Character Designing For Animation
Because I'm new to animation, I needed to keep these designs as simple as possible, and not make complex character designs like I often do. I started with color palettes from fellow artist friend. After this led me no where, I asked for a color scheme with my two favorite complimentary colors, yellow and blue.
I tried my best to utilize shape language and color theory here. I made the body and feet out of triangles to show that they can be brave and heroic when needed, round details for the face and hair for softness, and a rounded triangle shape for their hat to balance the design. When i was happy with the design, I sent it to my friends to help ask for names. One suggested "Pike" like the fish, and while I liked it, I thought it was more fitting a for a more confrontational and bold character, almost like this design's counterpart. I started playing with the idea of a counterpart in my head, and eventually inverted the original color scheme to see what it would hypothetically look like.
When I inverted the colors, I instantly fell in love with the color scheme it provided me, and I knew I could utilize it for a counterpart to my yellow lad.
For design, I went with a more triangular look, especially in the hat, to really emphasize the boldness and bluntness of the character. While they both share the same basic shapes and layout, there are key differences. The blue one has sharp hair, pointing outwards, a triangular hat, as mentioned earlier, a set of stitches closing their jacket instead of buttons, and most importantly, a wide and low brim of their hat, partially obscuring their eyes.
I ended up sticking with "Pike" for the name of the blue one, naming them after the now extinct blue pike. As for the yellow one, I named them "Tang" after the bright yellow fish of the same name. I know naming them, and making two of them for that matter, was not a key element of the assignment, but I was having so much fun with this assignment, I couldn't help but put the extra work in to create something I was proud of.
I know their designs are far from perfect, and they will probably receive several improvements and redesigns in the near future, but I feel that I have created a very strong starting point for myself to work off of and improve.
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