Introduction to Unique and Appealing Character design - if Beauty & the Beast were mayflies
-
Hi everyone. I've just started the course called Introduction to Unique and Appealing Character Design and wanted to share my work as I go. I don't know if it's silly and weird, but I was looking at a book about insects and liked the mayflies, so I decided to make the characters mayfly larvae. Yeah, it's weird. But anyway, I think they look pretty funny so far (I'm doing the Shapes assignment now), and maybe at the end of the story, they could turn into adults.
This is the Beast. There's actually a kind of mayfly called "armored mayfly" that has a kind of cover over their back when they are larvae. This makes them look different, so it's the natural choice for the beast.
And this is Beauty. I drew the little yellow picture before doing the shapes exercise and then the big one afterwards.
This is Gaston.
Maurice and Lumiere are still really sketchy. I think I ran out of energy for today and need to come back and fix them. And also learn more about insects.
With the shape exercise, I imagined Lumiere as being maybe a star or sun shape or something like that, and also I thought it'd be cool if he lit up. So, he's not a mayfly. He's going to be a glow worm (Phengodidae) because they have really elaborate antlers that I think match the shape.
-
This is my line up after doing the proportions study. I think in this version of the story, Maurice is Beauty's brother because her father would have died immediately after mating with her mother.
I found it helpful to prepare a template with the boxes for all the characters. Then I could do a bit at a time on my lunch breaks.
-
Here are the last three. I'm pretty happy with them, but still hope to improve them.
I found it interesting how the shapes got simpler as I did the proportions task and then I didn't want to make them complicated again.
Gaston is perhaps too stereotypically villainous.
I really wanted to make Lumiere cute.
-
@lucy_gow wow very thorough! This was a super fun class, you did very well I like the insect concept!
-
@lucy_gow NOT silly, NOT weird. Original. I really like how you have created your own ideas and story and how you have researched everything, you have a good process.
-
@PenAndrew Thank you! Actually, I just watched the Costume video, and Anna Daviscourt used insects as a reference too, so I guess it's not too weird.
-
@Asyas_illos Thank you very much!
It really is fun. -
@lucy_gow No not at all. I used bugs in my treehouse design. They often appear, like animals in children's books.
-
These are my designs after adding details (and coloring them in).
I decided that Maurice travels around and sells some kind of green river stuff (algae?), from a discarded river snail shell backpack. He dotes on beauty and she decorates herself with excess stock. I'm not sure about the color of Gaston, but I wanted something different from the yellow for him.
Now it's time to leave them for a while and come back to it later. -
@lucy_gow I love this set.
-
@PenAndrew Thank you.
-
Nice post, thank you
