Project 1: Character Design

May 21, 2025

Project 1: Character Design

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Week 5

Week 1

During the first class, lecturer give us course and assignment briefing. In this course, we are to learn Adobe Illustrator and use it to do our assignment. We need to have Adobe Illustrator before next week as we will start the learning lesson soon. I already have some basic on Adobe Illustrator, so I hope that I can do well in this course.

Assignment brief

Assignment 1 - Character Design

We have 3 weeks to finish this assignment; lecturer will teach us about the tools in the adobe Illustrator to create the design. We will use this character for our next assignment composition and final assignment. It is a very important element.

Progress

I first created a Pinterest board to collect inspiration and references for this assignment. But I do have a main direction on what I will be drawing. I want to draw something creepy, about human body part, perhaps separate it into different body parts, or combine it with something else. I have always love horror themed arts, movies, music, game and etc. So, this is a chance for me to explore on what I love.

During the first week, I don't do much structural stuff, but I did do a lot of brainstorming and references searching on what I wanted to draw.

Week 2

Progress

My first idea is to actually draw a creepy clown, it has a sad story of its own, it's about the concept of time and work. I try to sketch it out but, it does not look ideal to me. I know I am not familiar at drawing something. I'm more familiar with drawing structural stuff like house (because of my architecture background, I practice more on how to draw architectural drawings...) So, drawing body part or human itself is not familiar to me.

But I continue to draw more, some of them are still bad, but I really like one of them, it becomes one of my final ideas too. It is an insect, but it is made of facial structure. It looks weird but I really like it. I also have a little story for it. I called it Augry.

The birth of Augry:

I actually drawn all these on train, I was going back to my hometown for some days. I was so happy that I managed to draw out Augry, I like it a lot.

The story of Augry:

Augry is an insect who always hungry, angry and it’s ugly, hence the name ‘Augry’. It feeds on carcass; you can always see it around dead body. Don’t interrupt them eating, or else you will be their target too. It is made of facial structure, eyes, ears, mouth and such. They are a type of mutated insect, they live in a group. Despite their looks, they smell nice, scientists found out that the smell is caused by an unknown chemical substance in their body. It smells the best after they just finish eating. They are mostly found inside forest, as human has created an anti-Augry spray, they can’t survive around human.

During this week, I continue to sketch. Again, some of my drawings can't really be used but in this week, I successfully sketch out the remaining 2 characters.

First, let me introduce Strawberry girl, who I named it as Moriko afterwards. This is the second character that I successfully created. I think it looks very cute. The idea comes very naturally as I explore more on the combination of something with body part. I think of food + body part, then strawberry, then this:

The story of Moriko:

Moriko, her name means ‘forest child’. Moriko is a strawberry girl, she is made of part human, part strawberry. The strawberry skin acts as her shield, she can fully turn into a strawberry by hiding inside the strawberry skin. The eyes on the strawberry skin helps her to stay alert during sleep, the eyes can see enemies from afar. Moriko lives in a deep forest, she needs to be away from the human. Human likes strawberry, a lot of strawberry families had been hunted down by them, they said strawberry human taste better than normal strawberries. Moriko has two bestfriends, their name are Umbra and Furia. They always play in the forest.

Next, this is Umbra and Furia, a girl holding a human head umbrella. At first, I want this human head umbrella to be made of a carcass or it is a yokai (monster). But, I feel like holding onto a carcass is a little too disrespectful, especially in their story, this is supposed to be her sister. So, I change her story to be a human girl with special skills, she can turn into an umbrella whenever she want.

I draw Umbra first actually, because I have an idea of drawing a floating head. But floating head drawing is literally everywhere, I saw a lot of floating head drawings. I watch Junji Ito animation series too and I love his floating head balloon manga. So, I want to create something different. What can move on sky? Balloon, birds, kites, then, umbrella. Well, umbrella cannot really move on sky, but in the world of art, it can. So, a floating umbrella head.

It looks too boring on its own, I was nearly given up on this idea too. But I try to add another character onto it. A little girl holding her, who happens to be her sister. They travel together in this way.

The story of Umbra and Furia:

This is Umbra, a girl that can turn into a human head umbrella. And Furia is holding onto Umbra to float around. Umbra and Furia are sisters, Umbra is the older sister. Umbra has developed this skills when she turn 5 years old. She always bring her sister around the town like this, floating around. Furia has no special skills, but she has a bad temper, always furious, even their parents cannot control her. Every time Furia gets angry, Umbra will bring her to float around. One day, they found a little strawberry girl while floating on top of a forest. Her name is Moriko, they become best friends. Now, they often go the forest to play with her.

Consultation

After finishing the sketching of these 3 characters, I ask for opinions from lecture using WhatsApp. And, Mr. Hafiz likes the drawing, he said that it looks great. So, I can proceed to draw it on Adobe Illustrator.

Week 3

Progress

During this week, I import my sketching above into Adobe Illustrator to do tracing. I start with Moriko - The Strawberry girl first, as this looks simpler.

Tracing Start!

1. Moriko - Strawberry Girl

I use different colour to trace it, because I want to separate the layer clearly. At this point, I am still exploring Adobe Illustrator, I found this method suits me better, to draw in different layers and using different colours. I use mainly curvature and shape tool to trace the drawing. I use shape builder tool later to clean off overlapping lines.

After tracing, I try to fill in some colour to actually see the visuals of my drawings.

I like it a lot, it looks very cute~

I continue the tracing process for Augry, Umbra and Furia. In Augry, I use pen tool, curvature and shape tool. While in Umra and Furia, I use mainly curvature and a little bit of shape tool. Drawing Umbra takes a lot of patience as I need to trace her hair one by one line. For Augry, I need to trace a lot of blood vessels too.

And I also add in colour for them.

Week 4

Tutorial Class

In the class, I also learn a method to clean off the intercept line. Use shape builder tool, select the unwanted line with alt. Then, I can delete the line I don't want. We also learn about Adobe Colour in class, where we use it to extract the colour we want from a picture. They have a lot of colour template for us to explore too. But, I mainly use it to extract colour. Below are my colour extract process in class:

Lecturer taught us about Live Paint Bucket, use it to select the colour we want, and colour the drawing. In the class, I use this method to colour my drawing again. Then, I use the colour extracted to fill in the colour on Moriko using Live Paint Bucket. Below is my first try:

Progress

After class, I continue to complete more progress. First, I use the shape builder tool to clean off the lines. I also explore on different stoke types, different thickness, different edges.

1. Augry

2. Moriko

3. Umbra and Furia

Next, I need to add in shadow line to be able to fill in different colour for shadow later. I draw out the shadow line using pen tool, curvature and shape tool. I didn't manage to draw it for Augry, besides, Augry has too much details. I figured out later I should just add the shadow after colouring progress.

1. Moriko

2. Umbra and Furia

Colouring Progress

I start the colouring with Moriko.

1. Moriko - Strawberry Girl

I use these two images to extract colour in Adobe Colour.

These are the colour I extracted and use on the drawing.

Colouring start!!! I use live paint bucket tool to fill in the colour.

During colouring process, I found out that it is not enough for me to depend only on the extracted colour, thus, I went on adjusting some of the darker shade for the shadow colouring.

I found the colour of my original colour template doesn't really show depth. So I use another colour palette to create another drawing. After consulting with my friends and lecturer, they all choose the red colour version.

Outcome:

2. Umbra and Furia:

Adobe colour extraction:

Colouring start!!!

Another colour palette:

Outcome:

Week 5

Consultation

After the class, I have a small consultation session with lecturer. I show my progress so far, with coloured Moriko, Umbra and Furia. I haven't start with the colouring of Augry yet. For Strawberry Girl, everything is good dy, it's complete. But for Umbra and Furia, I need to adjust some of the shadow colour and also add more details for it.

Progress

I continue the colouring process and adding shadow. In class, we learn ways to add shadow and highlight. I found that I still can enhance Moriko drawing by adding more different shades to show depth. So, I adjusted some of the shadow and highlight and adding more shades.

1. Moriko - Strawberry Girl

I explore all kind of lighting and shadow to find the best one. But at the end, I found that by just changing the shade of different body part, it shows the best results, it clearly shows depth.

Final outcome:

2. Umbra and Furia

I added more details for Furia as lecturer mentioned that it looks a little bit too bland when compared to Umbra, so all the attention will be going onto Umbra, I want them both to have the same amount of details so, I added more, like decorative on the dress, stockings and add more highlight and shades for the shoes. Overall, I also adjusted the shadow and highlight and explore on more colour. I added a shade below the umbrella so it looks like Umbra did provide some shades for her sister.

Final outcome:

3. Augry

Augry is my last drawings right now, I have completed the other two before even started colouring process on Augry. Because I think it requires the most detailed process, so I leave it to complete at the end.

I use this picture to extract all the colour templates I use on Augry. I can use it as one for colour, one for highlight, one for shadow.

Colouring start!!! I added first layer of colour first before adding shadow, details, highlight.

I am selecting and using live paint bucket tool here.

First layer:

I added in blood vessels. The blood vessels were traced by using pen tool.

Start from here, I add in more shades to create shadows and depth. I use curvature and shape tool to create the line and shape for the shadow and colour it up.