Frankie

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Here is my first character for my apple concept. His character is derived that of the traditional icon 'Frankenstein' however, within my game his name is 'Frankie'. As the original movie was from the 1930's period, i researched the clothing of that era to dress Frankie in the correct format in which people of that time would've worn. For men, it was ideally shirts and waistcoats with either a bow tie or a standard tie at the collar. I wanted to keep the likeness of the traditional character because i wanted to make me own look recognizable but with his own style. I don't want my characters to look scary, i want them to look more cartoon and cute like to match my style i wanted. To keep the likeness, i focused on the enlarged head, stitching and bolts either side of the neck as his most definitive characteristics. From there i adapted the body to be out of proportion to his head to give him that cartoon abnormality, it also adds a sense of humour to the design, which is another factor i would like to achieve: I want my game to be humorous and enjoyable. I want all my characters to be unique, but to all possess a similar style so they can all relate to each other and looked linked within the games design. To do this for the cartoon like feel, i added enlarged eyes and an under bite lip. I did this to also add to the funny side, as i want them to look a bit silly. I want them to look less serious than their original ancestors, and i think i achieved this in the perfect way. The finishing touch to Frankie was adding a patchwork tie to his outfit. I did this because i wanted to keep that element of the stitched clothing Frankenstein wore during the film in the 30's. 

Once the sketch was completed, i uploaded the image into Photoshop and began adding colour and tone to the image. Because i want my concepts to be like a cartoon, i had to focus on thicker outlines, vibrant colours and minimalistic shading. I did this by selecting the brush tool at 5px and then selecting the pen tool, i highlighted all the line work of the image and used the stroke brush tab to add the thick outline. From there i used the magic wand to select different sections of the body to colour, this was quite a simple process. To add detail and tonal range, i then reselected the parts i coloured and used the ink dropper tab to highlight a darker shade than the original. I then re-highlighted the section and careful added shadows where i though it needed. I repeated this process across the character until i ended up with cartoon version of Frankie.

I really enjoyed doing this, as i never really shaded or coloured in this way, it was very new to me. I think i handle it well for my first time and i think it looks perfect for the style i am trying to achieve. I also managed to add my own style to the drawing which i thought would've taken me a long time, but it just clicked and i flowed with my ideas well.