Notes

Character design Lecture #4
Design a new species
How to make character designs appealing, what are things to look for when creating an appealing character?
Study design, it’s very important, for all different aspects of design, typography, graphic design, when figuring out what shapes work and what appeal to you, there is no such thing as universal appeal, appeal also evolves year to year,
Have quite a wide range of what people consider appealing.
Don’t worry about it, just focus on your own art and ask how you make it appealing.
Put together, a pile of artwork that you personally love, like a Pinterest page helps, gather artwork that makes you excited or gives you inspiration. You don’t have to show it to someone else cause appealing is a personal taste.
Also work on your drawing and design skills to appeal to other people, not everyone will be appealed to, but it’s ok.like look at inspiring bugs, animals, art, anything.
Be humble and accept the fact that even if you do something that is appealing, accept that it’s not always going to be appealing, times change.
Try new things and take chances, push the boundaries, like Walt Disney who pushed the limits with Fantasia, and challenged the idea of appeal with the abstract animation, when it came out, it was a disaster, but over the years, people became more attached to it, a lot of Disneyland was inspired by Fantasia, Disney was a great imagineer. keep challenging the public and questioning what appeal is, you’ll always be growing.
You always will be growing, you shouldn’t just do one character design or style and doing it for the rest of your life, there is no way to make an appealing character design. It’s like saying I know how you should live your life, it’s different for everyone, and you should just be yourself and keep growing.
“Oh god my cat, Squeaky! Quiet!”
If you see a movie and you love a character in that movie, then that’s what appeals to you, never question your sense of appeal, and as you look at more art your sense of appeal will also expand
Trust your gut, trust your personal feelings, do the best you can do and hope for the best, if you do something you personally love, you’ll have no regret even if others don’t love it, you’ll love it, maybe even some thousands of people will love it too, you dont need big money or a big audience to be successful.

Instructions:
Draw 3 designs of an original species each on its own page

- Most important, use reference from real animals and possibly insects. So find good photo reference online for your drawings.

- They can all be of the same character or 3 different characters

- Full body 3/4 view

- Include 10 thumbnails with each drawing

- Refer to the images in "Session Content" for guidance

- Work in black & white, and color is fine if you like

- Hand drawn or digital

- Each design with thumbnails should take at least hour