Disney style of drawing people. "creating and developing an image of the character." Creating an older character

Character  - a fictional animated person with a certain character and unique external data. In art, characters are divided into two main categories: animated and static. The fundamental difference between an animated character and a static character is in the special construction of the character, thanks to which the work of animators with the hero will be greatly facilitated.

DEVELOPING AN IMAGE OF A CHARACTER

The search for the image of the character is the most responsible and interesting stage. When choosing an image, it is necessary to take into account not only the personal qualities of the hero, but also his harmonious combination with the surrounding world. Also, the character must be expressive and "not beaten", have a certain amount of charm.

To begin with, it is necessary to study the introductory materials (TK, script, literary and directorial description of the characters), to communicate with the director, who will try to convey his thoughts to the artist as accurately as possible. To get acquainted with the features of the style of the project, about which the production designer will tell, or the director, if at the stage of creating the characters of the production designer on the project yet. As a result of acquaintance with the project, it is worth making a number of sketches, noting for yourself some of the most important points that will be useful in further work with the character.

First of all, it is necessary to present the brightest episodes from the read script, and try to cover simple concepts of the most impressive scenes with the participation of the main character. This is done in order to feel the main signs of the future character - his weight, posture, physique.

Once you have managed to catch a suitable image in your opinion that has blurry, but already more or less clear outlines, you can begin to refine the style - search for the shape of hairstyle, clothing, personal items without going into details. At this stage, you should not cling to some successfully obtained image. The task of the artist to draw many different options unrelated, of which the most successful will be selected later.

Do not forget that the character should be easily "read" by the viewer. To check the character's "readability", it is enough to paint it with black color.after which the silhouette of the character should be recognizable and look quite impressive.

The next stage is the running in of the character.
The selected, but so far raw version is played up in action. To do this, you need to draw a character in his inherent poses. Unnecessary details in the course of work are excluded and replaced with new ones, more suitable for the hero and the most convenient in work.

The final stage in creating an image of the character, as a rule, is started after the approval and adjustment of the most suitable option chosen by the director (customer). Now the artist's task is to work with details and bring the image.

The final touch - character painting.
The final version of the character in color is accompanied by comments, which indicate the color values ​​used for each individual element of the image in RGB or CMYK (depending on the software used in the project). The use of unconventional stylistics when imposing light and shadow on a character implies the additional development of a scheme of light-shadows.

CHARACTERISTIC POSE OF CHARACTER

Characteristic character poses complement the description of the literary image of the hero. They help to visually show the character of the hero, his habits and behavior. The key task of the artist is to convey the idea of ​​the director as accurately as possible, endowing the hero with his qualities (according to the script).

Characteristic character poses are "Natural" (unconstrained), "Habitual" (reflex) and "Staged" (emotional):

- "Natural posture"- this is the calm state of the character in a standing position with support on one leg. Less often both legs are supported, with a uniformly distributed center of gravity.

- "Habitual poses"- characteristic of the hero's position of the body, taken reflexively in accordance with the mood of the character, for example: thoughtfulness, agitation, fatigue.

- "Posing poses"- deliberately exaggerated poses taken by the hero in the presence of a third person, for example: flirting, delight, surprise, shame.

Regardless of the type, the posture should be quite bright and expressive. The desired effect is achieved due to posture *, setting the arms and legs, head position, facial expressions and gestures.

Curious fact:

When creating characters, many artists involuntarily endow their heroes with a twisted medically posture. If we consider different types of posture according to F.Staffel, then the curvature of the spine is inherent in almost all types:

- "Flat concave"the back is characteristic of women. Such a bend of the back well emphasizes the female form in the waist and hips;

- "Flat back"peculiar to the military, when it is necessary to exaggerately show the bearing;

- "Round back"as a rule, belongs to a lanky, insecure young man or a tall, thin old man;

- "Concave-round back" possess monsters with a powerful torso.

The position of the head, in combination with facial expressions and gestures, more expressively conveys the mood of the character. The head has five basic positions: straight, down, up, up, sideways, to the side.

The position of the character's head is directly related to the mood of the hero. For example: a raised head will emphasize confidence, arrogance, or daydreaming; Omitted - rage and aggression, fatigue or sadness; slightly down with a slant to the side - embarrassment and flirting, and in the straight position - surprise, fear or irritation. Despite a certain regularity, there are techniques that violate these principles, but this can already be considered an exception to the rule.

Unlike experienced artists who rely on their experience and intuition, novice artists will not be overly revered in special literature on the psychology of facial expressions and gestures, all the more this topic is quite interesting and helps the artist to identify certain patterns in human behavior independently.

BUILDING A CHARACTER

When creating an animated character, the artist must not only represent how the character will move, but also clearly explain this to the animator, who will later work with the character. To do this, the character understands the so-called "blanks", after which drawing character construction.

As we know, any complex object consists of simple shapes (circles, ovals, triangles, rectangles). The task of the artist is to disassemble his character in detail into simple forms, show ways to connect them on the centerlines and clarify the proportions. The character construction scheme should be simple, logical, convenient and understandable. The more intelligent the construction scheme is, the easier it will be to work with the character. It is worth noting that the technique of character creation for each artist is individual - some immediately build a character when it is created, others draw a character without building, focusing on their experience and intuition. Nevertheless, regardless of the character creation technique, it’s even necessary to disassemble it into "blanks", unless of course we are talking about a special animation style, where only the image is important, and the character construction does not play a big role.

Something like this might look like a character

It is not rare that there is a need to adapt (adapt) a static character with an illustration for an animation project. To do this, it is enough to rebuild the character, breaking it into "blanks", at the same time simplifying small details.

An example of a static character adapted (adapted) to the animation.

With animals, work happens in the same way as with humans.

EMOTION CHARACTER

Any character should be able to express their emotions on current events.. The brighter and more diverse the facial expressions of the character, the more interesting you can beat his reaction to this or that event. The style of the character sets the framework in which emotions are created in an exaggerated form, the degree of which depends on the character’s "cartoon character".

Depending on the complexity of the project, the card of emotions can be very different. Specific emotions and their quantity required for a particular project is usually determined by the terms of reference.

REFINEMENT OF DETAILS

Accessories, clothing items and hairstyle of the character play an important role in creating a unique, memorable image. In the process of developing the details, it is important not only to visualize the idea of ​​the location of additional elements in the character’s image, but also to clarify how these details “work”. The artist must understand the functional purpose of the elements invented by him, their practical application, interaction with the character, how they will move in the animation, in order to convey this visually in the character development documents.

To clarify the details are additional sheets.

COMPARISON TABLE

Comparative table of characters (ruler) is a lined sheet on which all the characters of the animated film are placed in such a way that with the help of comparative lines or a scale grid, you can clearly demonstrate the proportional relationship of characters (first of all, their growth).

Episodic characters, as a rule, are not included in the comparative table. For them, a separate sheet is created, tied to the “ruler” using a scale grid. Or a comparison is made with the hero from the table (with which the episodic character interacts).

Question:

« Tell me, please, do you have a rough draft somewhere where you can see where you start from? In the sense in which it would be clear how you create your character on the basis of circles and triangles?

  I really want to develop my own style, but I can not do without a couple of tips from a person who knows how to draw such cute girls.».

Question: « I have a question: When I paint the same character several times, it just makes me so angry that it looks different every time.
  For God's sake, tell me, how do you get all the characters to look the same in each section of the comic?»

Answer:  These questions are somewhat interrelated, so I will try to give a general answer to them.

1. Structure of the picture.

A very brief description of where I start (and finish) draw.

The essence of the whole process is to start with simple forms and finish with a detailed drawing. In the first figure, a sketch is made in the form of basic shapes and reference lines.
  I will clear up. The illustration shows a pair of idiots running through a corn field.
  I start with an inaccurate, unpretentious sketch of the figures and reference lines. At this stage, I only care about the external similarity of the characters and the successful transmission of the dynamics in their poses.

First, I get rid of obscure gestures, unnatural poses, ridiculous proportions and gradually “clutter up” the composition, filling the picture.

As soon as I am satisfied with the exemplary drawing, I begin to draw on top of it, focusing on some of the early lines.
  By this moment your drawing will surely turn into something terrible. And all because you are a dirty, sloppy artist.
  But do not worry. It should be so.

When the main draft is ready, I proceed to the detailed drawing. I do not erase the initial sketch yet, because the reference strokes depicting the outlines of the characters and their movements will help with detailed drawing. They will help to figure out where to draw seams on clothes, where to add folds, how hair and wool should lie on one or another part of a character, etc.

In this figure, I have already got rid of all the reference lines, in some places have smeared them, and in some places made them clearer. At this stage I prefer to work with a pencil, but the practice is also widespread, when at first the drawing is inked and then all the pencil work is erased.

2. The monotony of the character.

How I draw the same character from different angles.

Regardless of the position of the head, the established rules remain unchanged.

These blue lines in the upper figure, which suggest the shape of the head and indicate the middle lines, are enough for me to know how other figures are arranged, like those that are circled in red in the figure below.

And in the end we get a character that looks the same from different angles. And all because he was created on the basis of figures on the same principle.

And finally, always remember that despite the fact that such initial techniques can contribute to fast progress, nothing can replace practice. Do not give up if this technique did not justify itself the first time ... or 98 subsequent attempts. Continue to draw.

3. How to draw “Handsome.”

The very essence of the attractiveness of the character (which usually includes the concept of "cute") is a whole separate topic - an extensive and, moreover, hardly amenable to fragmentation. I can hardly tell about it here, if I can at all, but at least I will give you a couple of tips that you should pay attention to if you want to create an attractive character:

  - Attractiveness. It is no secret that certain proportions of nature have visual appeal. Do not forget about them when you create a character. Often, the characters turn out to be pretty if they are portrayed in accordance with the proportions of a child’s face: high forehead, plump cheeks, large eyes and other facial features located close to each other.

(Studio Disney adopted this practice as a rule. Thus, drawing classic famous characters will help you understand how to make your own characters attractive, and will generally introduce you to the structure of the drawing. Try to draw a hunter from the Luni Tunes cartoon “Avier” (to learn how to create cute and funny, not cute and sweet characters).

  - Cleaning.   Make sure that your character does not become gloomy or ugly due to the excessive number of unnecessary lines. Understand the importance of saving lines. Simplify the sketch so that the emphasis falls on its most important, attractive features; those that reflect the essence of the character and allow you to convey his mood. This not only simplifies drawing a character from different angles time after time, but also makes it easier to read.

  - Expressiveness. The key to making the character look attractive or just to arouse sympathy is to achieve simplicity of the pattern through cleaning off unnecessary lines, as well as a frank and understandable expression on the face that fully conveys the character’s thoughts or feelings. Ambiguous, empty or indistinguishable expressions on the face do not have such attractiveness. Give the character the opportunity to act, react and be genuinely alive.

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