In this course you will explore concepts and approaches involved in creating successful character designs that can be applied to video games. Following a first week delving into some foundational concepts for successful character design, each of the remaining three weeks are structured as a "master class" where you will observe three professional character designers at work in the studio: Andy Ristaino (Adventure Time), Jacky Ke Jiang (Journey), and Robertryan Cory (SpongeBob SquarePants). Each designer will take on two different design challenges on the fly and address the various issues in designing characters for games, such as movement, expression, and technical limitations. At the end of each week you will have an opportunity to try out some of the concepts from that week's lesson on characters of your own design. This is a fun and engaging class especially useful for students interested in animation in film and TV as well as games, and is suitable for students of any drawing ability.
Drawing the Explorer
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Del curso dictado por California Institute of the Arts
Character Design for Video Games
542 calificaciones
California Institute of the Arts
542 calificaciones
Curso 4 de 5 en SpecializationGame Design: Art and Concepts
De la lección
Week 2: Technical Challenges
This week, we visit Andy Ristaino, a character designer who has created many of the ingenious characters for the animated series Adventure Time.
Conoce a los instructores
Fran KrauseFaculty, Character Animation
School of Film/Video
Hello, I'm Andrew Asino,
I'm gonna be talking a little bit about character design.
And I guess the first thing I'm gonna talk about is I have, I don't know,
a piece of plexiglass, sketchbook and
a really ratty box of pencils that usually has a pencil sharpener in them.
I just bring this stuff everywhere so I can draw.
I sit in a chair and draw or go on a train and draw.
>> I'll start with the explorer.
I'm gonna just go with what my brain thinks.
When I think of an Arctic explorer I think of the gear you have to wear
to be an Arctic explorer.
So I want someone with like a huge jacket I guess that's the first thing I think of
is a giant jacket, with little hands and a little face,
and that guy's got to have facial hair.
If it's a guy, it doesn't have to be a guy.
It can be a woman with a beard.
I always draw with red pencil or blue pencil first.
Some sort of colored pencil so I can kinda sketch the idea and
kind of narrow down the idea first before I go into things.
Sketch everything out first lightly.
And then I can go over it with a three b pencils, lead pencils and graphite pencils
because they have such a nice dark line, and it's nice and soft.
Yeah, so you draw whatever with the red first and
narrow down what the idea is and then you go over it with a darker
line to kinda show where the actual lines you want are.
Usually I start from my imagination, but there's definitely times when I'm like,
oh I don't know quite how to draw that.
I'll look stuff up, or if I know I'm gonna have to design
a bug or something, I'll look at a bunch of bugs first.
Like a few days before and
just kinda really getting my mind, thinking about stuff.
And then when I draw though I don't like to look at reference while I draw.
Because I feel like it limits what I draw.
I end up sticking too closely to the reference.
So if I don't look at anything it kind of
whatever my mind process from the stuff I was
looking at turns into what I draw on paper.
And so, yeah, so you're kind of like
filtering your ideas through your brain and
your hand and your memory, and it just.
I don't have the greatest memory so
it changes a lot once it's filtered through my head.
I like to draw a lot of ideas and try to vary shapes and
form and before I come up with a final.
That way you can look at stuff and be like oh this idea was cooler,
or I would say usually your first idea is not the best idea.
Maybe your tenth idea is your best idea, or something.
Or if you have a whole bunch of different ideas,
you could pick the top three and maybe two others could turn into
different characters that you use, or you can swap pieces and
mix and match it until you now are done exactly what you want.
I think it's great to kinda come up with the,
to really mess around and at first try to
go in a bunch of different directions.
So you can see what you like and
what fits in with the world you're building.
I collect books and graphic novels and art books and stuff like that, and I
am constantly going through my collection and weeding out of things that I don't,
like I've either grown beyond it or I don't have any use for it anymore.
So I'm constantly bringing in new books and getting rid of old books.
If I'm keeping a book around it's because it still does things for me.
Like it still inspires me.
I think the art is interesting, and
I tend to like stuff that like follows my interests.
It's just nice to have things around that you like to look at,
just think about.
I tend to also collect a lot of things that don't look anything like how I draw,
just because it's nice to see.
It's just nice to see different viewpoints and just always have my mind kind of
jogging around and looking at different things from different ways.
And yeah, you don't wanna get so focused on how you do things.
You wanna be, kinda at least aware of what else is going on around you.
I'll draw one drawing and then the next drawing, I'll try to find a different
shape or organization that's either the first drawing isn't quite what I want so
I'll switch it up a bit or the second drawing is a complete and
opposite reaction to it, so this guy has a round head.
So, I wasn't even thinking about it, I just kinda went for
a different shape for the second head.
You wanna cover as many faces as possible as you're drawing.
So, you just keep riffing off of yourself and
trying to find different the ways to look at something.
So, like the first one I drew a guy with a beard.
So maybe the next one I'll start drawing a female explorer.
And then the next one will be somebody with a,
maybe this guy's got a Tuke on and goggles, more of a skier.
Or I don't know extreme explorer.
Which I know is not in the story,
but maybe it takes place in modern times this version.
Or maybe with this one I was thinking well what if it's like the future, and
for some reason parkas are now cubical.
I don't know, I just kinda try to come up with different funny ideas.
Or like this guy has a scarf on but
maybe like what if his head is just wrapped in a scarf?
All the way officer's is kind of like a mummy.
And you can see his little eyes and his nose peeking out
And maybe mustache and beard coming at the.
I don't know.
I try to make myself laugh and add humor in.
Like this guy has look, I wanted him to be mostly suit.
So like his hands are gonna be tiny.
And his head is gonna be tiny in this giant padded suit or something.
Yeah, I just, if you've drawn a guy with a big head and
tiny hands, maybe the next guy will be the opposite.
So, a really tiny head.
Show there's giant hands.
And he totally, once you start drawing a guy,
like that guy's more of a lumberjack guy, tough.
I'll draw him again and again.
And every time I draw this character
I slowly get to know, kinda.
Like this guy would probably freeze in the arctic cuz he's
not well dressed for it, but I don't know.
Even though this guy is just standing here I feel like I already kinda know
what he's like.
I'm not telling myself a story.
It's kind of like the character starts to tell the story.
I really don't try to, when I'm making up characters,
especially during this pass, I'm not really thinking, I'm kind of on autopilot.
And I'm just kind of letting the shapes kind of grow.
And I wish I was doing better drawings, but
as I draw, I'll add this guy's got a monocle.
I don't know.
Just things to make them interesting.
Not that monocles are interesting, but.
The longer you draw a character the more your
mind wanders and you might think of funny things
like why does he have this frog on his shoulder?
Why?
Is it frozen?
How long has it been there?
I don't know, you just start thinking of weird things and then, if this is a game,
and he has a frog on his shoulder, maybe that's part of his weaponry or something.
You start thinking of ways to incorporate the things on his person
that could be turned into something more other than just a weird affectation for
no reason.
I try, generally, especially during this period.
Definitely, I'll draw things I don't like.
Like I don't really like this drawing at all.
But it doesn't matter.
This is a sketchbook.
Nothing should be perfect.
This is the first stage.
I just draw as much as I can for an hour or two or until I get sick of it.
Sometimes, when I get sick of it, I stop drawing and work on something else.
Go do something else, then come back to it, draw a little bit more.
And when it feels like I have enough variety and enough ideas that
are interesting, that's when I start looking at things critically.
I don't know this character yet, so
part of the process is making the mistakes and finding the things that you like.
So I mean we can go to the next step.
I can scan this stuff in and I could combine
the aspects of them in the computer.
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