Daniel Reason's Blog: From Script to Screen: Character Design Workshop

In today's lesson, we all got our own type of character, and I got a mad scientist. We were asked to redesign them, or to put them in another era or world. I firstly drew what the original mad scientist looks like. Long white coat, large hair, glasses, moustache...basically a crazy Albert Einstein. The first design I did wasn't thought through. I draw a man pouring chemicals into a beaker. I added a few things to his appearance to make him look like a scientist, through a tie and glasses, mainly. I then threw a load of random objects on. At first, I intended him to make him look like a king with a crown and cape, but I then went onto add more things that made it look like someone had drawing over it to make it look as silly as possible. I then began another design, I still included some of a mad scientist's trademarks, but it was a weird, funny alien. I drew it very cartoony, through smooth lines and lack of tone, in order to make it look like a scientist from a children's sci-fi animation. I think this looks quite well, as it looks like a scientist from another world. However, I don't think it's clear that it's a mad scientist, rather than just a scientist.

Our last task included us being assigned a room or place, and to draw things that we'd expect to see in that room/setting, as people. I was assigned a bathroom, and drew a toilet, 2 sinks and a towel. I began with the toilet. My initial thought was that it would be a liar because it's full of it. I used the handle as one of the eyes, but just drew the other eye beside it. I think the look of the character works well because he looks quite moody and arrogant. I then started drawing a sink. It isn't very clear how to get character from a sink, so I made the taps the characters. The cold tap is smiling because it isn't likely to cause harm and is safe, where as the hot tap is angry because it's full of anger and fire. Although, I think that's a good idea, they wouldn't be able to move, so I drew another sink. I used the same taps, but I used the base of the sink as a mouth and added eyes to it's pillar. I don't think that was designed very well, as it has no character and doesn't work with the sink's shape very well. I hen quickly drew a towel. It's not exactly clear it's a towel and the face is drawn on without any though. I added a little joke, but I don't think the towel was well thought out.