Developing the character creation technique.

To be successful, many character designs employ a number of tricks to ensure they are easy to draw and inexpensive. Aside from the techniques mentioned earlier, a famous method is to put gloves onto cartoon character to avoid having to draw details such as fingernails though admittedly, the historical reasons have much darker undertones [1].

With this in mind, I sat down and attempted to draw my character as efficiently as possible in a minimum amount of time. Attacking the challenge from this angle has led to a refinement of my character (Vapor…) that lends itself well to reproduction and those with limited artistic skill. You can see my process below with (the wrong kind of) paper, biro and spirit markers.

1) Line creation in black and white
2) Adding the spirit glow
3) Introducing a simpler colour scheme
4) Adding more colour...too much?

My character is now very easy to draw, his whiter colour scheme is more representative of a ghost, and the lack of colours saves ink as well as time. His colour scheme will also naturally help him stand out against the strong colours in my app.

V4P0R
(/v-eɪ-p-r/)

His name is V4P0R

Here I have used my most experienced workflow after a quick recap from an online tutorial [2] - Illustrator with the mouse and pen tool to create a simplistic but polished version. Still unsure about the colour scheme - one idea is that as users “complete” parts of the app, V4P0R gains more and more colour as he is brought back to life.

References

  1. Fletcher, R. Ever wondered why so many cartoon characters wear gloves? Here’s the slightly troubling answer, Digital Spy, Retrieved March 06, 2018: http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a820479/why-cartoon-characters-wear-gloves-disney-mickey-mouse/
  2. Secrest, J. Adobe Illustrator Inking and Gradients Tutorial, YouTube, Retrieved March 06, 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–AGbBPXtDI