Steampunk Character Project:
For this project our goal was to design and draw up a steampunked theme character. The idea is this character is to accompany our vehicle project by being a member of the crew or something similar.
Steampunk is a genre that is basically a combination of science fiction and fantasy, and its central theme is steam, clockwork and typically industrial looking things without the use of electricity primarily. It's typically a theme in literature, although there are people who enjoy dressing up in a steampunk fashion or similar things. The first time the term steampunk was actually used was during some works made in 1987, and has gained popularity in fantasy and sci-fi literature since then.
As my character is supposed to have a steampunk theme to him/her, I took a look at different pictures of what steampunk themed clothing would look like:
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A typical theme I noticed across the clothing were the colours used; primarily the colours I noticed were different types of browns, reds, blues and black. Very rarely did I see other colours being used on the clothing. I also noticed that despite it being clothing, there was a large amount of metals and gears on them, whether they be on the clothing, or be attached to arms or things, they were definitely a strong theme among them. As for the type of clothing being worn, when it came to men I noticed there were alot of them wearing hats, mostly with goggles on them. Usually when there were goggles, they were either on the hat, or being worn usually if there was no hat. As for women, alot of them wore large dresses and corsets primarily. Most of the time the dresses had some sort of corset built into them on top of that. Occasionally they would wear things similar to what the men wore, which I guess means that they're a bit more flexible with what they wear. These choices should definitely be considered when it comes to my own character.
My initial idea and development section was a bit different to normal, we were all shown the basics on how to draw characters such, so most of my initial idea stage was spent practicing drawing in different poses. Towards the end I started trying them with a more steampunk theme to them, as most of my previous test drawings didn't. By the end I'd tested a male and female with a steampunk theme to them, thinking the female came out better and finding it was easier to draw, I opted for doing a female with my final character. We also got shown how to use colour and shading with it, so I had done a number of drawings practicing with colour, and shading different objects in with colour.
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The first set I did was doing shading on basic circles, then testing it on a 3D cylinder. I'd picked out colours to try and make a dark reddish colour and a wooden colour, before trying to make a skin tone to use.
The second page I did was testing it on more complex 3D shape in terms of shading and trying to get a metal tone. Personally, I don't think the metal tone came out very well, and the one on the cube was done with the wrong brush, resulting in the very obvious tones.
With my final drawing, I'd realised that I was going to draw a female over a male, since I found it easier to draw, and I felt I'd have a bit more flexibility with what I can draw, especially on the hair, as I could go for a wider variety of styles compared to a male. As for the clothing, due to time constraints, I had to rush and settle on doing clothing similar to the one I did in my initial ideas. With these in mind, I started drawing a few different hairstyles to figure out what I wanted to do. ((Image to be inserted here.*))
I'd picked out two hairstyles once I was done; I wasn't able to decide on one based on the look alone so I tested them both out in different colours to see which one was my favourite. After looking, I decided on the third one on the bottom row, although I was keen on the first and last on that row as well.
Once I'd decided on the hairstyle, I wanted to try and add some form of steampunk themed accessory. I'd did a couple of accessories, but couldn't really decide on one to use, partially because the drawings of them weren't great, and due to time, I had to leave it out.
Finally, I began doing my final drawing. Since I was doing it on Photoshop, I was able to make good use of the layers on it and do everything separately. Starting off with the head and hair, I went through drawing the body and legs. I added colours based on the typical colours for the theme and worked on the facial features. (I still suck at facial features.) Once I was done, I created a background so the image wouldn't be just on it's own, and came out with my end result.
Evaluation:
Like my vehicle project, my time management for this project was terrible. By the time it came towards the end of the project, I found that there was a lot I still had to do and had to rush quite alot of stuff. I believe this was due to the fact that even though we had twelve weeks to do this, having two projects at the same time gave me alot of stuff to do in that time and I just couldn't get manage it all properly.
Also, in all honesty, the research was done after everything was done. I don't quite remember why exactly, but I think I did research at the start and just didn't save any of it. However reading into it in more detail now, I realise that I probably should have done my drawing quite differently, as while the clothing is somewhat steampunk themed, it's not entirely obvious if a person was to just look at it without any knowledge of the fact that it was supposed to be steampunk. Personal note for the next project: Do the research first, it'll seriously help.
My initial ideas were a little all over the place, because of my terrible time management during this project, I'd spent too much time doing things with colour and testing out character drawing without doing a steampunk theme. I'd only ended up testing out two characters with the theme to them, resulting in me needing to rush my decisions and ultimately impacting my final design. Hopefully when I do my final project I'll be alot more focused on what I need to do and when I need to do it, meaning I can keep everything in order and keep track of everything.
With my final design, it has definitely suffered because of how uncoordinated the rest of it was. I had to make rushed decisions and due to my drawing speed (Pretty slow.) I had to cut out alot of things which I would have liked to have tested out and included. And as much as I hate to admit it, I think that because I had rushed things so badly, to an extent I took away from the actual task, making the character steampunk themed. If I had alot more time, I probably would have redone alot of what I did concerning my final drawing. I would have probably kept the character female, as I found they're easier to draw and have more flexibility, especially with the hair. I would have kept the hair the same though, that was probably the part I enjoyed drawing the most.
Overall, honestly, I'm quite disappointed with how much I got done in the project. I finished my final drawing, and even to an extent I'm happy with, but with making it a steampunk theme, I do think I failed that. Having so much to do at once definitely got to me, and made me completely unfocused on what I was doing and I just completely lost track of everything.
*When handing in my sketchbook, I may have forgotten to account for the fact that several things I drew in there I may have needed to take pictures of to include in this. So at the moment they're not in this, but hopefully it will be.
