Tuesday, October 15, 2013

No, this isn't the same image as yesterday exactly. I slept on it and decided that I didn't think his face in the lower image was appealing, a word that comes up time and again when I read about animation character design. I believe it's important. A character can be ugly or strange, but it should always be appealing. Even looking through the book on Nickelodeon cartoons or watching old Popeye cartoons will show how amazingly broad the word 'appealing' can be, and yet look at a movie like "Rise of the Guardians," and see that 'appealing' can be missed just as easily. So I gave Sharp hair, changed his coloring a bit, softened his expression. The eyes really weren't working. I wanted that green, but green was clashing or strobing. So I went with a grey green which I can intensify for emotional scenes. There's something very slightly mournful about the color which appeals to me and visually (might) suggest something less than 100%, if that makes any sense. My heroes are people, slightly flawed. No Supermen here. Anyway, whether all this will mean anything in the end or not remains to be seen, but I think about it a lot. Now to actually make the damned comic...

2 comments:

Behemoth media said...

I like the changes, I can see why you made them. I am very curious to see what this thing finally looks like in the end!

T' said...

There's a fine line between good, thoughtful work and playing around too much. This one's been tough, but I really think the work I've put in will lead to something in the end. I look at the character designs now and the ones I did two years ago and I think I simply wasn't ready to make this comic then. I hope I am now.