Sketching using symmetry

I have used what I have learnt from my research into symmetry and applied it in this character design of a very muscly bull. I wanted to test this style on something more human first and I feel that this has worked very well as both sides of the character look the same and are in proportion with one another. It was a lot easier to focus on one area at a time when I was sketching this character and made the whole process a lot less daunting and a lot more relaxing and enjoyable. For me personally the process is just as important than the finished outcome, I need to be able to enjoy the process of designing the character to fully immerse myself in what I am trying to achieve. 

I also feel that the outcome is a lot more professional looking and the symmetry method has definitely made my character sketching skills a lot more refined and professional in their appearance. Focusing on one area at a time made it a lot more enjoyable and it felt almost like I was just piecing a jigsaw back together again. This method is definitely something I am interested in using again, as it has improved my drawing skills vastly and I enjoyed the process a lot more which for me are the two most important parts of this whole process I am going through.

What have I taken from this experiment?

I feel this process has helped my become much more efficient when drawing characters.

I have learnt that scale a proportion really is important when drawing and improves my own drawing skills by a very long way.

That I am surprisingly good at drawing bulls.

Symmetry method: Character design

What is this method?

Symmetry method is a method used in character design and is mainly used for head on Illustrations of a character. Scale and proportion lines are drawn to make sure the character is the correct width and height making the character look the correct size. Once the lines are drawn the designer starts by working on one side of the vertical line which separates the work space into a 50/50 split, it's much less daunting to work like this as the focus is on one small area at a time rather than the piece as a whole. The sketched lines created earlier make it easier to make features the correct size and will make the overall finish of the design look very professional and considered. This style can also be seen a lot of in exam papers and geometry books where shapes are reflected by a line which separates them known as the mirror. This name was given because the shape is literally being mirrored and both shapes would be identical if flipped the opposite way. Symmetrical design is used a lot in todays design environment and not just in character design. Photography, Illustration and logo's use symmetry design to create a well ordered modernist style of design which can be made to look very complex and beautiful. 

https://creativemarket.com/MehmetRehaTugcu/316836-24-Sacred-Geometry-Vectors

Geometric logo's like these ones have been created using dividing and scale lines when sketched, this made the design simple and quite modern in my view as the process had an order to it and obviously used some kind of grid method. This process can be duplicated and used in other areas too such as character design, I am going to utilise this method and try it out to see if this makes me any better at drawing my characters. 

Asymmetry in expression

Asymmetry 

Asymmetry is the complete opposite of symmetry and is defined as something being unsymmetrical or off straight, it seems then there are two methods that I have found when designing characters. One uses a lot of symmetry to give proportion and scale to the design; where as one tries not to use any to give more expression and add a more dynamic quality which makes the character come to life. This is a guide to facial expression and how this is used in character design to help give the character a certain expression and facial feature. This is something I definitely want to try out as I feel that using this method would help me build on my skills as an Illustrator and help me to start drawing at a more professional standard.

What have I learnt?

Asymmetry is basically the opposite of symmetry and uses more expressive forms of character design to influence the expression and form of the character. This is something that I also learnt back in jays process and production workshop and is something I want to try again to try and get better at. 

A look back...

Jays workshop recap

This is just a general look back at the workshop we did with Jay on creating dynamic characters for a cereal box. I chose to create a robot in this workshop as I intended to call my cereal "Nuts & Bolts" and felt that the robot would fit in nicely with this theme of the mechanical. Drawing the dynamic characters wasn't easy and I found that scaling the characters was a lot harder than the characters I would draw if they were face on. I found that different features had to be bigger the closer they were to our own view and we were taught to keep the body bent and in action poses as much as possible. As I recall I wasn't great at using this style of character design and required more practice on scaling up various parts of the character so that everything looked in the correct proportions.

What I learnt from the workshop

I learnt that I needed to find another way of drawing these dynamic characters which suited my style. I didn't like the fact that we were drawing characters before establishing any lines of scale and proportion which made things difficult. The results were amateurish and in future I would want to use scale and proportion lines to make sure when I sketching my character various body parts didn't look out of place or too big or small. 

Character design I like

Why?

              

       

Character design like this is something that strikes me as being very interesting and powerful. What I mean by this is that the character has a certain presence about it which makes it pop from the page and makes the design very interesting to look at. Although no colour has been added textures of different clothing and objects can be identified because of the detail and shading that has gone into designing the character. The composition of the character as a whole is well thought out and shows a female archer character looking like she is preparing to fight with bow in hand as her opposing hand reaches around her back for what suggests to be an arrow. 

I love how the body is twisted and the eyes are focused elsewhere rather than straight forward, this is a very complex and difficult form of character design which if done properly makes the character look very dynamic and interesting. The demean of the character is also strong with this piece as we can tell that she is a gritty and strong character just from her expression and the way that she stands.

What I can learn from this

Well what I can learn from this design is that not all character design has to be flat and face on. Dynamic design helps the character come to life and helps us visualise the demean and the personality of the character purely from the aesthetic. I am going to take a look back at the process and production workshop that I did with Jay on dynamic character design, I feel that this will help me push my dynamic mind forward and help me gather a better understanding on how I want to try and get better at drawing these. I am also going to look at some different methods on how character design is created to see which one suits me the best. 

Nicks 3d type: development and tests

M appearing from Josh Juhasz on Vimeo.

I did as I said I would and tried using the coffee as a ground powder instead of just regular ground, I found that the coffee was easier to work with in terms of it sticking to the glue I added before hand to the page but moving it around the page into different positions was a nightmare and it tended to move a lot on the page as it slid over the surface with ease. Therefore I have decided to continue with the previous attempt of using ground coffee which isn't a powder because this was easier to edit and overall gave a nice finish to the design. 

As you can see this method looked a lot cleaner and gave a more professional aesthetic. The editing process was a lot easier because the grains were a lot chunkier that the powder I tried in this workshop. When I decide to continue with this process and production I will continue with these much bigger grains. 

Visual proposal

ABSTRACT
The use of Character design in branding is a growing form of advertising. It’s purpose a way of connecting to a consumer audience through the aesthetic and attributes of a character which directly links to the brand itself. In this essay I will talk about the benefits of using characters in branding and how these benefits make the brand more stable and visually appealing to a target audience. I will touch upon what makes a good character and what doesn’t, analysing how the best designs tend to be the most successful brands. I will look at “Ronald McDonald” and how the success of this character allowed the franchise of McDonald’s to grow a blossom. The essay will conclude by summarising what the message of the essay and will also answer the question of the title How is character design used in branding? 

Aims & Objectives
The aims and objectives of my Visual appendix are quite straight forward and I believe that they coincide with my essay well. Character design is used in so many different design mediums as a way of advertising, branding etc, I want to create a piece of design that backs up the key points that I have made in my essay. I want to summarize how the most successful brands and franchises are the ones with the most pronounced character. I want to list this in some sort of information graphic which will allow me to identify which franchises have the most successful character. I will add information such as the money the franchise or brand is currently worth and how much is was worth before the character was made for that particular company.

Use the P+P session with Sara about info-graphics to help with this.
Collect info about various franchises.
Use skills in Illustrator to make illustrations of various characters. 

Methodology
So, How will I do it? I must look back into my essay to gather any useful information which may inform my designs and appendix in general.
Research into Info-graphics and how this visual language helps inform people with information. (Find ones about character design for inspiration)
Create some initial sketches, mind maps or diagrams by starting the process of the visual appendix.
Start to use sketches and mind-maps to inform design on Illustrator which is where I will prove that characters make brands and franchises more money and more successful in general. 

Key words
Ranking (Think of the most successful character in terms of a ranking structure, most successful to least successful)
Infographic (This is not the finished medium as such, rather a guide to how I want to present my illustrations and information about the brands)
Brands (Collecting the various brands is a key aspect to what I want to achieve, without the collection of brans I can’t create anything)
Money (I need to find out how much each brand is worth with the addition of the character to judge it’s successfulness)

Research question
How does a character infleunce a companies income?

This is the question I am going to use, I am going to use a ranking system to order and display information on how money earned is influenced by purely the character design. I want to experiment more with how I present this information rather than how I make the information itself.

C4D as a design tool

We opened Cinema 4D and created a rectangle under the pen tool tab, we also created an extrude and added this to the rectangle to make it 3d. We also used the Twist tool and added this to the Extrude and then moved the Rectangle above the Twist. We ensured that the angle was set to about 10% to give us the twist effect we were wanting. 

We created a spiral tube using the checkerboard texture to give it more of an optical illusion type style and effect. We then created a sphere and added this to the inside of the tunnel we had created. We created a new texture using the luminance and reflection tools to make the ball shine and 

appear shiny.

We created a star shape using he star tool and changed the number of segments to 5, we then added this into our extrude which made the box shape turn into this star shape, we rendered the whole thing and this was the result which I was very happy with. 

We also did other things in this workshop, we used type falling on top of each other to create this nice separating effect when they hit each other. We used the luminance and reflection tools to make this which is what gave it this shiny and reflective effect which looked very professional. We created a basic floor and background making sure it was a composite background so there was no separation of colour when we looked through the camera. The text fell from the top of the Z onto the Z and broke apart like it had just impacted. The final result was great and I loved the effect it created.