Character design

[fanimation]

I am working on my Character design skills and I will post some for you all now and then. This is my first attempt at a wolf design. I plan on refining it some more. I will eventually be doing model sheets and turnaround sheets on each new design I do.

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww141/fanimation/wolf_design1_finalcopy-3.jpg

Made some final refinements and am pretty happy with him!
Hope you all like it, but let me know what you think. I could use the feed back to improve!

Thanks, John:)

[CanAur]

I think you have to pay more attention to what the real wolf is.
And I see some troubles with anathomy.

Some tutorials of making a wolf caracter.

http://fc28.deviantart.com/fs8/i/2005/336/a/3/How_to_draw_a_wolf_or_dog_by_DrewTheWolf.jpg

http://fc80.deviantart.com/fs21/f/2007/286/0/6/Wolf_Anatomy___Tut___by_Feyrah.jpg

http://fc92.deviantart.com/fs15/f/2007/025/0/d/Furry_Steps___generic_head_by_rhythm_runner.jpg

[fanimation]

Thanks CanAur,

Ya, I kind of got into the color drawing before I had worked out the forms and structure underneath. I'm going back to the sketch stage and work out those things again. Thanks for the wolf tutorials on form and structure. I am going to look up more on the internet and get a lot more wolf reference before I begin again. Thanks again for your help!

John

[dmgctrl]

I like him. He looks like a combination of old and wizened because his mane and the bushy eyebrows, but also young and friendly because of the bright eyes and smile.

[Don Bluth]

I am working on my Character design skills and I will post some for you all now and then. This is my first attempt at a wolf design. I plan on refining it some more. I will eventually be doing model sheets and turnaround sheets on each new design I do.



Made some final refinements and am pretty happy with him!
Hope you all like it, but let me know what you think. I could use the feed back to improve!

Thanks, John:)

John,
Your wolf design shows great promise but I was glad to hear that you are going back to the rough pencil stage for some more refinements. While you're there, you might consider the following ideas: Is your wolf character a hero, a clown, or a villain? And, since wolves also have brains, whenever you draw your character, make sure that what the wolf is thinking is manifest in the expression on his face. Characters must have thoughts. The thoughts dictate the design. Color is always the icing on the cake after the design works.

[johncbeggs]

I like your wolf character, very cool

[fanimation]

Don Bluth,
Thanks for all your comments! I'll keep all that in mind on the redesign of the Wolf. I'll post my new sketches along with all my thoughts about the Character, his name, and his personality the next time I post the new design.

Thanks again,
John

[CanAur]

fanimation

Do you have any pencil drawings of real wolfs?

[fanimation]

CanAur,

Do you have any pencil drawings of real wolfs?

Do you mean, did I have photo reference of actual wolves when I first set out to design my wolf Character? I only had a couple of photos and they were not from very good angles. For my redesign, I have found a lot more photo reference of wolves from all kinds of angles so I hope it goes better for me this time.

Thanks, John

[fanimation]

I went back to the drawing board on the wolf character design and took in all the advice I could get, as well as searched for a lot more wolf reference. I am still sketching and trying to find better poses for my character but I wanted to improve my original pose with better anatomy and drawing. I feel like it's better and I hope you guys will thinks so to. He was going to be a comic relief type character but I changed my mind and decided to make him a Leader/Hero type character. A working name for him is Adelphus which means noble wolf. let me know what you all think.

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww141/fanimation/wolf_design_2_sketch_one.jpg

Thanks, John

[johncbeggs]

Looks better than the first one :D

(how do you post images like that)

[dmgctrl]

Wow! We get to watch a work in progress! Thats pretty cool. Hes looking good, Im eager to see him develop as you take on everyones advice and help.

[JayTea]

Quite an improvement :)

[CanAur]

Areed, this one is much better!

I wanna show you how to see all of your own basic mistakes.
It's very important!
Mirror flip
If one of the pictures has "lower quality" than the other one,
it means you did the mistake somewhere.

too big left eye or to short right ear for example... :)

http://pic.ipicture.ru/uploads/090327/hpvykR9DrF.jpg

[Terro]

Hi Fanimation, I think you made great progress on this character. Now he looks like a leader of the pack, it's in his eyes.

Thats what brings me to a point,kind of what Don hinted at earlier in your thread. The eye line (eye brows and lids) are crucial at bringing out what your character is thinking. The mouth is secondary as for example a "sad" character still needs to look sad on every frame even while talking. So no matter what vowel he's pushing out his mouth his eyes are key at establishing his character.

Hope this helps in future designs, your wolf looks great.

[jeremyhopkins]

Congratulations on the improvement and its very cool to see you improve so quick! Honestly I had some difficulty commenting on your first drawing because your style is unique, kind of like a Mike Judge style, so I wasn't sure what to say. Keep going and I'm really interested in seeing your development!

[fanimation]

Thanks everyone for the comments! CanAur: Thanks, the Mirror image really does help point out errors that are harder to see otherwise. I did a little work tonight on the face (eyes, ears and mouth) and I think it helped. JayTea, Terro, and Jeremyhopkins, thanks for the encouragement! I really like all of your guys work!!

http://i714.photobucket.com/albums/ww141/fanimation/adelphes_the_wolf_1.jpg

Thanks all, John

[johncbeggs]

Sorry man I just read what i wrote ( how can you post images like that) :(
that sounds awefull I meant that how do you get your images to show up on the forum

sorry if my last post sounded mean Im completely messed up with a bad cold this whole week. so sorry if you took offense to what I wrote.

[fanimation]

johncbeggs,
don't worry, I knew what you were asking about. You wanted to know how I insert images in a thread. I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner! I have a free account at photobucket (link here to their site: http://photobucket.com/ ). I upload and store my images there. Here at the forum you will see a yellow box icon with a mountain image on it, above were you type your message, it's the insert image button. I have the forum open in one browser window and photobucket in another. On the photobucket site I copy the direct link information line of code for the image I want to insert into the thread and here at the forum, I click the insert image Icon button and a small window will pop up. Paste the direct link info into this window and the image will be inserted into your thread. Hope all that makes sense, any other questions, let me know!

John:)

[johncbeggs]

:)

thanks man

Im going to signup for the photobucket acount and see how it goes. :D

[annelp18]

i love your wolf designs and the backgrounds! awesome drawer you are!;)