Project 3: Pencil World; CHARACTER DESIGN

This week's task involved creating a creature from scratch with the following requirements; it cannot have arms or legs, it cannot have eyes or any facial features, and it cannot be a blob! Conann was trying to get us to be more imaginative in our approach to character design. As per the image above, I began to sketch my ideas out initially on paper. Our group split the many species of creature on the planet into subsections. They consisted of rock golems, winged bat creatures, and crystal humanoids. I was to focus on the bat species. I began to get some ideas flowing by carrying out a quick exercise. I closed my eyes and made random blobs of watercolour on a page. Then, I used my imagination to convert these odd shapes into unusual creatures. I found this to be rather fun and I ended up having more freedom in my ideas.

A second aspect to the task was for our creature to be inspired by a piece of poetry. We selected our poem to be "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. This helped to influence my later designed creature. The poem itself has quite a dark tone as it describes a menacing raven who visits a man during the night. I tried to convey this tone in the design of the creature.

I also researched and studied plague doctor masks as their design was based on the bill of a raven. Due to the lack of features we were given to work with, I chose to centre the face of my creature around a large beak. 

I then drafted some options for the main features of the creature. I consulted with my team members and they suggested that I pick tail 2, wing 1, and head 1. With the combination of features now chosen I began to assemble them and draw the finished creature.

The finished design is displayed in the image below. It ended up resembling a pterodactyl like creature with a large wing-span and long tails. It would have a hard scaly texture on its upper back and head, with a softer, fleshy underbelly.