Designing around a Dominant Shape

 "Gestures “start with the body, the body is the foundation upon which all the appendages are attached Are dependent upon for positioning. if you locate the body, gesture-wise, you have somewhere to connect the neck, arms, legs, eliminating the need to shift the foundation because you built the kitchen too far west.” -Walt Stanchfield 

SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE


Start with a Domnant shape!

what is it's overall message? Gesture?

This will set the tone of your Design.

Success in shape making primarily comes from the use of a variety of Large, Medium and Small shapes.

- Peter de Seve

Predictability and uniformity is dull, even to drawing and design. When a Design is composed of too many large shapes, it is empty and bland.  when a design is composed of too many small shapes (such as small detail) without enough large shapes to balance it,  the design is chaotic, confusing and exhausting.  Variations in shape sizes and groupings creates a dynamic and interesting design. Great character designers have mastered this principle and use it to direct their viewer's gaze and impressions.
 (if you want to see a cool scientific explanation of how our mind deals with different groupings of sizes check out the Gestalt principle as explained by Sam Neilsen)

DOMINANT MASSES

Reduce each character to a simple graphic shape with an instantly recognizable silhouette, and distinct from each other. Pay attention to the language of shape.

In this example, notice how the shape is full, safe, friendly and simple.  all detail is secondary to the big shape.

BobbyPontillas: http://bobbyinnewyork.blogspot.com/2011/09/design-presentation.html

Looking at the Aladdin style sheet, we can see each character reduced to a basic shape that provides an easy, immediate read

look at each character's Dominant Mass

Each character has one mass that the rest of the design “hangs off”—the Genie’s chest, Jafar’s shoulders, the Sultan’s belly etc. Again, it’s all about a quick graphic read.

NICO MARLET - Master of BIG, MED, SMALL

Check out Nico Marlet - He is a master of all of these principles.  look at his work and see if you can spot it. [Note how the characters are primarily comprised of a few strong shapes; a dominant, which usually dictates the primary action line, just a few subordinates and an accent or two. The small details are all laid in well after the character is fully constructed]. Marlet varies grouping of shapes, making the big shapes REALLY big, and the small shapes TINY!. sometimes he even skips the medium shapes to emphasize the Big and small shapes.

Notice that this Principle is worked into the DESIGN of the Character, Not just their POSE

This actually helps keep a consistency in the quick read of your character. (we will get more to this later.)

Positive and Negative Shapes - Shane Prigmore

notice how Prigmore designs his negative spaces.  his characters have interesting and fun silhouettes and his negative space is as varied as his positive space.  even negative space should be designed with Big, Medium and Large in mind.

Shane Prigmore's Blog

Head Features

The shape of the Head is a very important aspect of a character's personality because of its quick read and silhouette.  Close up, however and the other features of the face take on their own significance.  Even more than with the shape of the head, we tend to draw the same types of features over and over again.

The best way to learn to draw different types of features... is to look around!

NOSES

EYES

BEARDS

MOUTHS

EARS

Here are some links to good examples of various styles of features

Also, Check out these Links and articles:
Great Head Drawing video tutorials by Stanislav Prokopenko
Where the Disney Nose comes from
Noses - Radhowto
Eyes - reference sheet guides



Ken Andersen

Scottie Young

Sarah Mensinga

Steven Silver

Joe Olson

Enrique Fernandez

Assignment #3 - Head Exploration

Shane Prigmore

In this assignment, we will be focusing on Head EXPLORATION (not to be confused with facial expressions - which we will cover later).

Emphasis in this assignment will be placed on 1) Experimentation - Variance, exploring a variety of personalities , 2) Creativity - out of the box solutions  3)Design - shape, proportions, story - stuff we go over in class  
Stretch yourself and try new things - don't get caught up on drawing things the way you were told as a kid you should draw.


ASSIGNMENT #3 - Draw 12 Heads each for two of our circus characters (24 total) playing with variation and experimentation. PLUS 2 each character that are more worked out and developed.  You can choose the same characters as last time or completely different ones but one must be male, one female. 

Circus characters:
- The Ringmaster
- The Lion/beast tamer
- The Fire eater
- The sword swollower
- The Juggler
- The Buffoon (clown)
- The Strong "man"
- The Snake Charmer
- The Acrobat

Option - instead of circus characters, you may choose to do a Lunch Lady and a Janitor.

1) post all WIP
2) post final 12 heads for each character on separate pages (all together - if they are spread across your sketchbook, copy and paste them all on one page)
3) remember to NUMBER drawings in which there are multiple drawings to a page
4) post to blog before class starts.

Head Designs

I think sometimes when artists are first learning, they're taught to draw a generic face shape and then they stick with that shape. I also think that when people are designing characters for a "serious" story, they think they can't caricature the shape of the face too much or their drawings will start to look "cartoony" and not appropriate for the serious tone of their work.  But even in real life, there's an incredibly variation of shape within the faces of people.

Mark Kennedy

Different Types Exist- Broaden your perspective

The University of Massachusetts has a HUGE  DATABASE OF FACES

Be observant... Look around you.  Mankind is made in a huge variety of shapes.  If you are using generic shapes, then you aren't paying attention.

Once you start using the variety of shapes that exist, every character becomes very distinctive and cannot be confused with another.  If you are working on a group of characters, you should make every character's face shape recognizable and different, so that it is distinguishable even as a scribble.

The whole thing about making choices of face shapes, facial features and beard shape is that it should all come from the personality of the character you're designing. Every choice you make should accentuate and enhance the personality of your character. 

Be Creative

When drawing heads for a character design, the #1 battle is breaking away from whatever it is that you usually do.  We all have a generic head shape stuck in our head.  It is essential to stay loose and not confine yourself to one head shape for all characters (see anime - this is a no no).   Also, each character you design has their own personality and story - thus, they deserve their own shape and design!

In short -

There is no ONE way to draw heads.  However, whatever your process, it is ESSENTIAL that you know the basic and anatomical head structure.  Foundation first, if you don't know it you've got to learn it.

The Foundation
Andrew Loomis: Drawing the Head and Hands
How to Draw the Head from Any Angle

Breaking Away

Concept artist and Character designers are notorious for finding creative ways to help themselves break away from the norm and to find new and unique shapes.  There is no ONE WAY to do this, just as there is one correct head out there.

Techniques may include:

Scribbles,
Ink/paint blots,
Clay,
Found shapes - popcorn, shoe scuffs etc.

Here are some demos and examples of Artists using these techniques:

SCRIBBLES - Turning loose abstract concepts of shape into unique an un-routine heads. - with Ron Lemen Studio2ndstreet.com

OCTAVIO RODRIG
 Making faces out of Shapes - "This process I find helps to keep you loose and also keeps it fun as you discover shapes you wouldn't normally create"

VARYING PROPORTION - how moving the eye line, adjusting eye spacing, you can vary the proportions of a head design. - varying proportion can apply to other aspects of the head as well. Ex: forehead vs. chin sizes, nose vs. ear, mouth vs. eyebrow etc.

And if you think you're exaggerating too much... think again!  Its always easier to pull back

Out of Class Assignment #2 - Interior Silhouettes

After our discussion on thursday,  strengthen your silhouette design skills by doing an additional 10 silhouettes for each character plus a more refined silhouette for each.
You can do the same characters you did last time and just take them further, or pick a different character and start fresh.


some things we discussed:

1) Loosen up! throw out anatomy and pose, don't worry about those, mostly play with shape and emotion - you should whip these out quickly - time yourself to 30 min
2) Story - capture and appeal and "character" in the silhouette. - no generics!
3) be creative and interesting! think outside the box
4) Shape Language - what shapes make this read as a fire bender or snake charmer?
5) Proportions - steer clear of generic

Post to blog.

Due Thursday at MIDNIGHT

ALTERNATIVE
If you feel like you already have a good grasp of silhouette design and your silhouettes for assignment #2 were professional,  then the above may not be useful to you. As an alternative OCA use your current silhouettes and apply the "Interior silhouette" technique to your 2 favorites as shown below. (do 5 per silhouette = 10 total)

Kendall Hale

Out of Class Assignment 2-Melissa Vance

Jessica Staley - Assignment #2