Some character designs from class

My class on Introduction to Character Design and World Making is incredible. The teacher is one Professor Francisco Espinosa, who is an ex-Disney art director among other things. You can google him, he's got a lot of cool stuff going on (his current project is a well-received graphic novel named Rocketo). He's a really animated teacher (punny!), and his class is one of the few classes that I've ever actively woken up in the morning excited to attend. Other classes have exciting topics or useful topics, but having to wake up in the morning usually clouds my opinion to the other end. Anyways, here's a look at two of the pieces I worked on recently for class (I have no scanner, so the others might not come until I go back to school next week).

Here's a study of the lead male character in the world I've been considering. The assignment was to depict the character from birth until death, in a way that you can tell that it is the same person through different stages in life. Tentatively I've been labeling him as Tiamat, but it doesn't really go well as a name in my head. Maybe a nickname?

I started with the 20-30 rendition, since that was the primary state in which the story takes place. It was a bit odd doing the baby version... I ended up taking his sort of line-y eyes to be the visual constant. The head shape-ish I think carries some consistency as well. It was really fun doing the middle school / teenager version. I just thought of myself in middle school / high school and then exagerrated all the awkward parts. The older version I cut back on his wild hair a bit and gave him a little more chin, and then the old version I just imagined the old chinese grandpa with shower slippers and a wifebeater.


This is the corresponding study of the lead female character. The inspiration for the design is Mao from Strings of Fate (I miss that comic, does anyone have the chapters saved?). I'm not able to nail the expressions down yet, but I won't get there by not drawing. I believe she's a little tall in this rendition, she should be about 7 heads I think. The male lead is 8 1/2 heads. Her head is a little big compared to the style above...in terms of consistency in style, I have to figure out how females work.

I have some more work on her that has a little more progress, but I won't have access to a scanner till I go back to school next week.

This one started as three heads showing different expressions, and then I decided to expand it out to show the actions. The one on the left needs some more facial tuning, but the middle one has elements that I think work, and I really like expressionon the far right one, as well as the pose. The clothes were stuck on as an afterthought (you can tell) on the first two. Her design will probably change a lot. Let's just call her Mao for now as a little homage. I have a thing for cats, if you haven't noticed yet.