Changes in design

After my research about evolution of women in comics, I realized that my character needs some changes. I wanted my design to be in a comic book style and in comparison to existing modern version of characters, mine looked really modest. I would say it was more cartoony than comic style. As I mention in my research, contemporary artists follow current trends and that was what I had to do as well, to make my character more suitable for audience nowadays.

I decided to test some ideas for clothing and produce designs in different styles. 

My first projects were created with game designers audience in mind and I wanted to try making the proper character design for the game. I’ve drawn some clothes, using previously gathered references. It was my point to try out some techniques and brushes inside the software, which I haven’t used before. The character, has the body proportions of the same size as the real humans do. I’ve intended to make it realistic and not stylized. I am quite happy with the result ,but I wish I had more time for playing with other designs.

  This was testing  and getting familiar with the software, now I had to create a proper design for my pictures. I decided to use some features of clothes  from above designs and change them into my expectations. I really liked design in the middle (red jacket and knee length pants) but  it was too masculine, which doesn’t fit my purpose. I had to mix female and male styles and make the outfit which goads. As I explained earlier, I’m making it purposely, as it’s a sign of self – assurance, confidence and rebellious character. 

With a new design, my character received a new posture. I kept long legs, as they make women look more attractive and resized some of the attributes. Thanks to those actions, my character suits comics style much better. Hair gained on volume and became even more untamed. Also poses became more “flexible”, which is a typical feature for comics. 

I was so focused on designing that I completely forgot about choosing the name for my character. I like signing up names to the characters because then they gain more personality and viewer can empathize with them. My girl has English and Dutch roots and she’s from merchant’s class so I was looking for the name which suits all those aspects. Also I have to keep in mind that it is an 18^th century and the name shouldn’t be too modern. I’ve searched in books of names and finally found the perfect  one. I named her Clarice, it derives from French name “Clarisse” and in translation means “fame”. When I read the description and meaning , I immediately fell in love with it and thought it would suit the character perfectly. From now on, she’s not just a figure but a character with personality.

 

There are some things which require changing in this design. At the moment Clarice looks more like a pirate and not the merchant. At first I felt very eager to add layers to her costume. Then I realized that layered outfit is characteristic for pirates and that might be one of the reasons of the wrong interpretation of her profession. Following this trace, I’m going to get rid of the leather pads sticking out from underneath the corset. I think the shirt might be a confusing factor as well but if you look at pictures from back at those days, you can notice that this kind of blouse was rather typical. Which means this is not pirates symbol. I like the composition of the shirt and the corset so I decided to leave it. However, the belt around waistline has to disappear. I was thinking about those points which need changing and there was something else missing. When I looked at upper part of my character’s body, I still had an impression that the audience will read Clarice as a pirate. For this purpose I looked back at the previous design and came to the conclusion that the jacket was playing a very important role in shaping the overall impression. It added some glamour and elegance, which upgrade character’s status. It was the factor I was missing. With all the points marked, I drew another, improved design. 

This time I was more pleased with the result. I shared my previous objections and solutions with my classmates and they agreed with my choices. After that I decided to set this design as my final one, there was no more time for playing with the character anymore. Now it is a high time to start working on pictures for the trailer.