Jed Character Sheet

Mr. Smith has been banging on for a while now to complete the front, side, and back views of Jed. In order to model him in Maya I must have an accurate understanding of his shape and form in 3D. I have a tendancy to design characters which work in 2D, but when transformed to 3D, fail miserably, or just look really ugly from one angle. I think this is because I love to draw characters from perspective, therefore I always give them one eye bigger than the other, a slanted browline etc etc.

So with storyboarding a main issue at the moment, I decided to take a break from it and complete his request. I spent a morning sketching out the 3 different views on A2, making sure that proportions were correct from each angle. I also had to check with a ruler that eyelines, waistlines, necklines etc. all matched up.

I then spent the afternoon and the following day cleaning it up and colouring it in using PS. I used one of grigs' wall texture tests as a backdrop to give me an indication of how well Jed would stand out in the ward. This turned out to be a valuable excercise as we all agreed immediately the colour schemes didnt work together. I had to desaturate and tone down the original wall colour as his skin was blending into the background way too much. The wall is now more of a murky, pale grey colour, with a hint of turqouise, rather than the striking baby blue beforehand.





I also had some issues with the placement of the afro from the side. In the past I had drawn it protruding from his forehead, but in reality the fro would be covering his eyes if this was the case. It was simple to solve, I just had to move it up, so it began where his head finished! Feet were quite hard, because from front on they looked like small triangles rather than long curled flippers. I angled them slighlty to achieve a more satisfying design, however when modelled and rigged they will have to be poiting directly forward (sarah!).