Finishing Up Week 2

I made guide sheet for the setting. Which then really helped me to put together some guidelines for the character.

Character Guidelines:

Name: Freide Liesel

Age: 25-27

Ethnicity: Russian/German

Hair Color: Black

Eyes: Brown

Strengths:

Intelligent, strong willed, loyal, passionate, fearless

Weakness:

Emotionally distant which makes it hard for her to work in a team, has a tendency to over think things, can be too rational at times

Personality:

Known for her serious nature as a soldier and ability to focus and act quickly in combat. She is often bold and not afraid to outwardly challenge others. Although she is respected for her skills in battle her peers generally dislike her because of her outwardly threatening nature. Her personality can be rough but her intentions are generally good. She is extremely loyal and while she does not enjoy working in a team, she will fight to the death to protect her comrads.

Build: athletic

Profession: Special Operations  Field Agent

I was then able to finish up the thumbs drawings which allowed me to really get a sense of the style I was going for after the 3rd or 4th one. You can tell that the style of the outfits get more consistent about half way through the thumbs.

Finally I redid the t-pose and made a new hair style sheet.

 

Redefining My Character

Recently, I have been working to develop a clear concept of the character that I am going to create for my project. At first I was just trying to jump into starting the modeling, but I realized that I was having trouble really visualizing who my character is and what they are supposed to be about. Usually before designing a character I have a somewhat clear idea of who they are, their history, and their personality. But for whatever reason I have been struggling to come up with something for this project.  I had done some research on a style that I thought I wanted to follow and came up with the following sketches.

 I had decided to do the design in the middle and even came up with some T-poses to base my model off of.

 But after trying to start the model and doing a little over an hour of work on it, I realized I wasn't feeling any attachment to the design or really even drawn to it at all. There's something special that happens when you're trying to create a character that you really care about, and I realized that what ever that is was missing.  Now some people might argue that it's not important that you feel attached to what ever you are making, but I've found that when you have that special connection the love and care you put into the creation really does show through in the end result. If you don't care about your character, then it's likely no one else will either.

I decided to check out a video on character design called, "Character Design Pipeline: Production Art & Research Techniques with Barontieri." After trying some of  Barontieri's exercises for how he develops his characters, I realized I was right about not having a clear idea of who my character was.

I had developed new character thumbs that were entirely different from my first ones, which to me, really proved that I didn't have a clear and cohesive idea for what I was trying to accomplish. And it has become all the more evident that I really need to sit down and flesh out a clear concept and guidelines for what I want to do.

Now that I have returned to the drawing board, I have decided to take things a little slower. Before even trying to design the character visually, I need to design them emotionally.
I need to know:
Who is it that I am trying to make? What are they like? What's their personality? What do they do? What are they good at? What kind of world do they live in?

For all of these things I need to first find references. Which is why I have been putting together some rough style sheets.

Next I want to make one for the setting and then hopefully I'll be able to put together a clear character bio. I'd like to have this all done by tomorrow so that I can restart designing the look and feel of my character.