A big goal of mine in art is to be a proficient illustrator and concept artist -- i see being able to draw, paint, and design as the core skillset i want to focus on, and 3d modeling as something to extrapolate from more firmly entrenched art skills.

I've recently discovered i can't afford or get loans for art school at the moment, so i'm going to have to pretty aggressively self teach.
I have a decent time finding reference and information on anatomy and figure drawing, a fair amount of ease finding information on drawing and painting in general, but i haven't run across, in any of my blind stumbling, any good information on design for characters/creatures/environments, or detailing.

Aside from the 'sketch a bunch of thumbnails out of random shapes and elaborate' i'm assuming there has to be at least a little substance to it. Anyone care to share the sources they learned from?

knock yourself out...

http://www.conceptart.org/

..skillful huntsman is a good book for this kind of stuff too

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/thd01.html

About drawing, of course tutorials helps, but my best advice is practice... I've been spending weeks maybe months watching websites like conceptart.org, sijun ... it didnt make me a better artist... if you dont practice, nothing else wilp help..
draw, draw, draw..

About concepting, what works for me is to imagine the character in his universe.. what is his social rank, what does he need to do everyday, like this , I can think of what kind of clothes/gear/props he needs..
but the random shapes / small skeches work very well to find interesting silhouettes!
and the more you draw, the easier this stage will be..

About detailing, I think a lot of photos reference of various stuffs helps a lot... insects, machines, microscopic stuffs etc..
Good luck! ;)

Originally Posted by Rick Stirling

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/thd01.html

^What he said
Also alongside these from concept art is the Massive Black DVD's which are great as well ;)
- http://dvd.massiveblack.com/features.html
- http://dvd.massiveblack.com/downloads.html

Character designs? I'll give you nearly infinite character designs!
http://www.greveson.co.uk/speedpaint.php

Keep clicking refresh, and draw or paint at least one thing from every reload. Do this for at least 3 years and you will probably turn into Marko Djurdjevic. Probably.

A ancient intelligent James Bond! You have 20 minutes!

20 minutes, I better get drawing!

Grab a piece of paper and a pencil. Draw something that resembles a character. Flip the piece of paper over. Now try to draw something that is nothing like what you drew on the front. Repeat indefinitely. Congratulations, you are now a character artist.

A good character artist ought to be able to infuse a considerable degree of variety into their characters. If all of your characters look the same, then you have failed to infuse your creations with "character." Character implies individuality. And the best way to establish individualtiy is with variety in your designs. Feel free to be really wild and varied while you are experimenting.

err... how to design characters?

Maybe using imagination?

You can get better at drawing if you dedicate at least 4 hours per day. The more time you dedicate, the better you will be. Simple.

Originally Posted by SupRore

Aside from the 'sketch a bunch of thumbnails out of random shapes and elaborate' i'm assuming there has to be at least a little substance to it. Anyone care to share the sources they learned from?

Haven't worked as a CA but I've worked with directors like Marc Taro before: http://tarosan.wordpress.com/ .

Usually in a studio environment you get the bulk of your design directive from the DA or design team that includes the da, producer, lead designers, owners, etc. And before any drawing starts, not including work done for the initial pitch, art team does a bit of research and ref gathering to start defining the world. Once you've layed a ground work, then you start your design iterations. In other words, for best practices anyway, the concept guys just don't design out of a vacuum.

God of War II (special edition I believe) included a tiny feature on the concept guys and how they evolved their designs. WETA too did exhausting features on their LOTR art department, if you're just checking process.

Technique wise there's a shit load we could list here. I'm just noticing a lot more use of 3d (rough Max model or sketchup layout) these days as a base layer. Everybody knows hawkprey of Gears right? I saw Massive Black's kemp vehicle concept video using sketchup. Nothing really special other than it showed Kemp's familiarity with the app. He still looked for a real life photo ref of a tank to base his concept from.

Enviro concepting, I'd recommend speed painting videos by Vyle or books by another ex-Ubisoft artist, Sparth.

Heard of Francis Tsai? He's got a character design book out (something like designing fantasy characters in 100 different ways) and he does a lot of ImagineFX mag tutorials.

Richard, Blaizer, if i felt i knew everything i needed about art and was content just spinning my wheels drawing at my current skill level i wouldnt have posted the thread.

Everyone else, thanks, this is a ton of useful information. And awesome, MoP, i always forget that link -- didn't there used to be a thread based around it in p&p?

imo just drawing isn't going to make you a better designer, just a better draughtsman. Most cool designs have some base element taken from reality and then expanded- an incan culture, an old car design, the shape of this or that.. I reckon getting better at the character design bit means exposing yourself to lots of reference and fresh material.

what Rooster said

Originally Posted by Blaizer

err... how to design characters?

Maybe using imagination?

Witty!

It's actually a valid question. There are countless workshops and talks held in related festivals every year. Books on it. It can be quite a complicated science to get it really right, and of course there are then many styles.

So posting to tell people to flip that imaginary 'Imagination' switch in their brain really isn't worth the post.

Originally Posted by Ninjas

what Rooster said

i'll seccond this.. and i'm starting to learn that the hard way... not that it's not important to have good technical skills.

i think that as you learn the technical side to art, you begin to ignore content and focus more on the technique more and more.. at least that's what it was for me. coming back at the other end of that and putting personality and meaning into your work again.. at least from where i'm standing, seems like a whole other discipline.

As rooster said, feed your imagination. Blaizer is right in that you should be thinking about this stuff more, but it's not enough just to sit in an empty room and just think furiously for an hour or two - while that might work now and then, most of the time you need some fuel for the "design fire", as it were.

That's what I intended with my "randomiser" webpage - while most of the stuff it comes up with is usually ridiculous crap, it can often set your mind (or mine, anyway) wandering down new and unfamiliar avenues which end up in even cooler ideas, stuff I'd never have thought of before.

Another good one is to just pick up a dictionary and flick to 2 or 3 random words (don't consciously think about them, just take for example the top left word of the first 3 pages you flick to), you might end up with something totally ridiculous or nonsensical, but stick with it anyway and see what you end up with.

I think too many people just stick with what they know, or what they've seen other people do, and while that can be fun for just making a "technically polished" piece, it's often a fairly boring design.

One of my favourite personal character models is actually one of my least "technically good" ones, it was the Victorian guy on the rocket skates... because while it's not executed very well, I think underlying idea is very fun, so even if the design and execution isn't the best, it still holds up. I should really re-make that guy up to modern standards...

This online class seems worth checking out. They've got a character design class and a few others....

https://www.schoolism.com/

a cool character design site.....

http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/

a cool animation/character art bookstore.....

http://www.stuartngbooks.com/

As mentioned previously, The Skillfull Huntsman is a pretty good book. Creating Characters by Tom Bancroft is pretty solid too.

Rooster is right. One good thing about drawing, tho, is that you'll remember visuals a lot better if you draw them. A lot of people can look at a photo from a 50's car and tell you that it's a 50's car. Ask a lot of them to try to draw one, or model one, or add 50's style elements to something and they'll give you something with just a big fin on it or something. When you draw them you can remember details better, and thus you'll be able to mix and match a lot better to get the sort of design you're looking for.

But that's just me, and I'm big on drawing. Not that you have to be rembrandt or anything, but it helps you grow your visual vocabulary to actually draw things out.

I'm sorry, but I can't agree with Rooster's sentiment. I don't think inspiration is everything. And I don't think you need to seek out specific inspiration in order to "feed" your imagination. Oh sure, if you want to make a character that looks like they come from an Incan culture, you would reserach Incan art, and incorporate some of that into the character's design.

But the wonderful thing about creativity is that it allows you to create. And the only way to create something that is unique to your own style is to simply grab a piece of paper and try to translate your ideas onto the page. There is no one school or discipline to follow. Sure, its a good idea to keep your eyes open for styles you like. But you should never be attempting to ape someone elses style, or cobble all of your characters together from various "sources" you've researched.

At the end of the day, you will learn the most, and come up with the most original characters, through practice. Free-form artistic experimentation will show you more about yourself than any course or tutorial.

Originally Posted by Richard Kain

Free-form artistic experimentation will show you more about yourself than any course or tutorial.

I'm not trying to learn about myself, i'm trying to learn to be an illustrator -- which is a profession, which requires certain skills.

Obviously i practice hours daily, i want to be an artist. This thread is about seeking out knowledge, not art for therapy.

The whole practice vs study overall thing is an interesting topic that i'd be willing to discuss but it isn't really within the scope of this thread. I'm asking for information and advice for learning more about character design, not to debate whether we should fingerpaint or draw from life more often.

Otherwise, awesome stuff guys.

And i agree MoP, that's why i asked about the thread -- if there wasn't one somebody should repost the link in p&p and start a new sketch thread for it.