[Music]
Hey everybody, Scott Flanders here. Today we're going to go over another student critique from the character design Monster Lab.
We're going to talk about some very important aspects of character design, from silhouette to
line weight to having a variety of shape types. And if you want to learn even more tips, then
you'll want to see what's going on in the premium course at Proko.com/MonsterLab. It has a lot more
lessons, demos, assignments and critiques. The premium course has nearly four hours of
critiques for the first assignment. So, if you want to submit your work and get feedback from
me personally on the next assignment, then you're going to want to go premium. Okay, let's jump in.
Okay, we're going to start with a few badgers - not one badger, not a dozen, not a couple
but a few - three badgers. That's interesting, a few badgers. Wonder what that means. Is that
though - internet is a mysterious place. "I'd first like to say I’m
a huge fan of your work". Oh, thanks man. Thank you very much.
"I started out with the idea of a rotting food/garbage sort of creature and eventually found
myself really liking the idea of chunks of earth being carried around by roots and while I did
my initial drawings small I found myself getting carried away with the idea!" that's a good thing.
"This has been a really fun creative exercise and I can see where this concept stage of
your workflow can help lead ultimately to a better idea through the process of elimination
or 'kit bashing' in a sense". Yeah, that's pretty much what
it is but with drawings, right? "I’m looking forward to future lessons!"
right on. Thanks man. Okay, looks like we had some really good feedback here from some of the other
critiquers on the site - some of the other artists. Alec is especially awesome - one of
my buddies I work with here. Alec is pretty legit. If I were you, I would pay heed.
Okay, but let's look at your art. An established precedence, previous established ideas,
grimer from Pokémon - oh yeah. Trubbish, trash Pokémon, zombies decay, compost,
mold, bugs, dirt, half eaten baggy or buggy men - boogeymen? Probably boogeyman.
Characteristic - slimy, smells, decomposition, rotten, moldy - okay. I’m getting the vibes
here. Okay. One thing off the bat I just wanted to mention is, there's a lot of cool drawings here,
neat shapes but one thing I see is this - the way you're using your values, like your shadow
shapes in here, it's a bit noisy basically. Your little shadow shapes that you're plugging in here,
they're - it's about like a quarter inch between each little shape of shadow. Watch
this - it's almost like you're putting spots or patterning on the character and I know
that's not what you're trying to do - you're trying to texture it but what's happening is
you're ending up with this - because your mid-tone value is actually kind of light,
you're ending up with this sort of like - a lot of times I’ll refer to it as like dancing,
you know? This kind of like back and forth that's a bit disruptive or noisy.
I think you're on the right track in terms of you know, the way you're thinking through your shadows
and your texture, like that's not a bad impulse or idea, it's just the execution is you know,
I think could be a little bit better and the way I do that is - you can do it a couple ways like one,
you could just - and this is something you could do traditionally. I’m going to kind of simulate
it here just using a darkened layer. Basically when you're doing your fill here Mr. Badgers,
you want to be aware of the sort of - the range of values that you're hitting and here it's not
so important to - the modeling of form is somewhat less of a priority and it's more about you know,
establishing your ideas and getting the shapes right. So, you want those shapes to read, right?
And as they are right now, all that noise, this high contrast between these little
notes of texture are basically getting in the way of the reader of your silhouette.
So, what you could do in pencil - oh, that sounds disturbing...
But you see - I’m not going to go through and do the whole thing but you see how now
just the character silhouette is reading better. Oh my gosh, sounds like a marker. But now he pops
better on the page. And what you could have done there is just imagine with your pencil
as you're going and doing your fill, you're just pressing a little bit harder, right? So again,
you're not getting that range of lights but it's just helping your character read better.
That's one thing you could do. You also just like as you're
blocking these in, there's some areas where the shadows are going to be more intense
and you could play those up a little more. You could throw a lot more of this stuff into shadow
than you have. You still want some of that light, you know, you could like boom - leave some of it.
You know, if you're just trying to like maintain a little bit more of that form,
you've got to group your values a little bit more. Right now it's dancing. There's a sparkle
back and forth between areas - really light areas and these little - these little dark pox you're
putting everywhere - little pock marks and it's in every single image here that you're doing.
Right now a lot of your line work is pretty - your line weight is like similar
throughout. It's kind of monotone and you want to create some hierarchy - some distinction.
So, let's take this guy for example, he's a good candidate. So, what I’m going to
do is - you can do it a couple ways - it's like you either have a couple drawing tools
and you need to use something in the B range or you're just pressing significantly harder. I mean,
you're not like breaking the lead but you're just going to press a little bit harder
and maybe even go back and like restate lines. Let's check this out. So - and you can do this
with your pencil. I’m actually going to like push your drawing a little bit further. Most people
refer to this as a holding line, you know, or their outer contour line. It kind of just depends.
I prefer it as a holding line because you can describe contour in the interior shapes as well.
This to me is more about holding the art. It's more of like a graphic device and it gives you an
opportunity to like restate some of these shapes. This is when I do this sort of like - a lot of the
more angular work is I’ll go back over those loose - as initial loose exploratory lines and I’ll
restate some of them a little more angularity. You see that, like how that pops a little
bit more. The diameter of the pencil line, it's not significantly wider but
it is wider. So watch, check it out... Here, like some of it is even getting lost
and then where I’m coming in it's quite a bit thicker and darker because I’m pressing harder,
like more opacity or using a drawing tool that is actually just a little bit like a softer lead or
graphite, whatever, you know, whatever or like those prisma verithin like you'd use the black.
That's just like some general execution stuff. Another thing is, I notice all your - all your
characters, your line working here, they're almost entirely organic shapes, almost
like - you almost say they're lumpy. I’m not trying to be a jerk when I say that but they're
a little bit lumpy. That is part of the nature of like organic shapes, right? These kind of almost
like tumors, you know? Like tumorous asymmetrical - they're shapes that aren't - they're less
contrived, you know, they're naturally occurring. But here, there's so much of that it becomes
a bit monotone, you know, like music that's monotone. Like there's no range,
right? No diversity, no contrast, right? Or like a monochromatic palette - it's only like one color,
right? It can be cool but it can also get kind of - it can get boring and that's kind of what
to me is going on in some of your shapes, they're a bit monotone, it's very semi.
So, the way I combat that in my stuff, I kind of just outlined it there but you know,
I’ll start off with these very loose gesture lines on a character.
You know, super loose like you know, I don't know, crazy loose and I’ll make a little
trash get here for you. The way I draw is kind of like continuous line, like continuous pressure.
It's part of why it's so messy you know, I’m not doing a lot of like this kind of stuff,
I’m like hatching. But a character like a trash monster man really lends itself to designing from
abstraction - talked to a lot of my mentorship students about the stuff I’ve mentioned on videos
before. Designing for abstraction can be a really good strategy depending upon the subject matter.
Only afterwards, like I’ll come back and do this kind of you know, my commitment hatch,
like give us actual pencil drawing. I do that initial block in really loose, right? But then
after the fact so it doesn't feel so monochrome or monotone so I can introduce some like
contrast, some change - some change, some variation in the line quality. I’ll go
back after the fact and this is when I’ll do this you know, a lot of this like you know,
the kind of carvy part, the angular part. I do that after the fact a lot of times.
I come back through and I’m kind of exaggerating these planes, almost thinking of it like a low
poly model. I don't do it everywhere, sometimes I do, but most of the time it's you know,
there's a kind of a rhythm, a give and take, a push and pull. Some areas get really
loose and you know, they keep the curves and some areas really tighten up and I’ll use
my - I use this chisel eraser tool quite a bit to reinforce that stuff. Just some contrast in your
mark making, okay? Because when I look across your characters, like everything is you know,
if I go back and kind of outline this or follow your lines, everything is like lumps. It's like
lump lump lump lump lump lump lump lump lump - there's a series of lumps, okay?
That's okay, you really do have good instincts here and I think the designing for abstraction
is probably like a natural kind of inclination for you. Like this stuff is cool but the way to
push it further is to introduce that contrast and there's not like any - like a hard rule or science
of when you should employ that idea you know, the way you choose to employ is going to be you know,
partly how you distinguish yourself, right? The ratio of which you incorporate that kind of thing.
And you may not incorporate it at all. Like there are some artists that - it's almost like all the
shapes are soft organic curves, it's just part of their preferences and part of their strength and I
tend to move between the two. I like that change up. Probably good spots on yours are your stone
outcroppings, you know. I’d maybe be a little more aggressive about some of those shapes, you know?
Something like some pride rock kind of stuff - something like that - like boom or on this guy,
right? Like some - it's basically the rocks are good spots to introduce those kind of shapes and
you'll see this stuff in a lot of like - it's a pretty common - like most artists that have to
do an organic creature design, they're navigating - they're doing the same thing I’m talking about.
Like if you've ever seen like stylized golems like creatures
constructs, elemental constructs in games like a World of Warcraft or really any stylized game
ever, that's the thing you're gonna see - you're gonna see this interplay between flowing curves
and then these hard angular transitions. Your windmill that you have with this
character does that, but it's a prop and not all your characters have props,
you know. So you either do it like through your rocks, you do it through your props,
you could do it in some of your trees depending on the kind of tree branches.
Increase, let me say, increase range - let's see - let's see like in shape rhythms or shape
treatment, more variation between your curves, your rounded forms and your angular forms. Because
they do different things, they have different functions. You know, typically I think a Baymax
from Big Hero 6, right? Marshmallow Man, friendly guy, Snowman, friendly guy, right? But all of
a sudden, you take that snowman and you start putting like angular spike armor on him, right? Or
like - that's like silly dragon wings or something - they start putting on you know, these kind of
shapes, more angular shapes and all of a sudden it changes the emotional tone of the character. It's
aggression or speed, assertiveness, right? There's some direction, it's pointing at something.
Let's change up the flow. It's a different approach to lines, angles or angular shapes -
angular shapes and lines. So, you need to clamp your values or group your values. Right now the
range is too high contrast, I would say the way you're using your shadow shapes on here,
you're on the right track but it's a bit too sporadic and monotone all over the place and
we want to introduce some more diversity in terms of the treatment of your edges and your shapes.
It's like honestly, sometimes that's like the best way to sum it up - is like when you're like
flowing through here, right? Flowing through this and then all of a sudden, - it's like
fighting or something, right? There's like a lot of curves and also you're throwing a straight,
right? And it's that change up that breaks your opponent's concentration and that they're not
expecting, that's when you change that rhythm, that's when you get through, right? It's like
whosh whosh whosh, right? Or it's all straight and then you go curve - boom. It's the same idea.
But seriously, it really is the same idea. Gave myself a workout there.
Thanks everyone. I’d like to see your work too. So, join the community at Proko.com/MonsterLab
and get the full experience. There's still time to submit the next assignment
for a chance to be a part of the video critique. Okay, see you all next time.