Crit Welcome: Character Designs x5!

[StudioHannah]

The SVS class had us doing five "Beauty and the Beast" inspired characters, and since I have a story that's partially inspired by BatB, I just drew those characters for the class. You can probably guess who most of the characters were inspired by in the original story, but they take on somewhat different roles in my story. Still, we have a maiden, a "beast" who I drew in his costume rather than his real form, a kind older lady who helps them, a magical flamboyantly-moving skinny comic relief, and a dangerous bully.

Happy to take critiques if you see things I can improve (I know there are things!) AND if you've done this class I'd love to see what you came up with!

[Yogita Chawdhary]

I honestly don’t have any critiques- just appreciation for these characters- especially the one with the mask face and branch-like limbs, as well as the beast! I’ll probably rewatch Beauty and the Beast to catch all the connections, but a few already look familiar! Great work overall!

[Mimi Simon]

These look really cool! I love the beast's costume especially! Heres my thoughts on how you could improve them. First thing, which I was told in a character design class because I made the same mistake, is that when drawing characters you want to raise the horizon line a bit so that the feet are not right at the horizon. You want to be looking down on the feet so that you can get a better sense of their design without being foreshortened and also it's more true to life because we rarely look at people from ground level. A horizon line around the middle of the tallest character or even higher if all characters are a similar hight normally works well. Second make sure to draw the characters body fully underneath the clothes and really push their pose to give a sense of their personality. You want to avoid stiff and generic poses. Make sure each arm is the same length and each hand is the same size (some seem a bit off) and pose each hand in a way thats natural and not stiff. Pose the way your characters are posing to make sure what you are drawing is actually possible. Lastly the color of your characters seems a bit dull. If you like a muted looks thats fine. Try just making the warm colors warmer and leaving the cool colors muted or vice versa. A trick I do when coloring characters with black lines like these, is hide the line layer so you just see the colors, then turn your monitor to black and white (you can do that in photoshop) then make sure the the colors that are next to each other on a character are not the same shade of gray. Then when you switch your display back to color your characters instantly pop more. Hope this helps!

[Meg Clayburn]

Really solid drawing, I also love the beast. Reminds me of owl house. I think the maiden lacks a little personality. Maybe change the pose or facial expression to give us some information she just feels generic. Her feet are also facing us head on, but the rest of her body is 3/4, so she feels twisted. I would also suggest drawing the whole body under the clothes, for example, the stick girl’s left leg (my left), if you continue to follow the direction it’s going it doesn’t connect with body, and it makes the thigh longer than the other. Really love them, you did a great job recreating characters that are so iconic.

[StudioHannah]

@Meg-Clayburn Thanks for the feedback! A note on her feet - they're supposed to be twisted as she was born with a disability. She and the "beast" character have a kind of parallel story in my version.

I was thinking she lacked a little personality but then... I was tired and stopped trying haha! I'll put some more thought into her. She is the main character so I want her to be interesting!

[StudioHannah]

@Mimi-Simon All great feedback, thank you! Ok the horizon line thing... NO WONDER I STRUGGLE WITH LINEUPS. I got into the habit early on of trying to draw the characters in the perspective as if I'm around waist height but also drawing their feet flat, and it always looked wrong to me but I couldn't figure out why. I might do another version of these guys to push those poses and give them some more dynamism. Thank you!

I do like muted colors lol

[Meg Clayburn]

@StudioHannah I got the turned in feet suggested a disability, that read well. I more mean which way they are facing. At a 3/4 view there should be some overlap. Maybe this drawing helps get across what I’m trying to say? Or I’m just crazy.

[ArtistErin]

I love these! I don't have any suggestions... just noting your clean lines and fantastic characters. Love that Beast... the mask is great! Very cool

[Kona McDonald]

Great character designs, they are all very unique to each other, and it's easy to see which character they are representing in Beauty & the Beast.

[AthenaBeana]

@StudioHannah These are really cool! My favorite is the stick armed one.

Can I make a suggestion though? The two characters on the ends have a similar color palate with the various shades of browns. Maybe you could give the girl some orange or red on her outfit to be more visually distinct.
I don't know if this is on purpose, but to me the bully looks very similar to a lot of high school bullies in pop culture. Blond hair, square face, jock look, etc. Maybe consider changing his design somewhat so he doesn't look quite so much like a classic bully.

[StudioHannah]

@Meg-Clayburn Aaaah oh, I see what you mean. The drawing helped!

[StudioHannah]

@AthenaBeana They come from the same town so I wanted to keep the "we come fro the same poor-ish area and only have so many colors of clothing to choose from" look but I can definitely mess around with them to make them more unique. Thanks for the suggestions!

[StudioHannah]

Thanks to everyones advice I did a second round for these characters with a bunch of adjustments and I think they look a lot better!

[_sadira_]

@StudioHannah great second round for the character lineup! I love how diverse and unique the cast is, all of the character's silhouettes would be easily recognizable not to mention the clear shape language with them.

[ArtistErin]

@StudioHannah I love how you are improving! Working on a character sheet too! And building maquettes So fun

[StudioHannah]

@ArtistErin I've designed characters and I've sculpted, but I've never made a maquette. You would think that would have crossed over for me by now hahaha - I hope yours go well! I want to see them them you're done!

[StudioHannah]

@_sadira_ Thank you so much!