After careful consideration, I have decided to base my character design around a deity from Greek mythology, as there are plenty of interesting beings to draw inspiration from. In particular, I want to focus on a character central to the underworld. The characters I find most interesting within this theme are:
Charon – The Ferryman of Souls
Nyx – Primordial Goddess of Night
The Keres – Agents of the Goddesses of Fate/ Goddesses of Violent Death
Out of the above, I feel that “The Keres” are what i want to base my character design around. Furthermore, it helps that each of these “dietys” have multiple descriptions regarding their appearance throughout history and literature. This gives me a backing to start from for my character design.
Name an individual (historical or contemporary) who you consider to be extremely
creative. What about them or what they do led you to this decision?
One such individual I find creative is Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519). He was an Italian man of the renaissance era. Gifted with a mind and thirst for knowledge ahead of his time. His inventiveness spread through painting, sculpting, architecture, and engineering. Some of his most notable work would be that of the paintings “Mona Lisa” and “Last Supper” (Krull & Kulikov, 2005). Csikszentmihalyi (1996) states that creative personalities are multifarious. “They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes”. This response will delve into how just how noticeable some of these traits are within Leonardo Da Vinci.
The contradictory trait “creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy and a rooted sense of reality” stated by Csikszentmihalyi (1996) is perhaps the most obvious for Da Vinci. The evidence being his various notebooks and sketches. He dreamed up concepts that perhaps, for his time; appeared like the delusions of the deranged. Due to the fact these concepts appeared to predict the future. For example, the flying machines the Aerial Screw helicopter and the glider based on the form of the bat (See Figure 1) (Müntz, 2011). As Csikszentmihalyi (1996) put it, “great art and great science involve a leap of imagination into a world that is different from the present”.
Figure 1: Flying machine with half-fixed wings (Source: Müntz, 2011)
Additionally Csikszentmihalyi (1996) expressed that “Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it”. In this sense, Da Vinci left behind a myriad of unfinished sketches, paintings and sculptures. Krull & Kulikov (2005) state that Da Vinci was rough to work with and detested deadlines and being rushed by those commissioning him his to conclude his work. This resulted in some of his work taking many years to complete. For example, the “Mona Lisa” took four years to become a finished piece of art (Vasari & Foster, 1872). This shows that Da Vinci indeed had the passion for his work, as well as the ability to take his time with it if he believed it was not ready.
The contradictory trait expressed by Csikszentmihalyi (1996) “creative people combine playfulness and discipline or responsibility and irresponsibility” is the last I wish to discuss. History has always portrayed Da Vinci as this sophisticated renaissance man, with his countless sketches and inventions strewn through his notebooks Krull & Kulikov (2005). However, among all the genius imprinted into the notebooks, even Da Vinci had time to be mischievous. Hidden amongst the notebooks is a particular sketch of “two penises with legs and tails walking towards a crudely drawn anus”. The sketch even has Salaì, his assistants name labelled above it, whom was rumoured to be Da Vinci’s lover (See Figure 2) (Schneider, 2014).
Figure 2: Da Vinci’s Doodles (Source: Schneider, 2014)
It is hard to grasp what Da Vinci was like exactly. Though from what we can see through what he has left behind, he was a vastly gifted individual. In this way we can see that he does indeed fulfil Csikszentmihalyi’s contradictory traits of a creative personality.
Schneider, M. (2014). An x-rated doodle from the notebooks of leonardo da vinci. Retrieved from https://dangerousminds.net/comments/an_x-rated_doodle_from_the_notebooks_of_leonardo_da_vinci
Vasari, G., & Foster, J. (1872). Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects: George Bell.
Ornn – The Fire Below The Mountain by Daniel Orive
You may recognize the above character from a previous post I’ve made. This is Ornn, a “champion” from the popular video game “League of Legends”. Originally posted two years ago by Daniel Orive.
This is a great baseline for me to follow from in terms of my design process, that is, it shows the progress of the design through choice. In the case for Ornn, facial hair, horns designs, clothing and colour choices were all clearly explored. Hence, for my project as a baseline I’d like to explore areas like body-type, colouring, clothing and hair choice as a start.
Referring back to my project brainstorm my original idea was to construct and paint several new, and complex pieces of Warhammer figures because it was familiar to me. In the end I decided against this and chose to do a character design as it is something that I’m not familiar with, and I thought it would be a challenge, though doable.
My inspiration for this specific idea comes from the various games I play online such as League of Legends. I have always loved games and the worlds that they create, particularly for their complex lore and characters (See Below Image).
Ornn – The Fire Below The Mountain | Concept Art by Daniel Orive
My “goal” for this project is to reignite the passion I had for drawing as a young teenager, enough so that I continue to draw long after this project is over.
Additionally, I’d like my characters design and backstory to be intriguing enough that they could pass off as a legitimate character within a video game.
Out of the ideas I amassed previously, I have come to the conclusion that the creative project
I aim to produce this semester is a Character Design. Character Design simply put is the
creation of a new, original character. Typically utilized in comic books, animations and video
games (Bancroft, 2016). The end goal of this project is to produce my own original character
including back-story and sketches following a similar design path to Tillman (2011).
Part 1: Research & Backstory
Weeks 3-5
Part 1 is the research stage, there will be no sketching for this portion. This stage exists to
help plan my characters theme and archetype. Theme being the overarching traits that
define the character, where as archetypes are essentially the mould that allows us to
categorize them (Tillman, 2011). Once the research into archetypes and themes has been
done It will allow me to create a character sheet outlining their traits and their backstory
which will help fine tune the design process.
Part 2: Sketch Brainstorming
Weeks 6-9
Given the above character sheet and backstory, the goal of this section is to begin digitally
sketching possible designs of the characters hairstyle, clothing and weaponry that I can then
take and apply to a range of possible character designs as front character views.
Part 3: Designing
Weeks 10-13
This stretch of the project involves refining the concepts I have constructed in the previous
step. I’ll start to construct orthographic projections of these designs. Orthographic drawings
are 2D representations of 3D objects, hence they will allow me to represent the object from
different angles (Webster’s New World College Dictionary, n.d.). Furthermore, I will then refine
the design that stands out to me the most. Once the final design has been polished, the
orthographic will be done in full colour as my final creative piece.
Overall, my goal for this project is to re-ignite the passion I had for drawing when I was
younger, and also to help me transition from drawing on pen and paper, to the foreign world
of drawing on a tablet.
The Above is a mind map of ideas thrown around to create this semesters creative project.
Originally, i would have liked to go down the path of Figurine Construction and Painting. Though I’m already rather confident in my skills in painting figures, and so I think it best for me to step outside my comfort zone.
Hence, I think as of now i’m leaning more towards Character Design. Though I have done this in the past, as evident by my previous projects, I am not as experienced in this area as I would like to be, In particular – digital art is something i haven’t done a great deal of. It seems, in my attempts at this I’ve noticed it’s very different to pen and paper drawing, and I would love to develop this skill-set further.
Jeremy Ruggiero 