rough can add to your character and add to the story it self. to give an example the time setting the character is in can be recognizable with little details within their design (clothes ,accessories ). Having an + of the story will also help you imagine what you want this character to look like.

shape / lines 

shapes and lines add a lot to the design in a subtle  way . lets begin with shapes . shapes are everywhere and very reconcilable  . different shapes give a different feeling and vibe . for example , circles are round and soft and when a character has this shape it usually means they might be soft, kind and joyful. However , this is a basic way of seeing it even through helpful when you feel like you have got the understanding of shape theory mess around with it and have fun. 

okay now lines , lines are simple and overlooked thing withing character design but it plays a big role within design. it does depend on your personal style but lines say a lot sometimes. for example , when a character has bold outlines this outlines their silhouette and make them stand out more . sketchy lines can also be used for comfort and nostalgia but is great for conveying emotion adding tension .

design itself 

now we are going to talk about few elements within the design itself . 

mood boards- moods boards an college of images, text or media that help you to visualize an idea of your design .the mood board can be based on a particular topic or random images together forming a new idea. i usually like to mood board since it helps me to have an idea how this character will look and act like. 

colour pallets - it has been proven by many psychologists that our brains make meanings to colours consonantly . the colours of your character says a lot about them as an individual . having an a basic understanding of colour theory will help you with finding good colour pallets that compliment each other not over power each other. its all about balance . Having a character with a neon pallet can be overpowering but it does work a lot of the time its just having an understanding balance and tone in colours.

character outfits/hair- theses work together really . Both are important . hairstyles and clothes of your character can be the most iconic thing about that character which makes the character memorable. There are things that go into this like personality , cultural , time and location . example , usually in zombie shows their outfits are ripped and hair is messy showing the type of world they live in . this can also be a good way to subvert exceptions making characters who look sweet with their clothes and hair and then them being evil . it all really depends on what you see this character being like. details of clothes can help engage the viewer with this character .

[sav668]

introduction

hello reader, my name is Sav. I am an 19 year old uni student studying animation. really my whole life i always imagined myself having a job in the animation industry . however, the main reason why i love animation so much the character designs that create a cartoon. i have always admired every detail that goes into designs most of the time even if simple . this is why i want to work in character design as well as animating .