Stylizing human characters assignments

lucy_gow · 1 Jun 2022, 03:42

Hi! I just finished the Stylizing Human Characters course, and these are my assignments (mostly).

First, I analyzed three characters that I like. This was pretty instructive. I'm not sure I placed the dot exactly right, but I think it showed I like characters that are closer to the abstraction corner than I tend to try to draw myself. So, I want to push myself to use shapes more consciously in the future.

Stanley - I think this character is particularly appealing to toddlers. I chose to put it close to Abstract because I never even knew Stanley was a hamster. I had to look it up.
The water babies - I loved this book when I was about 6 or 7. I tried to copy the illustrations of water babies and the fish a lot at the time, over and over. As I remember it, when I was a child, I perceived them as way more towards the Figurative corner (I saw them as completely realistic) but now I can see how the shapes are simplified.
Wendy from Trubble Town. I saw this book in the library recently, and immediately borrowed it because of the characters. I like her mouth. It's so ridiculous.

lucy_gow · 1 Jun 2022, 03:48

For the final assignment, I chose not to draw a family member - actually I've drawn them so much already! I wanted to draw different characters. So I drew the characters from Abbott Elementary. They are all school teachers (except Ava - she's the principal). I really like this show, and I think it's because of the characters, so I wanted to try to draw them in a style that is fairly abstract and symbolic (like a cartoon style). I originally wanted to render them a little bit softer, aspiring for the dot where the Water Babies are on the style wheel.

However, I found it so hard just to capture the characters, so I didn't add in light and shadow just yet. I made the head to body ratio roughly 1:4, because I thought this was more like the style I'm after. These are the first three I did:

lucy_gow · 1 Jun 2022, 04:31

And these are the next three I drew:

I think the style shifted while I was drawing them, and maybe I need to circle back.
Also, in trying to capture the characters, I didn't exaggerate the shapes as much as I meant to. I might try again some time. I think it is hard, because I'm afraid of exaggerating too much. It feels rude somehow. I wonder if anyone else finds that?