So this week I was wishy washy and doodled around without making much progress, either. I didn't even get started with the thumbnails until Sunday, and by then I was already feeling like I was running out of time. I had picked Suchomimus (reptile), lantern bug (insect/fish), 7 (1-10 pressure) and dishwashing, as that is not a chore I enjoy and I would NOOOOT want to have to do it for a living. Especially silverware. I hate washing silverware by hand. >.> Pots I can deal with.
Ahem. I also wished I had worded the challenge a little differently. While its true that someone might come to you and say "I need a character based on this and this and this," chances are they are not going to be as specific as that if it's concept work. The categories that you chose in the beginning of this challenge were not really meant to be hard and fast, but a jumping off point, which one's muse might take in which ever direction one wanted. But! Oh well. I stuck to the letter, and at least I got some discipline out of it? ;)
So I doodled several designs, and I thought the guy in the lower left was interesting and different; he started out with a suchomimus face, too, but then I didn't really have any bug influence (and it's the face on lantern bugs that is so ZOMG), so I gave him the bug face instead and named him Bob, because I imagined that he bobbed when he walked. I also wanted to color him, because lantern bugs are also brightly colored and I wanted to integrate that -- that's hard to draw in black and white! But ... as I was inking him, I grew less happy with him. The coloring went "meh..." and eventually I just got tired of looking at him and the way he was going. I had doodled another body type on that thumbnail page that I was more drawn to ....
He reminded me then (and still does) far too much of the WoW tauren, but he was much more satisfying to draw. I named him Bernie. Just because. I <3 him.
Really, though, I think my dissatisfaction with the more unusual design of Bob was that he was less easy to identify with; it didn't help him that I gave him a buggy mouth, so his expressions would have been difficult to make evident. I still like the idea, but I think he is more suited for random-alien-in-the-background than character with whom I could possibly do more (which, again, was not the point of this challenge, but I like to get to know my critters and draw them more than once. And who knows.... maybe they WILL show up again, mwahaha!). I found myself wondering about the rest of the race, while I was drawing him, and wondering why he was a dishwasher, and restraining myself from writing a big block of text detailing more things about them. Didn't do any of those things with Bob.
Sorry, Bob.
It's been in my experience that the more expressive buggy characters seem to have regular mouths with mandibles slapped on for good fun. It's not accurate, but it does make them more expressive. That being said I still do like Bob ;) Especially that he uses he "feet" at hands.
ReplyDeleteAnd "eh" is about as happy as Bernie gets, eh? ;) And to me the only taureny part is kinda how the legs are constructed, but I think it suits the character well.
I think the prompt was a fun one, but I definitely had a bit of a trick with my schedule this week cramming everything in. (I DID do some sketches for it, but I haven't done the turn-around yet, but I'm hoping to get to it before the weekend, because I want to keep this as a weekly exercise, and not "I fall behind and suddenly have 3 due at once aaahhh" exercise. ;) )
ReplyDeleteANYWAY! I find both characters you did appealing, for different reasons. I am especially partial to "Bob" because of the clever use of him using his hind-limbs as his more dexterous limbs, but I will second Joel that usually mandibles (even small ones) seem to generally signify a "bug"-type critter to me. That doesn't mean either of your designs need them, of course. :)
I love the interesting coloration on both of these guys, as well as the nice turn-arounds, human for use of scale, and expression sheet. One thought I'd have for the expression sheet would be to have his antenna tilt a bit too in order to help reinforce the expressions.
That "horn" on his head (both them) would actually be at least partly bone -- I did do a little skeleton thumb on Bob where I drew it as only Binet at the base, but my thought on Bernie was that it was more solid bone, covered by skin; I actually did do a little thinking about his species and their homeworld last night, and had decided that it might be something akin to the projection of parasaurolophus' skull, where it is a piece of hollow, passage-filled bone that acts as a resonating chamber. Bernie would probably have a very interesting voice ( and a very loud one, when he wanted) with the combination of resonation there and that deep chest. I also decided that the bit at the end does indeed glow (lantern bugs were thought to,because they are so vibrantly colored, but they do not), and that they can probably turn it in and off, like a firefly. I think I may doodle more details this afternoon. He is in my head now.
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