Character design - Shapes

In this lesson we was lectured on how the importance of shapes defines a Characters persona. We was individually given separate famous Characters from well known fictional creations and told to reconstruct the approach of the character by using a different approach of shapes.

I was given Superman, the bold, caring, bright coloured flying hero we all know and love. I decided to kill that notion, using triangular formations to help turn him "evil" (red Kryptonite anybody?). I tried to keep certain characteristics familiar, such as the boldness that usually depicts his heroic nature, however combined with the triangular sinisterism helps to contrive brutality instead.

• The first thing I done was to draw Superman's image with basic shapes:

• I then continued to design the character in his new form as an instinctive drawing which I could later analyse and resdesign based on visual flaws.

• I then went on to persue the flaw of this character, which was his facial regonition. It didnt read as Superman, moreso as a the joker from Batman, which takes away from the actual point of the characters evil conversion. After playing around with his face a few times, I redrew the character closer to that of Supermans actual physical traits.

• I was then asked to recreate my image in a different stylistic manner. The approach I took was the "as close to real as Disney would get" approach, so still Cartoony in depiction however with more subtle details and more realistic anatomical representations.

Chris