I'm giving the blog over to a guest this week. Here, the artist Simon Hanley talks about designing a character and his ImpLounge project.
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| Hi, I'm a bright red brick chucking imp - pleased to meet 'cha! |
I don’t know why I felt I needed a theme; possibly it was so I wouldn’t lose interest. After a while I downgraded the idea to imps. Not quite as nasty as devils, less sickly sweet than fairies and elves.
Then
doodling, I came up with this image, and I
gave it the temporary title ‘Brick Chucking Devil.’ I liked him, he
seemed to have a bit of character, was bold and therefore noticeable –
in fact he was impish and my idea for a
theme began to grow.
This
sketch, even though I liked it was still just a sketch,
done in pencil on paper and then scanned and quickly coloured. I felt
it would look better after I had
drawn a proper clean outline using a graphic tablet. I like the strong
clean outline, with a big vibrant colour. With different designs maybe a
subject might benefit from some
patterning in the way of stripes or spots to give it some life and you
have
something that can be seen across a room.
This simple imp was the first thing I designed
for my project, and I have used the same approach to design a handful of others
just like him. They’re all rendered
with a rounded realistic feel, with strong light sources hitting them at the
side. I like a good strong yellow for
the one side with the opposite side illuminated by a blue. The light should
zing and sparkle and give a slick glossy effect.
To achieve the effect is easy enough: use an art package
that has layers - Corel Draw, Photoshop, Painter - and draw a thick black outline
on a floating layer. Then place colour underneath on another layer. You might prefer to scan a drawing, and then
have that also on a separate layer, with the opacity reduced. This helps to guide your hand while
redrawing it, without tending to compel you to follow the original
drawing. It’s always best to be a
little flexible, and you might want to make changes to the redrawing as you go
along. The thing we need is boldness,
and a simple approach that can be used quickly and even adapted to use again
for other similar designs.
For
an idea of how the different stages look,
here’s an image of just the outline of the finished design Although it
looks similar to the pencil sketch it isn't traced, just drawn using a
bamboo tablet using the original for reference.
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| I may be smiling - but actually I'm feeling a little drained. |
And here's a look at the finished article, after a coloured layer is placed beneath the lines.
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| Ah, that's better. |
The
original drawing at the top of the page and this one do look very
similar, the greatest change being the size of the eyes. In the
original I made them quite small, but found the 'cuteness' quota was
improved by enlarging the eyes. The tiny eyes I originally gave him
made him look insane or stupid, which wasn't the path I wanted to take.
Finally I’m well aware that some people don’t like any talk
about devils, imps and so forth, but it’s a big world wide web, and those people
will either have to indulge me or go to a less devilish corner of places
www. If you’re still with me, why not
check out my website, at the Implounge?
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