Art and Animation Week 1: Character Design

My brief was to make a character based on what we enjoyed. A lot of my favourite pieces of media – across books, movies tv and games are mystery and/or adventure. I wanted to make a protagonist character for a story in those genres. A lot of mystery stories have a detective or investigator character as their protagonist so I decided to make my character that role. Looking at other detectives from media many are smartly dressed, So I decided to make my character like that too.

 

To be more specific, one of my favourite fictional detectives is Dirk Gently. In the Netflix adaptation he wore several colourful jackets. They made him stand out from other detectives and also gave him a signature look and contrasted his relatively normal other pieces of clothing.

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The first design leant more to the victorian side with an 1890s capelette, women’s boots and men’s waistcoat, but with a more modern style on the skirt and hair.
I designed the clothes to provide freedom of movement as I imagined this character being quite energetic.

The second design was heavily influenced by1920s fashion. I thought it was a nice idea for the outfit to be more ragtag, like its random pieces she’s got along her journeys, and less fitted and formal; Hence the oversized mens’ blazer.

 

When it came to colours I decided to mainly use dark neutral colours contrasting with a bright purple on the waistcoat. I thought the waistcoat would be best for the standout item as the jacket would be a bit too direct and possibly a bit too much. I chose a bright purple to stand out as Purple represents the unusual and mysterious which seems appropriate for a detective. I only used 5 colours in total so as not to overcomplicate the design.

 

The waistcoat felt too plain on its own, so I decided to add a pattern. I experimented with 3 patterns; first, pinstripe to go with the formal aesthetic, but it didn’t feel right, it felt too stiff. So I tried wavy lines and that feel like it wasn’t really enhancing the waistcoat at all. So I decided to try a few prints, finally settling on the eye design as it felt unusual and slightly creepy which I think adds more mystery to the character.

 

The third design which ended up being my favourite used 1920s blouse and coat and 1930s womens’ trousers. I like this one since trousers make more sense for this character since she’s probably running around a lot and skirts aren’t the best for that.

For the final design I used 3 as a base. I liked the half-up hair from design 2 but the length of 3’s hair. I teamed the men’s blazer from 2 with the waistcoat from design 1. I liked the idea of the boots from 1, but preferred the look of lace up shoes from 3 so combined both for the shoes and ended up with this design.

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When it came to the final render, I referenced a pose from LaLunatique on Deviantart. I chose it because it shows off the outfit and also looks a bit like she’s sneaking while looking for clues. To add to the detective vibe, I decided to change the hands’ pose so it looked like she was walking, rather than just leaning on a wall, and also holding a magnifying glass, a classic detective symbol. I used mostly brushes based on paints to make the picture feel like an old-timey painting. I decided to do one light source from the side, to keep it simple.