Happy Friday! Welcome to Results Day!
This is the first time the CREATE A CHARACTER Activity ran for a month (versus a week). It was nice to feel less pressed for time! The extra days allowed me to finish color sketches for each character, which I usually could never fit in with my weekly posts.
I did notice a small difference with this extra time though. One of my final color sketches changed quite a bit from the original pencil sketch, which makes me feel like it lost some of its…spirit. Maybe I spent too much time entertaining design directions? I’ll let you figure out which character that is!
Let’s begin with inspiration. Where did these shapes come from?
My closet!
I love prints! And after recently watching a season of Project Runway with my daughter, I headed to my closet for inspiration. Do you like wearing prints or patterns too?
After picking out my favorite shirts, I snapped a few pictures and pulled some shapes. I assembled my outlines on the CREATE A CHARACTER Activity #129 sheet and posted it the first Monday of the month.
Pencil sketches were next! What characters could these possibly turn into? My designs did not come easy! Shape #1 and #4 were especially challenging. I had to go through 2-3 sheets to finally settle on characters I liked. Here is a before and after look at my CREATE A CHARACTER Activity #129 sheet.
After I figured out who my characters were, I did a time-lapse video of my pen drawing.
Now it was time to clean up my sketches! I did this digitally (but tracing paper works too!). Check out the design transformations for each character below.
I wanted my color palette to be similar to my printed shirt. These owls do not exist (at least I can’t find them!) but it was fun imagining what they might look like. What do you think?
Shape #2 changed slightly when it came to my word bubbles. Since I completed this pencil sketch right after January 1st, I was still in “Happy New Year!” mode. By the time I cleaned my sketch up (the end of the month) the greeting felt like old news. I decided to play around with a pun instead! What word bubbles do you like better?
Can you tell what changed between the color sketch and the pen sketch? I wanted my peas to look like they were snug in their pod, so I made them bigger.
For shape #3, two characters emerged!
After I sketched this one out, I wondered if butterflies even like tulips? With some quick research, I learned they are attracted to…tulip trees! I’ve never seen a tulip tree before. Have you? You can find a picture of one here. Can you tell what type of butterfly inspired my 2nd character? A Black Swallowtail. You can learn more about them here.
When I colored my line drawing, I noticed my design strayed from my original pencil sketch. I experimented with some lines during the cleaning-up process. Can you spot the difference?
The one on the left is the design I changed when I cleaned up linework. I wanted my tulip to feel more flower-like. I changed the right-side line from straight to curved. I also changed the butterfly’s wing shape from curved to straight.
After stacking up the pencil, pen, cleaned-up pen and color images, I felt like I went beyond the original pencil sketch. Some of flower’s flair was lost. I added the straight line back in and rounded the tips of my butterfly’s wings. I also decreased the size of my butterfly and added a little motion swirl. I think I like design #2 better. Which do you like best? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
The last character derived from Shape #4. This design was the most difficult for me! It was also the illustration I spent the most time on.
Can you see where I made changes from the initial sketch?
If you guessed HAPPY CAT’s mouth, belly and tail…you are correct!
To make HAPPY CAT more believable, I had to make sense out of his right paw. In the pencil sketch, his foot was attached to a point (which is not quite the case for a real cat)! I turned that strong curved line into a poofy cat beard so I could attach his paw to his body. I also straightened his belly out to balance the straight and curved lines. What silhouette do you like better?
His tail is not as bushy as the original. But, I do like the swoopy stripes. I decided to keep it as is because this activity is all about experimenting and having fun! It is not worth fretting over!
Thanks for visiting and reading about my character design process. If your child would like to create CHARACTER CARDS from these designs (or their own), you can download a sheet here or visit my Activities page. Be sure to print a backside too! They can build onto these characters by creating…character traits!
I hope you’ll check back on Monday, February 1st, when next month’s CREATE A CHARACTER Activity sheet will be available to download (hint: we recently visited the DIA). I’d love to see what your child (or you!) come up with! Please share on social media using #CREATEACHARACTERACTIVITY or drop me a note.
Until next time…Keep Creating!