halloween Story Character Designs *critiques plz*

[greenpinky]

For my Scripting final we had to come up with a 10-15 pages (or longer if we prefered) story, and then do character designs, story synopsis, etc. to turn it into a publisher and such.

I did mine about halloween, or at least its set around halloween. And I wanted some critiques on the character designs that I did.

I called my story, "Jack by Night" , and the synopsis can be found here :http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/34041429/











Thanks

[Silkz]

Nice work... drake is my fav

[greenpinky]

cool. if you dont mind me asking...why do you like drake the most?

[the branch]

Hey,

There are a few things that stick out to me:

1. The main character, frankly the design is very boring and static. Please understand, I don't mean to be harsh, but the character is incredibly bland. I can't tell anything about his personality from the design. The generic mouth shape. The generic hair. The generic clothing. Even the eyebrows tell me nothing. Also, they are not symmetrical (even taking into consideration the perspective shift). Also, making them visible through the hair is a convention that's been done to death in anime.

2. The main character in pumpkin form:
- same problem as the normal version - no personality, very bland
- the suit is too even (blue top and blue bottom)
- I'm not sold on your solutions to the hands and feet

3. Monroe:
- marginally better personality but again it's not clear. I know he has something going on upstairs, unlike the first guy, but I'd be hard pressed to tell you exactly what it is.
- you're not consistent with his ear shape
- the sword is very generic (this would be a good place to help emphasize the character's personality)

4. Drake
- better costuming
- again, no real sense of character or personality

5. D-mon
- are his eyes really two different sizes or did you just draw them that way to keep them from being symmetrical?
- the green ptich fork that matches his pants, from a design perspective, is not ideal.
- the stance is too even.


As a whole,
- characters lack clear personality
- designs have too many cliches and lack originality
- the whole thing is very plain and unfortunately very boring.

I think that you really need to push your designs beyond just acceptable drawings. I get no sense of a design philosophy.

I hope this helps.
The Branch.

[greenpinky]

Wow...thank you soo much! This is the kinda critiquing i've been looking for. I've just been getting compliments in other places, and I've just felt that, i knew there was something wrong with my drawings, and nobody was giving me any advise.

I'm at home on summer break now, and have already started working on improving these characters a little more. I'll post up the new ones next week.

Again, thanks.

Lydia

[the branch]

You're very welcome!

I was reading through the comments that I made and I was surprised how much I hear that very same criticism about my own work on a daily basis in animation school.

We're all still working hard to improve.

Hope to see your new stuff.

Branch.

[greenpinky]

really, wow. which animation school do you go to? i'm just starting my senior year at scad. might be a couple days till i get those new ones up. i come from school and my parents are moving. so i have to help pack up the house. which is proving to be quite a chore cuase the house is pretty big. ugh. not looking forward to tomorrow.

[the branch]

Sorry about the delay.
I go to Seneca College (in Toronto).

I have a bunch of my class-work (model sheets, char designs, etc...) up on my blog if you want to check out the work that we're doing:

http://animationstudent.blogspot.com

Branch.