For Extended Practice I wanted to create a few different character designs for my portfolio. Becky Gilby asked me to design her a goblin for her stopmotion. This sounded like a great challenge as I don't normally draw weird and wonderful creatures like goblins. I first began designing by researching, gathering images on
Pinterest to create a visual mood board for me to reference from. From this inspiration I found common shapes of the body, particularly with the head. The head was was always round or in the shape of a semi circle, these shaped heads were more common with small skinny bodies. Whereas with the bigger and fighter esk goblins, the heads were quite angular to match the body.
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Goblin mood board |
I then began to sketch different heads of the goblins first as to generate more ideas. I liked this exercise as it was fun experimenting with a mixture of shapes as well as the shape of ears and facial features. I took this further by drawing bodies as well but I wasn't too sure on some of the designs without a neck, I debated whether or not this would be difficult for Becky to animate with the puppets. However I did like one design in particular, to the point I got too excited and digitally coloured the design in, along with two others I quite liked. My favourite design is the goblin with the cheshire cat grin, he looks so mischievous and I liked the angle of the teeth. I drew one full body goblin, in which I was inspired by boar features, especially with the nose and mouth, I wanted this goblin to be quite greedy, eating anything it can get its hands on. I really enjoyed designing and colouring these designs, I experimented with colour using a multiply blending mode for the darker coloured shades.
I sent these digital designs, as well as the sketches to Becky, to see if I had generated any ideas for her ideal vision of a goblin. She really liked the colouring and rounder heads, however none of the designs were quite what she wanted.
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Sketch page 1 |
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Sketch page 2 |
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Sketch page 3 |
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Digital Version |
I continued to draw different shapes and sizes of goblins, some with no neck, however this was the charm of the design, it made the goblins look more like a frog. It also made the designs look creepy, which would match the dark story that Becky wants to absorb into her Stopmotion. I then designed more body shapes, this time more skinny and human like, I added torned clothes which Becky wanted for the final design. She really liked the body proportions and the general shape of the heads on these designs, which I continued with until I drew a head that Becky really liked. She also wanted a pot belly for the goblin, and for the height to be quite short. With these elements in mind I scanned in the later sketches to photoshop and began to drag different parts together before starting to draw the goblin in digital media.
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Sketch page 4 |
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Sketch page 5 |
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Sketch page 6 |
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Sketch page 7 |
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Sketch page 8 |