Assignment 3

Assignment 3

Yes, assignment 3 up to bat now, it seems. And this time I'm going to TRY, and I really mean TRY, to not type out an eighty year long post, but... more than likely, I still will, because I guess I just really like to talk about process work even though I wonder if anyone even cares.... Oh well! Whatever, I'll shall just type away because it's fun!

Anyway! For this assignment, we were each given an animal from the Chinese Zodiac and we had to design the character based off its attributes and draw it using silhouettes, using shapes and posing to help portray the character's overall personality and stuff. We also had to play with a good/evil theme and also had to have one human that represented the Zodiac animal and then an... animal, of course, to represent the Zodiac animal.

I was pretty fine with most of this stuff, except I found I don't particulary care for working with silhouettes and I'm not too fond of working with animals. I mean, I can draw animals, I just don't do it much and suppose I don't really like doing it too much. I was excited to do the Ram though, considering that is my Zodiac sign as well as my high school mascot (not that, haha, it really matters much).

Anywho, research!

First, of course, I looked up images of rams. It was rather annoying when I Googled “ram” and got you know.. computer chip boards because that is SO totally what I meant. So I had to Google “animal ram' or “ram animal” to get those and got a few good pictures, though I felt they were all the same pose. I also looked at images of sheep too.

For clothing, for the human bit, I of course looked up traditional Chinese clothing. I of course got a collection of the fancy, silk stuff, but I eventually turned to looking at Japanese clothing too. Though it is the Chinese Zodiac, it's often used in Japanese things too I noticed, like in the anime Fruits Baskets or the video game Okami. Also, though I do like the decorative outfits found in Chinese culture, I also really like the rough, travel kimono look you see in like those samurai anime.

I was at one point considering going to a more modern period, but I thought the more oriental theme was nice and I could play with lighter colours like earth tones and such. I considered doing maybe an artist in the Victorian period, but eventually drifted back to an Asian base.

Here I have refs here for both Chinese and Japanese styled clothing:

Anyway, I did like we were supposed to and started doodling up some silhouettes. Here are the ones I did up for the human character, who I named Mar (yes, ram backwards, look who's oh-so clever):

I was originally going to have Mar be a girl, to be a gentler character, but the idea I had for her hair just wasn't working when she was a girl... I wanted her hair to be fluffy and light, like sheep wool, but whenever I doodled it out, it just looked funny. That and I kept thinking of like Moses from Prince of Egypt and how his hair was kind of like sheep wool too... So Mar was changed to a boy.

See, it looks... Sheep-y:

However, the more I worked on it, I noticed how he kind of looks... Egyptian or like an Isrealite like Moses and how that kind of throws Mar's character off from being from Asia. I stretched this by basically just saying, because he's a human manifestation of the Ram, he's going to look a tad different from other people (though I could always just say he was from that area and traveled over to the East Asian area and such, but yeah...) Another issue I ran into with the sheep wool hair thing was another character I was familiar with: Merry from One Piece

As seen here, he has the fluffy wool sheep hair thing, plus little horns, which I avoided with Mar, but instead, had two little tuffs kinda form horns/ears on top of his head. I think they're more like horns though, because his ears have a different shape to them than normal human ears and look more sheepish too. If I coloured Mar, he would probably have dark hair, to symbolize being somewhat of a “black sheep” due to his apperance.

For his outfit, I was sticking much more to the Japanese kimono look with like a travel cloak/coat over top, generally with a straw hat. I eventually drew him without his hat so you could see his hair, because with the hat, it's not apparent he has fluffy sheepy hair. In the finalized version of Mar, where I throw a rough outline over the silhouette, I made the kimono a short one, with pants that are then wrapped at the ankle. I also gave him a fluffly collar/cloaky thing that's made out of wool to help with his sheep-based appearance. He's also given a scool case in his drawings as he's a traveling artist and that's where he keeps his supplies.

I suppose I might have mixed the two styles a bit, but this can fit if he travels between the two counties. If I ever developed more and drew more of him, I would probably eventually do up an outfit sheet that had a few different outfits he could wear or would wear and I would probably draw ones up that fit each country specifically. However, as a traveller, I think the simple outfit he wears now is quite fine.


Here's the silhouettes I did up:

Anyway, I decided to use the silhouette that's him standing profile shot, holding his hat. I think it best shows his modest nature and the oddity of his hair, as well as shows his somewhat sheep-like face design. So, for Mar, here's his description sheet:

As it says on the sheet, Mar is a human manifestation of the positive attributes of his Zodiac animal. This also explains his appearance, such as the wooly sheep hair and his facial design and why his ears are rather strange. He supposed to look friendly and relatively harmless, which is rather is.


For Mar, I also did some outside sketches for ideas on face and hair design. There's some bad ram doodles on this page too (and my hand):

For the animal portion of the assigment, I of course did up silhouettes of rams. I really frankly didn't like this... I was okay with the human silhouettes, but like I said, I'm not fond of drawing animals and don't do it much, so silhouetting them was just as bad for me I suppose. I only did a few up for the ram:

I kept the design rather simple and chose the bottom left one, because it shows an insecurity I wanted this character to have. Description sheet for Ram:

Yes, he's Ram the Ram... Let me be. He didn't get as much detail as Mar, because Ram lives in Mar's shadow and therefore... is a shadow. Wow, rocket science... Anyway! Yes, Ram lives in Mar's shadow and can manifest into a more physical shadow animal. Ram represents the negative attributes of the Zodiac Ram, hence the insecurity I wanted, as Rams tend to be insecure and timid.


Here they are together:

Storywise, Mar would be a traveler who visits small towns and deals with small situations there, sort of like Ginko from Mushishi or Kino from Kino's Journey or Kuro from Shoulder-A-Coffin Kuro. However, he would be “accompanied” by Ram ( he doesn't really have a choie though...) and would have to handle those aforementioned situations along with Ram's negativity. Mar also only has a year on earth (whenever it's the Year of the Ram) to influence people, mainly those born within other similar Years and such principles would also apply to the other animals of the Zodiac.

Anyway, going to wrap this up now so I don't write 80 bazillion pages. Hope you pop back to check out my stuff for our next project.