This quarter’s (Spring 2009) Demo Reel Research myth assignment focuses on the legend of Blackbeard the Pirate. Students will prepare all the pre-production work for a short sequence featuring Blackbeard’s final battle.
The final image I arrived at is below:
So, how do you start?
The way I approach character design, especially if it’s something based on history or mythology, is to start out my gathering any and all images and text I can find on the subject. I make use of the Internet, but I also look at film, books, and magazines.
After I’ve gathered enough images and familiarized myself with the character, I proceed to the sketching phase. I always like to start with the character’s head first. As there were no photos back in the 1700’s, I relied on illustrations from the time period as my starting point. The sketches below show variations of the character’s head.
Changing the eye line for a character changes the way the character looks – and also gives us visual clues as to the character’s personality. A shrewd, intelligent character generally has more brains, and this is denoted visually by moving the eye line down. An eyeline that is positioned near the top of the head suggests lack of intelligence.
Next I toyed around with a few body shapes. I started with a somewhat realistic shape, then exaggerated the shoulder width. Broader shoulders imply strength, and Blackbeard was definitely strong and tough.
More refinement on the body…
And even more refinement – this time taking away the muscles on the legs for a more streamlined look.
Finally, after a few more sketches, I arrived at the rough sketch below. It’s only at this stage that I even begin to think of details like costumes and props.
And here is the final image. You can see the inks, colors and the composite (with color swatches) below.
-Krishna
