Recently I've had the opportunity to create some demonstrations for students in the Character Design 1 class here at The Animation Academy. This was a head rotation demo I did as an exercise in developing strong production skills relevant to concept design. I asked the class for an idea and they came up with a little girl in the 1960s. I asked them how long they thought it would take me to complete a standard 5 pose rotation. One student guessed 45 minutes. This as as far as I got in 43 minutes while being interrupted three times to help some of them with their own assignments.
A couple of days later another student was having trouble visualizing their character in a dimensional rotation. So I took it upon myself to show her how a very simple graphic character can be pivoted to describe form.
This past week I drew for students in helping them understand how character concept is approached in an exploratory manner while utilizing important fundamental principles of design. Here's a few samples of what I came up with along a single simplified theme.
Always enjoy the opportunity of creating while in the company of artists who are willing to learn and looking to have fun in an educational environment. Keep in mind that it's not the speed at which you're able to create but the quality of the art you produce which will be of greater benefit to you as your career develops. Quality before quantity is something I encourage students to keep in mind while working on their assignments and beyond. Your ability to work fast comes from experience. As your confidence grows so does the quality of your art while taking less time to create that art. Slow down, take your time and enjoy the process of coming up with art that you can be proud of.
