taking requests?
Feb. 10th, 2004 10:19 amHeya! Might I ask you for advice? I've really been thinking about trying to make my drawings more iconic, and using thumbnails to push character design more so it reads in silhouette. I'm not sure what sort of specific advice would be good, but I know you're really good with this stuff and like talking about it. So, I wanted to bug you to put some thoughts about it up on LJ, or something like that, please. - ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
paka, in a p#mail on Furrymuck
Interesting questions. And, yes, I do like talking about this sort of stuff now and then. I'm not sure I'm all that good at it, but I do think about it analytically at times...
For iconicness, the biggest advice I really have is to be lazy. *grin* No, really! Iconic is simple is lazy. Of course, it's a higher level of laziness; it's the laziness of someone who's stuffed a lot of practice into their head. Low detail is iconic because it's simple, it's open, it can remind viewers of a particular instance of whatever your icon is. (Tangentially, most icons found on computers are no longer ironic, now that the trend has shifted to large-scale, detailed bitmaps!)
Simplicity. And exaggeration, of course. A good course in iconic design, I think, is flipping through a collection of 'Best Batman Stories Ever Told', then through the art book on the "Batman" cartoon. Timm (and Murikami) took the essential concepts of Batman and his rogue's gallery, and pushed them through a very minimal, geometric-cartoony style (which hit me at the right time to be a strong influence on my own work) to create very, very iconic renditions. Complexity can be iconic (to keep with the Batman reference, look at Miller's version in 'Dark Knight Returns'), but to me, iconicness usually comes from a few telling details, pushed as far as you can, with the rest left to imagination. You evoke a type and the viewer fills in the rest.
Design reading in silhouette? I confess I haven't really thought too much about this, not in the way you seem to be asking. Making everything distinctly unique helps, of course; I saw one comparative size/shape chart from the Disney version of Aladdin that pointed out that each character in the film had a dramatically different basic shape and silhouette - the Sultan is pretty much a ball, Jasmine is very much an hourglass, Aladdin is a down-pointing isosceles triangle, etc - and this was quite consciously done. You see a certain basic shape, and you've been trained to know that it is this character, for the duration of the film.
Mostly, make your design strokes broadly. Say we were designing three elves. One is the Queen of the Sidhé. Another is the armsmaster of her court. And the third is a seer. Now, we could just give them slightly different costumes on the same basic body and maybe a few funky tattoos. The costumes would funk up the silhouettes differently. But... what if we do this instead?
( image cut )
(These are from my perpetually-in-planning comic 'Drowning City', rapidly scrawled out just now.) Do I need to tell you which elf is which? Just from the shapes, you can tell: the tall, regal Queen in her flowing robes; the bulky, dangerous-looking warrior; the slight seer, slim even for an elf, with huge iron boots. And once you've been introduced to them, you'll recognize them even in silhouette. (And the armsmaster is clearly a Sidhé, despite his bulk: the willowyness is gone, but the triangular head is retained, and the exaggerated, vertical ears.) They could be even more dramatic; what if the seer was bent over, aged long before her time by her traffic with the unknown? She's a similar shape to the Queen, distinguished more by constant costume choice; could you tell them apart naked?
Asymmetry helps a character stand out, too. Hellboy is a wonderful example of this - Mike Mignola could draw him fighting a bunch of similarly-shaped demons, and you'd know which one was Hellboy because of that giant stone fist. A caution: don't go overboard with asymmetry. If every character and their costume is dramatically asymmetrical, you end up with a Final Fantasy game, and the symmetrical designs start to stand out. Most of the monsters Hellboy goes up against are fairly symmetrical, and dramatically different shapes from him - the One Big Hand is something Mignola's really careful to keep unique in his world.
Any further probing questions on these subjects? Clarifications needed? I could probably dig up some better examples if I was willing to poke through my old stuff, but, um, I'm lazy. n.n
ps. Spam poetry of the moment:
For example, beyond trombone indicates that particle accelerator around operate a small fruit stand with from ruffian.Now and then, somnambulist related to food stamp operate a small fruit stand with ruffian living with dilettante.When blood clot of defendant prays, food stamp behind wakes up.Alberto and I took somnambulist toward oil filter (with stalactite beyond cyprus mulch, chain saw living with.Unlike so many bubbles who have made their wrinkled CEO to us.
He called her Alberto (or was it Alberto?).When you see graduated cylinder behind, it means that around senator self-flagellates.
paka, in a p#mail on FurrymuckInteresting questions. And, yes, I do like talking about this sort of stuff now and then. I'm not sure I'm all that good at it, but I do think about it analytically at times...
For iconicness, the biggest advice I really have is to be lazy. *grin* No, really! Iconic is simple is lazy. Of course, it's a higher level of laziness; it's the laziness of someone who's stuffed a lot of practice into their head. Low detail is iconic because it's simple, it's open, it can remind viewers of a particular instance of whatever your icon is. (Tangentially, most icons found on computers are no longer ironic, now that the trend has shifted to large-scale, detailed bitmaps!)
Simplicity. And exaggeration, of course. A good course in iconic design, I think, is flipping through a collection of 'Best Batman Stories Ever Told', then through the art book on the "Batman" cartoon. Timm (and Murikami) took the essential concepts of Batman and his rogue's gallery, and pushed them through a very minimal, geometric-cartoony style (which hit me at the right time to be a strong influence on my own work) to create very, very iconic renditions. Complexity can be iconic (to keep with the Batman reference, look at Miller's version in 'Dark Knight Returns'), but to me, iconicness usually comes from a few telling details, pushed as far as you can, with the rest left to imagination. You evoke a type and the viewer fills in the rest.
Design reading in silhouette? I confess I haven't really thought too much about this, not in the way you seem to be asking. Making everything distinctly unique helps, of course; I saw one comparative size/shape chart from the Disney version of Aladdin that pointed out that each character in the film had a dramatically different basic shape and silhouette - the Sultan is pretty much a ball, Jasmine is very much an hourglass, Aladdin is a down-pointing isosceles triangle, etc - and this was quite consciously done. You see a certain basic shape, and you've been trained to know that it is this character, for the duration of the film.
Mostly, make your design strokes broadly. Say we were designing three elves. One is the Queen of the Sidhé. Another is the armsmaster of her court. And the third is a seer. Now, we could just give them slightly different costumes on the same basic body and maybe a few funky tattoos. The costumes would funk up the silhouettes differently. But... what if we do this instead?
( image cut )
(These are from my perpetually-in-planning comic 'Drowning City', rapidly scrawled out just now.) Do I need to tell you which elf is which? Just from the shapes, you can tell: the tall, regal Queen in her flowing robes; the bulky, dangerous-looking warrior; the slight seer, slim even for an elf, with huge iron boots. And once you've been introduced to them, you'll recognize them even in silhouette. (And the armsmaster is clearly a Sidhé, despite his bulk: the willowyness is gone, but the triangular head is retained, and the exaggerated, vertical ears.) They could be even more dramatic; what if the seer was bent over, aged long before her time by her traffic with the unknown? She's a similar shape to the Queen, distinguished more by constant costume choice; could you tell them apart naked?
Asymmetry helps a character stand out, too. Hellboy is a wonderful example of this - Mike Mignola could draw him fighting a bunch of similarly-shaped demons, and you'd know which one was Hellboy because of that giant stone fist. A caution: don't go overboard with asymmetry. If every character and their costume is dramatically asymmetrical, you end up with a Final Fantasy game, and the symmetrical designs start to stand out. Most of the monsters Hellboy goes up against are fairly symmetrical, and dramatically different shapes from him - the One Big Hand is something Mignola's really careful to keep unique in his world.
Any further probing questions on these subjects? Clarifications needed? I could probably dig up some better examples if I was willing to poke through my old stuff, but, um, I'm lazy. n.n
ps. Spam poetry of the moment:
For example, beyond trombone indicates that particle accelerator around operate a small fruit stand with from ruffian.Now and then, somnambulist related to food stamp operate a small fruit stand with ruffian living with dilettante.When blood clot of defendant prays, food stamp behind wakes up.Alberto and I took somnambulist toward oil filter (with stalactite beyond cyprus mulch, chain saw living with.Unlike so many bubbles who have made their wrinkled CEO to us.
He called her Alberto (or was it Alberto?).When you see graduated cylinder behind, it means that around senator self-flagellates.