Character Design In illustrator

[adamisthedaddy]

Hi I'm Adam a product design student at the University of Leeds, this is my first post on the forum so steady on!

Illustrator is an area where I am seeking to improve because we havn't really had much focus on it in my degree course. I was shown how to live trace but that was it The only area which I seem to have the hang of is the pen tool and with that in mind I've produced these two slightly raunchy character designs

First attempt (Slugger)

Slugger Illustrated

Second attempt (Duster)

Duster Illustrated

The dates on the drawings are from when I posted them on my blog which can be found in my signature if you want to check it out. Keenly await your reviews :up:

 

[kayak_nut]

hi adam, what are you asking?

 

[adamisthedaddy]

Hi kayak_nut

Just some criticism really, I'm new to Illustrator and wondering if anyone could give me a direction to go with these or if there is something obvious that I've missed that I could have done to improve these pieces

 

[Thewholehogg]

Looks ok to me. I like the lighter line wieghts on the second image more. Watch the eyes don't become to heavy.

 

[scotty]

Cool.
Be nice to see it coloured up.
A tip on this is to create a layer below your line work and lock your line layer.
Also another thing if you do colour it up is if you find the black of the linework to be a bit full on is to make it a darker hue of what's inside it and carry that throughout.
Brown hair - Dark brown line
Red bra - Dark red line
and so on.

 

[Squiddy]

They are pretty good, a couple of proportional issues but apart from that I like everything, except... what's going on with their faces? Are they supposed to look like transvestites?

The bottom one looks like it could be a draft poster for a film about undercover police officers trying to infiltrate the local transvestite gangs. Was that your intention?

Okay, jokes aside, they're good but the faces need some attention. Also the jaw line on the top one is a little peculiar!

 

[Jimlad]

Very nice! Might want to re-work the first girl's expression a bit.

 

[adamisthedaddy]

Thanks for your responses guys
I think I needed other peoples eyes on these because I hadn't picked up on the expressions as much. The second girl looks abit menacing.

The jawline of the first girl was supposed to show her biting her lip bit it does look like a pretty dodgy bulge thanks Squiddy

I'm going to attempt a colour up on these thanks for the advice scotty

 

[Squiddy]

I look forward to seeing the new versions, got much left to do?

 

[kayak_nut]

i agree with typo, like the lighter line weights on the second one, but on the whole theyre really quite good adam.

 

[Donald Anderson]

Looks fine to me, i like how you give a unique look to each design.

 

[adamisthedaddy]

Took my time doing this because I was fumbling around trying to render this in illustrator when I had no clue how to use it. I've rendered the original line work but I still havn't had a pop at fixing her bug eye. Thought it might look OK but I'm not convinced its the image bellow:

Then I decided that I might be able to fix it by swapping the eye over from the left but It looks all sort of wrong as you can see bellow

So This is where I'm up to at the moment. I'm going to start from a fresh with the face and make her look a little less like a bloke

Adam

 

[Donald Anderson]

That was fast. Nice colors, but the shading seems a bit off on the face. But since you started with a new one, I would suggest you lessen the brow ridges to get that look you want.

 

[kayak_nut]

take a look at this link, it a pic of angelina jolie scowling from the movie 'wanted'. Im guessing this is the look you were after? take notice of the shapes on her face, escpecially those of her eyes, eye brows and cheekbones, but dont over emphasise the weight of the furrows between her brows else she will end up looking a buffy the vampire slayer extra.

ive done this very very quick simplified version of the pic, so that you can see the angles of the features, and the direction the eyes are pointing, in yours try to make the face and eyes look at a point just past the fist.

 

[adamisthedaddy]

This is what I've finished with, took your advice Donald and got rid of some of the furrows and tried to make it look abit more like Kayak_Nut's Jolie face