Character Design Feedback please

[holleywilliamson]

Hi so I am working on creating characters for the story of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, (the constellations) but making it child friendly. I want the characters to look like children, and I am working on having different shaped bodies and also different size characters, but since they are children mostly around the same age, not sure how much I can get away with, with varying their size. I want the animals to also look young. Let me know if I'm going in the right direction. Next up is practicing drawing these characters in different positions and seeing if I can get them to look like the same character!

[RHirsch]

I like your characters, overall I'd say they have the look you're going for. Ursa Major looks more like an adult to me, but maybe you want that one to because hey, it's Major. I can't read all the names, but the boy on the far right has arms that look too muscular to me to belong to a child. The general rule of thumb is for kids to have larger heads and smaller bodies, or smaller features on heads (except eyes, you can get away with big eyes). Just some thoughts, hope some of it is helpful.

[holleywilliamson]

@rhirsch thank you. I have trouble getting my file size small enough to upload but also clear. The boy to the right is Zeus as a boy, so I still want him to look like he will eventually be an all powerful god. What do you think, should I tone down the muscles still? I was thinking Ursa Major could look like a teenager.

[TessaW]

I think you are headed in the right direction. I like that you are distinguishing your characters with different hair shapes. To me, they do feel like kids, and they have an appealing look. I think you could exaggerate even more, but that's just a personal preference. I do think they work as is. If I'm interpreting this correctly there will be a bear version and a human version of the same character Callisto, and the same for Arcas? If so, I wonder if there is a way to make the bear version and the human version visually tied together in some way. With color for example, or perhaps proportion. Just an idea. I also think it's ok to have a muscular kid, especially if it's someone like Zeus. . . though it could be interesting if he was terribly skinny as a kid. Anyway, just throwing out ideas that you can feel free to disregard.

One thing that I think could be improved upon is how the older bear's head relates to the body. It looks like it's sort of cut and pasted on at this point, and I think it could transition into the body better. I also added a little nub tail, but I know that the tail is a part of the myth, so I'm not sure what your plans for the tail are.

I would also be aware of how you pose the pegasus. The back legs feel a bit static for the pose.

Good luck with your next stage! It seems like a fun project.

[Chip Valecek]

@holleywilliamson I think they read as kids as well. For sure the taller ones seem to be older like pre-teen age. But they all read as kids.

[holleywilliamson]

Here are a few drawings I have done for this project. I am not as excited to work on drawings just because. I want them to be for the final product. I don't know if it is because of my limited time (I have 5 kids and the youngest is 1 1/2) or if I just love the painting part so much more. Thinking about fleshing out my story and making a dummy. Then working on a few for portfolio.

[cStoneArt]

It's looking nice I'm on the iPad so can't upload images but I'd check out the concept art for Disneys Brother Bear, they have wonderful shapes for the bears! I'd keep playing with the characters in different positions and situations to really help bring out their characters, by repetition you'll refine the designs. Remember the three basic design shapes, a circle shows easy going, friendly characters, a square shows stern, stubborn characters and triangles show energetic, edgy characters. Keep up the good work!