Character Design

shinjifujioka

Took a break from working on 3rd Thursday stuff to focus on character design. I've never done character studies, so I decided that is something I need to improve on.

Honestly, doing an expression sheet intimidates me...gulp

Leontine

Love your style Sinji, Character design is very helpful. .For me it always helps to watch a nice Movie. Maybe that works for your inspiration aswel? Good luck!

Lee Holland

Looks great shinji. I Aslo need to work on expression. Theres alot to learn in this industry.

Carrie

Nice movement in the top character. You are really great with hands and feet! Love the details as well.

shinjifujioka

Worked on Sawyer some more. Being that this is my first experience really doing a character study of one character, I have to say that this helped to connect with the character. I mean, I know he's fiction, but I started wondering what sorts of motivations he had, what his personality was like, what made him happy/sad, etc. I'm guessing that this is pretty normal when doing character studies.

Any advice as I tackle the next character design? (Or even on Sawyer). I'm thinking of doing a girl. With maybe an anthropomorphic animal friend.

Sawyer 2.jpg

Lee White

looking good man! My only crit is that he looks too young and rounded for that character. Consider lengthening him out a bit and giving him some scrappy attitude. He and huck fin got in trouble. A lot. His character needs to show that.

I did a quick sketch here just for kicks. Love your work!

Dulcie

@shinjifujioka Looking great! It's so hard to make suggestions because you can draw so well, and you already have a track record of making your own characters.... but I'll talk anyway, this is more thought-sharing rather than advice When I've been trying to create new characters out of my head, the one thing that helps me, it's boring but just to draw them over and over and over...(referring to reference when needed, to get it believable and finesse the details)...then draw them again some more You'll get to know them better and better, and yeah while you draw you think about their likes, dislikes, quirky bits etc.. and before you know it, they will jump off the page. I love it when I get to that part. Then when I look back at the beginning sketches, I can see the seed was there but later it has really grown into something unique.

Will be great to see more of your journey with this

shinjifujioka

@Lee-White Thanks for the feedback!

@Dulcie Yeah, I first thought that it would be kind of boring to draw the same character over and over, but thinking of them as a real person helped to bring them to life

Naroth Kean

I like your character design process and you are very talented! This boy reminded me of Marco from 3000 Leagues in Search for Mother T_T. He is one of those character that can be so cute and lovable when happy, and it breaks your heart when you see him cries.

shinjifujioka

@Naroth-Kean Thanks! I haven't heard of 3000 Leagues, so I looked it up. It looks like an older animated movie or something? I'll have to look into this.

Naroth Kean

@shinjifujioka yes very old haha I don't know if you will like it but your boy reminded me of the main character.

I love what you have here. I think the proportions gives it something of a Ghibli vibe (Ponyo especially comes to mind), or at the very least, a great chibi-like style. There's a lot of life to your work that comes through even with just the line work.

shinjifujioka

@Renduin Thanks! I guess it will come to no surprise to you that I really admire Studio Ghibli's work. Especially their background painters. I spend a lot of time just looking at their background work. By the way, if you like Ghibli, you should check out Kingdom of Dreams and Madness on Netflix.

You have good taste. I love Ghibli stuff as well. My wife grew up just outside Tokyo, so shes introduced me to a lot of Miyazaki stuff over the years (and I introduced her to Kurosawa). We watched that documentary a few months back. It was really great.

sergio

@shinjifujioka

I really love the result. It's not easy to get a strong coherence between different poses and angles. The only thing fill a bit different is the face of the "bird picking" one but I think it's something very subtle you'll improve in new dawings. I'd like to see more facial expresions.