Week Number & Date: 03.11.19 – 10.12.19
List of Tasks planned for this week:
- Figure out style for characters
- Finish character 1 ideas gen
Current Position –
- What did I do this week?(Screenshots/Videos/Photos & annotations)
The first thing I wanted to do was figure out a style to work with for the characters in my project. Like I said in my proposal I wanted to have a combination of the calarts style and the Japanese animation art style. If you don’t know “Calarts” is a famous art university in California, it is said to have the best character animation course ever made and the course has produced huge show and company runners in the animation industry (Graduates include Tim Burton, Brad Bird, Pete Doctor, Chris Buck etc). Many shows that have come from calarts often have a similar animation style that has been dubbed the “calarts style”. Shows that have this said style include:
- Star vs the forces of evil
- Gravity falls
- Steven Universe
- The owl house
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I then went and broke down the two styles and played around with style ideas for my project. Each head style has different variations in style and structure to choose from. I needed to pick the one that is this best combination of the Calarts style and japanese animation. I asked some of my friends which one they liked the best, the most popular style was style 1 as they all said it seemed like the best mix of the two styles so style one was the one I chose to use.
When doing character design I work on one thing at a time, whether that is hair, make-up, clothing and accessories. I decided to start off with the hair as I find it easy to create clothing for the character rather than a character for the clothing. I refereed back to my design research loads during this process.
The first design I created was a curly bob cut with eight colour ideas, I briefly forget that I was doing a vaporwave colour palette so I got too adventurous with the colours, the colours I like are ideas seven and eight due to the gradient colours and the fact that they fit into the vaporwave palette.
The second hair idea I created was a sleeker and somewhat longer cut, I kept in mind that this character is heading down to the nightclub for some fun so a sleeker party look may fit the character more. I tried colder vaporwave colour ideas with a warmer sunset inspired idea as well, I dropped block colour ideas in favour of gradient ideas as the gradient ideas had a lot more depth and seemed like they would fit into the vaporwave palette more.
I wanted to try a bun design, although I wanted a sleeker hair style I have seen a lot of tied up hair in cyberpunk media so I wanted to try it out here, I stuck to gradients and used warm and cool vaporwave palettes along with streaks of colour. I feel like warmer colours tie in better with the vaporwave aesthetic I want to achieve rather than the cooler colours. I’m not sure about the hairstyle itself as it doesn’t seem like something you would wear when chilling in a night club.
I tried a bun base hair style again just to see if it would work with two, the design seems playful and were very cute but it still didn’t seem like something you would see in a nightclub, I lost interest in this design and ended up dropping it after three colour ideas as it just wasn’t working for me.
I then decided to go back to loose hair, I combined hair styles one and two to create a longer style with softer curls. The hair style here is much more laid back here cyberpunk wise so I will need to make sure the colour makes up for that factor. I tried a range of gradients here, I used warm and cool colours with streaks as well here, I’m leaning more towards the warmer colours as they feel a lot more vaporwave to me over the cooler colours. It was at this point I decided this would be the final hair idea style wise due to it having a party look for a night club, the next challenge will be choosing a colour as I love them all so much. I need to remember and keep in mind that it is vaporwave.
It was a very difficult decision to choose the hair colour as they were all so nice. After discussing with friends which on they would choose the most common answers were 1, 2, 3, 4 and 7. I kept in mind the warmer colours were a lot more vaporwave for this character so I wanted to keep the warm hair colours. I wanted to use either idea one and idea seven. They had similar warm palettes using purples, pinks and orange, only idea one was a lot darker. In the end I chose idea seven as it was warm, had some purples in the design and wasn’t too dark. Idea seven was everything I was looking for.
I then moved onto make-up ideas, while I use make-up almost everyday I wen ahead and watched some make-up tutorials to understand how make-up sits on skin. After watching these tutorials I decided I would you an oil pastel brush to paint on highlights, eyeshadow and other powder based make-up to give the looks a textured look. Of course some of the make-up will be sleep and will use an inking brush (One of my favourite brushes for line art, base colouring and cel shading).
I created a base to apply all of my make-up ideas to, it’s quicker to just have base to apply everything to this way. To create the two faces I used the symmetry tool in photoshop on the first face on the facial structure and the sides of her hair,` I turned it off when I was adjusting the nose size and for when I was drawing the fringe as the fringe is asymmetrical.
The white skin seemed unnatural against the warm pinks and purples so I applied a light purple skin tone to the face and neck, under a regular palette the character would have a natural skin tone however as it’s vaporwave I used a light purple as if the skin is being cast by light.
Idea one had a simple triangular shape painted on with pink lips to match. The triangle was inspired by a look I tried on a friend in my primary research. The difference is that idea one has a sharper form, a warm palette and gradient and the triangle. The triangle is also sectioned, this was inspired by vaporwave sunsets that have sectioned drawn out in then all. This look is really simple and only used a small amount of body glitter on the face, I didn’t include any eyeshadow, highlighter etc so that all of the attention is on the lips and triangle.
Idea two got a lot more sparkly, powder based and colder colour wise, I included eyehadow, highlighter on the cheeks and chin along with contorted lips. I loved how glittery the look was at it seemed ideal for a night club setting.
I then added some more glitter to the face like in idea one, I really liked the look of this idea, the only thing I wasn’t sure about was the cold palette here. It’s cold and doesn’t sit well with the hair idea.
Because of the colder palette not working I tried something a little different in idea 3, I applied a pink undershadow beneath the highlighter instead of purple. It warmed up the look quite a bit which I likes, I used a darker eye shadow with glitter here, I like the glitter but I think it looks a bit too heavy on the character and doesn’t go with the highlighter here.
I moved back to a warmer colour palette again with idea 4, I used glittery eye shadow here along with a different vaporwave print on the face. The print is triangular based but there are different triangles layered up, the colours I used were pink, purple and orange. As well as this I added a highlighter underneath. My issue with this design is the fact that the triangular print covered the highlighter so it seems like they are fighting for attention.
Idea 5 was an update of idea 1, it had the same pattern as idea 1 only highlighter was applied along with Lip powder. I liked this idea more as the face wasn’t too simple and the print wasn’t competing with the highlighter.
The eye lids looked a little plain so I went and added a light shimmer on the bottom of the lid.
To me the lids didn’t look glam or bold enough here so like ideas 2 and 3 I added a full lid of eye shadow. I really liked how this turned out here as it has all of the elements I liked from previous designs and the elements aren’t conflicting at all.
I have decided this will be my final make-up idea as it it a combination of everything I liked, it has vaporwave undertones, there are highlights and eyeshadow and none of it is conflicting.
I then moved onto the final part of the design which is clothing designs. This part of the project worries me in a way due to the futuristic clothing needed, it will be a challenge for me but I’m excited for that.
The first idea I tried was dropped immediately due to it’s structure and form, the outfit was really boring and didn’t suit the character at all, I normally stay with an idea just incase it works or if I get something out of it but I just don’t like the idea at all.
I moved onto the next idea, I tried out a jacket and dress combo made from leather, I liked the dress and tight fit however I felt the jacket was too bulky and big (Especially on the shoulders). I decided to try a lighter colour after to see if the intensity of the colour was the issue.
I tried a lighter palette to see if the colour was overwhelming, I used a lighter colour to suit the palette but it didn’t fix the outfit, it still looked too much outfit wise as the colours were bulky and the outfit was boring in a way. I t wasn’t out there or futuristic at all.
I moved onto the third (or second) outfit idea, I took inspiration from icons like Lady Gaga due to some of her outfits being tight, short but having big focus points (Shoulders, hips etc). I really wanted something like this for the character’s outfit. I chose to have the shoulders be the focus over the hips as the skirt idea didn’t look good to me (As seen below).It just seemed too much to have both in the outfit.
I applied a base colour to work around later on (Although this can count as colour idea 1). I applied gradients to areas of the outfit like the shoulders, sleeves and bottom of the outfit. This gives me an idea of how the outfit will look with colour to break down the form. A few things I wanted to look into was texture of the outfit, it seemed boring without any kind of glow, shine or different colour in the outfit. As well as this the bare legs didn’t look right with the outfit, it looked a unfinished this was so I will look into adding tights to the character.
The first proper colour idea had the same starting colour idea only with added texture and brighter gradients. The texture I used was a glittery effect on the leotard and lower sleeves which was achieved by layering a splatter brush with different opacities, sizes and colours. As well as this tights were added to finish off the outfit. I like this colour idea since it goes with the hair nicely. I think the outfit itself is really simple but it just means it’s not too much and isn’t distracting.
I then went and tried a purple to pink gradient with darker tones, I liked the colours however I didn’t think it went with the character’s hair colour here, it was too dark and there was no orange.
I tried a lighter and cooler palette with hints of pink and orange, I really liked the palette but it seemed too bold against the hair, as well as this it seemed a little dull.
For my next colour idea I tried a warmer palette with a higher saturation of colour, both in the hair and outfit for it to be balanced. I really liked how vibrant the colours became here, the warmth of the palette mixed with the purples looked really nice with the character’s hair.
I tried out a darker palette for the outfit after, I think it suits the character but the red undertones are too much here against the hair colour.
I went back to a cooler palette idea but made sure pink was an undertone in the outfit, I really liked the blue and pink colour idea here however it seemed too saturated for the hair, I then altered the saturation (in the next image) to see if it would work.
After increasing the saturation of the hair it looked a lot better against the outfit as it was on the same level, I had to ask my friends what they thought of the colour as I was conflicted between these two ideas. They said they preferred the blue and pink combination due to the contrast they said it provided my character design, the blue idea appeared more cyberpunk and vaporwave to me. After a lot of thought I decided that the final idea (The blue and pink combo) would be the final idea due to the contrast and colours.
Planning for next week –
- How do I plan to catch up?
Everything is up to date so I don’t need to catch up.
- Do I need to change anything about my work or planning?
Something I will consider is speeding up my ideas gen (doing less for each section as I have to design another character an environment. I feel like I did too much ideas gen for character 1 as I also have another character along with an environment to design in a little over a week now because of this.
Week Number & Date: Week 2: 11.12.19- 19.12.19:
List of Tasks planned for this week:
- Finish character 2
- Finish environment
Current Position –
- What did I do this week?(Screenshots/Videos/Photos & annotations)
The first thing I started with here was the character design, I used the same process as my female character, hair, make-up and clothing.
In a lot of cyberpunk media there is a lot of shaved off and messy hairstyles for characters, I thought about possibly using this style for the male characters hair. When I finished the hair style I didn’t think the style sat properly on the head and face and when colour was applied it didn’t help. To me the hairstyle didn’t look right on the head. Something I wanted to consider cooler colours for this character as my female character had warmer colours and I wanted the male character to have cooler colours because of this. However I am still going to try out warmer colours.
The second idea was a completely pushed back hair style, I wanted to try a sleek style that was inspired by the hair styles and wigs from the hunger games. I liked the idea however I didn’t feel that this style suited a cyberpunk character. I decided to try a more loose but sleek style for my third idea.
I tried a simple flipped curl for the net idea, it seemed quirky and simple, something I really liked. For the hair I tried cool and warm colours, although I had a preference for cool colours for this character. To go against character one I chose colour idea two (Blue and teal hair) with this hair idea. The other two hair ideas were both extreme on different ends of the spectrum, however this is a really nice balance for my design and the cool colour goes nicely with the design and the design of character one.
It was now time for makeup! I had a lot of fun on character one’s makeup designs so I was excited for this, I used the same technique as before where I would draw the face and hair design in colour, duplicate it and draw closed lids and then apply my makeup designs. This is a quick and easy design process for makeup.
I tried to go a little crazy at first with the makeup; I drew a flat shape over his eye and was planning to lock the layer and paint over it in colour and apply textures and effects but I didn’t want him to look to similar to character one with the graphic pattern on his eye and cheek so this idea was dropped.
I tried a bold eyeliner look however the character just looked like a clown to me here and it didn’t seem cyberpunk or vapourwave.
I tired an eyeshadow look next using the pastel brush (One of my go to brushes for environments) as it conveys the powdery texture of makeup really nicely. I used a simple grey palette to go with the cool tones and applied a splatter brush when I locked the layer to create a glitter effect in the eye makeup. I thought the look seemed a little plain but the colour looked really nice on the face.
I then tried a tiny amount of highlighter on the nose, I think this really brought the idea together.
I then tried 
I then tried a gridded eyeshadow pattern for the makeup, I chose a gridded design because in a lot of vaporwave media gridded patterns are used to show perspective or ground levels in an environment. To me this idea didn’t work, it reminded me a lot of “Popka” from the Klonoa series.
I tried a more out there look, I took inspiration from one of the makeup looks I did o my friends with the drawn on lashes. He looked like James Charles to me with this look which wasn’t something I wanted with the design. It looked to bold and the lipstick and lashes made the character look too feminine, I don’t have anything against men who wear makeup and look feminine at all but it wasn’t the look I wanted in this design.
I carried on with colour ideas with this look just incase however I still didn’t like ow it looked. It looked to bold and showy which wasn’t ideal for this character, the lipstick and lashes made the character look too feminine, I don’t have anything against men who wear makeup and look feminine at all and I would consider using it in male designs i the future if the project calls for it but it wasn’t the look I wanted in this specific design.
Another thing I worry about with makeup like this is that it will limit what I can and can’t do with my clothing design later on as it will all look too much all together, so to me it would be better to use a simpler makeup idea.
I tried a simpler look for the character with just highlighter on the nose and cheeks, along with body glitter splattered on the face. I liked how simple this design was here and how it brought out the facial structure of the character here. I went with this idea due to the simplicity along with the glitter, this means that clothing will be easier to design since the clothing won’t look too much against the makeup.
I moved onto outfit ideas, I took the makeup face and hair and drew a body base so that I could just draw outfits over the character with ease. This first idea was a simple panelled jacket with a jumper, scarf and leggings. In my mind it seemed like a nice idea that would work however when it was on paper it didn’t seem cyberpunk at all, it seemed like something someone would wear now in an attempt to look futuristic which wasn’t the look I wanted.
Because of the look of the first idea (and how I didn’t like it) I didn’t do colour or pattern ideas for the first idea and moved onto the next. I really liked the idea of the jacket however it needed to have an out there look to it as it is cyberpunk meets vaporwave.
For the second idea I wanted the jacket to be the focus point of the outfit. I exaggerated the collar of the jacket and made it flair out at the end, Something I wanted to try was a consistent pattern throughout the jacket. I searched up vaporwave patterns on pinterest for ideas so that I could understand what I would like to achieve and develop inspiration to expand upon. A lot of these patterns looked very 90s to me which I found very interesting since cyberpunk is stepping forward but the look I want to achieve is making me step back ontop of it. I decided to see if patterns inspired by this look would work in a cyberpunk style.
The first colour and pattern idea I made was a blue and pink palette with a triangular based pattern, the pattern was achieved using the clone stamp tool in photoshop, I drew out the coloured triangles before hand and used the clone stamp tool to stamp the shape all over the jacket, I had looked the layer and added a light and shadow gradient before making the pattern to add depht. I kept the underneath of the jacket simple so attention wasn’t taken away from the jacket. It was a simple leotard based outfit with transparent panelling underneath in order to darken the outfit.
I tried a purple and green palette next with the same pattern, I used a cooler palette to go with the characters design here. Purple and green aren’t colours I would think of with vaporwave at first however after trying it I think it really suit the character.
I thought about the first colour idea I did and wanted to go back to the pink and blue idea, I gave it an overall pinkish hue as the first idea was a lot more cooler, I think the warmth here doesn’t really work against the cool hair and skin.
I wanted to try a cooler hue with a lot more contrast so I upped the contrast and saturation on the outfit, I think it is way too much to have green transparency here.
I moved onto a different pattern, I tried a grid pattern here as in a lot of vaporwave media grids are used for perspective in environments. I thought it would look nice on the jacket however I find it really boring and too repetative. I decided to give it another colour idea just incase.
I reused the pattern but with a greener palette however this didn’t save the pattern for me, it was still too boring here so I decided to drop it and move on.
I made a new outfit idea altogether, I tried a lighter idea this time and decided to show off a full leotard with a transparent cloak over the shoulders, I’m not entirely sure on this design as it seems too similar to the clothing idea on my other character however I tried out different ideas to see where it could go.
I tried a darker blue this time, it looked nicer colour wise with the skin and hair but the outfit still looks odd to me here. To me it’s because there’s no weight to the outfi, ontop of that there’s no exterior shape or form to the outfit (It’s just skin tight) so the silhouette of the outfit would be really boring.
After trying three more colour ideas I just gave up with this outfit idea as I knew that colour wasn’t something that could save it, as well as this I was running out of time to work on my environment so I decided to draw the line here for character two and to just choose an outfit from the ones I have already made.
I loved the jacket design with the vaporwave pattern printed onto it but I had to choose a colour idea from the jacket. I narrowed down my ideas to colour idea 1 and 2, they were my favourite ideas because both palettes work with the character and I really like the two personally. I asked several people in my class what they thought was the best colour idea was. The majority of my friends said idea 2 (The purple and green idea) was the best colour idea for the character as it suits the hair and skin. I agreed with this and idea 2 was made the final choice.
I quickly moved onto the environment design, I had spent so long on the character designs so I now have less time to work on my environment than I hoped (I wanted an extra 2 days at least) so I have to make sure that I get this done quickly.
I went into test pieces, I need chairs, sofas, tables and a bar; After this I will move onto layouts using my test pieces. The first test pieces I worked on were the chairs, I used a grey scale blocking out technique that was actually shown in a character design video I used in my critical report! While this is furniture design I thought the technique would be useful.
I blocked out different chair and sofa ideas in greyscale, I referred back to pinterest for chair ideas when doing this work. I tried bar stools, bean bag styled chairs and obscure sofas. I don’t pick favourites in test ideas for environments since it means that I’ll be restricted with what I can include in my thumbnails later on.
I moved onto colour ideas for chairs, I put the greyscale blockout on overlay and decreased the opacity so that the colours could come through, I stuck with blues, pinks and purples here to give an idea on what I can do in my scene. I did the same for the sofas and other chairs.
I moved onto table ideas, I tried two rectangular designs along with one circular design. To me rectangular designs looked more like picnic tables than tables found in a nightclub, I did colour ideas just for the circular table because of this.
Once again I stuck to blues, pinks and purples as that is apart of the vaporwave palette.
The next ideas I worked on was the bar, the two types of bars I found on Pinterest were island bars and bars build into or against the wall. I tried one island and two built in walls (One semi-circle and one rectangular design) I did separate colour ideas for all the bar tests.
I started off with the semi-circle. It actually reminds me of the sunsets you see in a lot of vaporwave work, they often have gradients to add depth, I thought this look could be achieved with lights underneath the counter and on the ceiling of the bar.
I did the same with the rectangular bar and the island design, I considered where lights could go here (Under counters, ceilings and shelves), the gradient effects really made the
I moved onto thumbnailing of my scene, I had to pick up the pace with my work so I only had time for four thumbnail ideas. Idea 1 was an overview of a nightclub dance floor with a bar, hologram palm trees around the boarder of the dance floor along with waterfalls going down next to the large windows. I liked the idea of the environment being views from a raised platform. I like the detail in the scene as well.
Idea 2 is a view of an island bar with palm trees, water falls and raised platforms behind. I liked the idea however it didn’t feel like there was enough going on, it seemed really empty.
The third idea was a hallway idea with departments people and sit in with the bar being at the end of the corridor. In my mind the idea was good however it doesn’t seem practical and it seemed a lot more empty than I thought it would be. It just didn’t work
Idea 4 was just a close up shot of the bar which I thought would be interesting however it just seems really boring and there is nothing dynamic about the scene. Because ideas 2, 3 and 4 didn’t stand out at all and weren’t dynamic or didn’t look right idea 1 was chosen as it is dynamic, there isn’t unwanted negative space and it shows the whole scene.
I moved onto the colour ideas for the environment, I enlarged the thumbnail of idea 1 into a new PSD for the colour ideas; I start by laying down flat colours without ay shading for the ideas, it looked really flat at first so it didn’t look great but I had to carry on to get a decent product.
I drew the palm tree holograms on a different layer and switched them onto overlay for a nicer effect. I wanted to make the bar area look like a setting sun on the horizon like what can be seen in a lot of vaporwave media. I selected certain areas of the layer so that I didn’t paint out of form. I used the gradient tool and rubber so that I can create the separation in the sun.
I added in railing, the hologram poll dancer (Which will have a lot more detail form wise in the final version), gridding on the dance floor and shading. The scene still seems a little flat texture and shading wise but I’m not worrying that much about it as it is only colour ideas.
The first colour idea I tried had a warm undertone to it, I felt that it was too much against the pink palm trees and sun bar, I liked the blues of the sofas, railing and dance floor and the colours on the sun bar. I just feel like the warm undertone is too much and doesn’t offer much contrast colour wise as the colours seem confusing and outway eachother.
I gave the scene a blue undertone to bring the pinks out more; To me it looked a lot nicer here as it gave a clear contrast that worked in the scene.
I tried a lighter undertone with the scene to see if a lighter scene would work. To me the scene looks really murky and it took away the crisp contrast that I really liked in the scene. I wasn’t a fan of the green here with the blues and pinks either.
I tried a warmer colour over the scene, I used a red to see if that would work at all as pink didn’t work and it still made the scene look murky and removed the crisp contrast in the scene.
I wanted to go back to a blue base, I lightened the colour and increased the saturation to give the scene a purple undertone. I really liked how all of the colours look together here, the scene was a little lighter here but I really liked how bright it was.
I knew I wanted this to be my final idea however I wanted to make a few adjustments to the tones, I darkened the colours overall and applied a hologram overlay over the image for a small effect so I could imagine what it would look like in the final version. I’m really havppy with how the colours turned out in the end with the contrast and the vaporwave aestetic.
Roxanne's Development Blog (Second year) 