Illustration & Visual Narrative - Task 1: Character Design

 Name: Liong Xenyi (0383125)
Module: Illustration & Visual Narrative (COM61304)
Date: 21/4/2025 - 18/5/2025 (Week 1 - Week 3)

Degree: Bachelor of Design (Honors) in Creative Media
University: Taylor's University

Task 1: Character Design

Instructions

In this task, you will take part in creative exercise aimed at teaching the fundamentals of vector illustration and character design using Adobe Illustrator. The challenge limits you to a set of defined personality keywords, and your goal is to create a unique character by combining and manipulating lines and shapes. You will develop your skills and understanding in proportion, balance, color, and composition, as well as master key Illustrator tools like the Pen Tool, Pathfinder, and Shape Builder.

Challenge Guidelines and Rules:
Color and Size: You are free to experiment with colors, gradients, and sizes of the shapes, as long as the original proportions remain intact.

Creative Expression: Feel free to give your character a backstory, personality, or theme that influences its design. This will help you think critically about how shapes can communicate emotion or narrative.

This exercise is designed to build your technical proficiency in Illustrator while encouraging you to engage in the creative development process. It’s not only about mastering the tools but also about how you problem-solve and develop and articulate your ideas.

Submission requirements:

• Documentation in PDF:Sketches
• Rationale
• Moodboard
• Final Artwork Line Art
• Final Artwork Color & Shading
• Final Artwork1 .ai file containing 3 Characters Line Art
• 1 .ai file containing 3 Characters Color & Shading

Documentation and Final Output:

Character 1

Mood board/references:

Fig 1.1

Sketch

Fig 1.2

Rationale:

I was inspired by a DnD (Dungeons & Dragons) theme and wanted to try drawing an anthropomorphic animal being. I love raccoons and I love the idea of a monk/rogue character, and since raccoons are an archetype of sly, sneaky animals, I decided it’s a perfect fit to combine the two. This raccoon is a street rat (or raccoon), a nimble, cheeky thieve that’s stealthy and has the best

sleight of hand in the city. She’s tiny and gets away easily, finishing any job given to her with the right amount. The folk nickname her “Lil’ R”, for none knows her name. Lil’ R never stays at one place, always staying undetected by blending in with non-flashy clothing, donning rags and only carrying what she needs. Dirty and dark is my main colour theme, so dark brown along with a raccoon colour reference became the colour scheme. The hood hides her more in the shadows, while her weapon is a sickle – not the best practical weapon, but as she is nimble, she loves a good challenge. Her stick helps her in fights, with her good dexterity keeping her in balance.

Final Artwork: Line Art

Fig 1.3

Final Artwork: Colour & Shading

Fig 1.4

Character 2

Mood board/references:

Fig 2.1

Fig 2.2

Sketch

Fig 2.3

Rationale:

I made a DnD character named ‘Zyra’, and wanted to explore her design a bit more while making it simple. She is a druid Tiefling, being able to harness nature’s magic and shapeshift into animals. Her colour theme is a mixture of different blues, as I played around to see what fits. I tried giving her a non-typical colour scheme, so instead of green and brown, I went for blue, white and peachy colour, something more akin to the winter colour scheme. Zyra has a quiet, mysterious charm, being the wisest character in the party but at the same time being the most playful. She is always calm and gentle, but when danger comes near her or her companions, she can and will become the danger itself. She follows her heart, doing what she believes is right. Her favourite spell includes anything with fire, as it always proves to be a very useful tool, especially while adventuring. She loves to travel in the Underdark, a serene and dark place underground, with beautiful glowing gems to find and ominous creatures to fight. When drawing, I was inspired by the ‘Adventure Time’ art-style, but after sketching, I unknowingly had a more similar art-style to characters ‘Space Boyfriend’ from ‘Omori’ (left) and ‘Tom’ from ‘Star V.S. the Forces of Evil’ (right), and so I included them in my references.

Final Artwork: Line Art

Fig 2.4

Final Artwork: Colour & Shading

Fig 2.5

Character 3

Mood board/references:

Fig 3.1

Sketch

Fig 3.2

Fig 3.3

Rationale:

Also inspired by DnD, I wanted to try making something different – a monster character. It’s fun to dabble in making horror creatures, and I had fun designing this one. I was thinking of making a wisp-like monster, with bat wings and spider legs, and tentacles hanging at the bottom. I was inspired by the Spectator, a floating monster in DnD. I did this design with symmetry in mind, with several eyes accompanying the number of spider legs, with a large mouth in the middle. It uses its tentacles to grab and feed on things. It lives in very dark caves with its enhanced vision – the red eyes, while

effectively preying on unfortunate beings who stumbles in its home. Its best habitat is in caves, but can venture outside if needed to find food or, well, looking at the night view (monsters can enjoy sceneries too). I searched a bat colour palette, and with a greenish-blue, wisp colour in mind, I found the perfect colour scheme (the second colour palette, on the right). Once again, I was inspired by ‘Adventure Time’ and ‘Omori’ art-style when designing this character.

Final Artwork: Line Art

Fig 3.4

Final Artwork: Colour & Shading

Fig 3.5

Techniques Applied:

• Wrote short descriptions for each character to get inspired by
• Drew sketches
• Made outlines and changed the width to add more weight to certain strokes
• Coloured with the live paint tool
• Created shading and highlights using the pen tool
• Changed the opacity of certain elements

Assignments for each Week:

Week 1 - Introduction to Adobe Illustrator

We got an introduction to the functions and tools in Adobe Illustrator.

Week 2 - Silhouettes and Line Art

Fig 4.1

Mr. Fitri showed us that we could use A.I. to aid us in producing ideas and sketches for our illustrations. With this general picture he gave us, we practiced using the pen tool by creating the line art for one character.

Week 3 - Colouring and Shading

Fig 4.2

With the ghost character as the template, we learned how to change the width of the strokes to give more weight at certain parts of the design. We also learned how to use the live paint tool and add shading and highlights with the pen tool.

Reflection:

Experiences:

It was pretty difficult at first, learning how to navigate and use the tools on Adobe Illustrator, and the hardest part: the pen tool. It took me a lot of trial and error to find the best way to use the pen tool, and many times would give up for awhile in frustration. However, after persisting and pushing through, I managed to complete the character designs and feel pretty happy about it. I find I like to create different characters and explore their personality with the design. Although, I struggled to give them simple designs, as I tend to give too many details, which increased my working hours on creating the design on Illustrator.

Observations:

I observed that I really love making designs for fantasy fiction, especially dabbling in the medieval fantasy genre. Even though I struggled to keep the art style and design simple and use shapes to explore the character more, I think I did a good job in making the characters using a new software. I need to improve on making better silhouettes for characters and not be afraid to use shapes to explore a character's story and personality.

Findings:

Even though there were difficult moments, I find that I enjoy this task a lot, as I could freely explore how to create the characters I like without much restriction (putting style aside). I also realised I do like to create monsters and creatures, as they don't have a restriction on anatomy, colours and shapes. I have the freedom to create and combine anything I want to, and I find that really fun which allows my creativity to run free. I need to improve on using a more definitive shape for each character, to create better silhouettes so that they could be easily recognisable and can explain the character's personality on first impressions. I need to continue using and exploring the tools on Adobe Illustrator, while creating simple designs to create using that software.