“□□ and Its Friends” 2010 Shanda Games Creative Cartoon Competition kicks off on November 1st. As one of the sponsors LeewiART publishes the inspirational guide from Stephen Silver, one of the judges of the competition.
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First please introduce a little bit about your experience as an artist. And how you start doing character design? |
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I have been working as a character designer in the animation industry for the last 13 years. I started as a caricature artist and was hired by Warner Bros television animation in 1997. I had no formal schooling, just a real passion and desire to draw. |
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| Q: |
What you learn from working for big incorporations as Disney and Warner Bros.? |
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It is extremely important to be professional and have a positive attitude. It is a small industry and you want to always make a good impression and get your work done on time. |
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| Q: |
Based on your experiences, how to evaluate if a cartoon character or mascot is successful? |
| A: |
I think it is successful if the client likes it and you get a positive reaction from other people, it is as simple as that. |
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| Q: |
During the design phase of a character, how you collect and adopt proper references? What advise you would like to offer our entrants? |
| A: |
The best source of reference I use is Google images. Know your character, know your story you are trying to convey with your character. Gather as much reference as you need and start doodling ideas. |
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| Q: |
Could you show us some sketches in your creation pross? |
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| Q: |
Can you talk about the project you are running now or other project you've done? Please take the characters of your project as an example, to explain how to design an special and vivid character. |
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The main project I am involved with right now is an online character design course that I have created. Each week you watch lessons and demos I have put together and you do the assignments. I personally go over in Photoshop your design work, giving the student one on one critique with video and audio. I have had a tremendous success rate with my students during the nine week course. You can find it at www.schoolism.com. I am currently putting together a Character Design 2 course. I am involved in publishing my own books; you can find them on my website: Silvertoons.com.
Characters that I have designed that you may be familiar with are all the characters and design of Kim Possible. When I was designing her, I knew from my directors that she had to be a certain age and athletic, everything else was my interpretation, I looked for reference of clothing and hairstyles that best suited her until she was approved. |