Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Character Design: "Emma"

A while back I did some character designs for a (recently defunct) animation company. The project (and the company) never came to fruition, so I think it's okay that I post a few of the conceptual designs I did.

One of the characters they requested was for "Emma" described as

"11 years old– A bold, spunky girl who can be flippantly sarcastic. Emma’s pretty, with long blond hair, freckles and piercing green eyes. Her friends always recognize the “Emma look.” When she’s feeling skeptical, Emma arches one eyebrow and uses her piercing eyes to size up a situation. She does this quickly. Emma is sharp as a tack. She’s completely unselfconscious and natural. Emma’s very confident, to the point of being cocky and a little bossy. She’s a great hockey player, an extremely fast runner, and a true tomboy."

The first thing I did was provide the client with initial character designs. I tried to show various styles and kept their options wide-ranging. From these, they could mix and match, see what works and what doesn't and narrow down the design they were looking for.
LinkThe client liked the one on the bottom right, with no changes. I like when that happens!
Next I provided the client with expressions...

...and a turnaround showing full-bodied in various angles. I also colored them based on what the client requested.

These are such a fun challenge for me. Character design is one of my strong suits and I love doing it!


2 comments:

Russ Hogle said...

Excellent work Kenny! Love your style and fluidity of the line work.

Keelan Parham said...

Cool! Great stuff. She reminds me of a certain mermaid at the CC stands.....