Independent Project – ISB Character Design

Heads up! When I say Lao Long, it means Elder Dragon. When I say Elder Dragon, I mean Lao Long [Also, there aren’t any pre-presentation sketches to brainstorm because for character design, I wanted to make sure that my design problem is down and I know what to draw instead of sketching for no reason which consumes a lot of time]

To start the project, I started with brainstorming and coming up with three potential design problems/ideas which would help me determine my design problem for this individual project, as well as a Padlet given by Mr. Griffin that was filled with various design problems – Here is the Padlet – https://isbeijing.padlet.org/sgriffin23/foctul5gfq7sut9z

Then after coming up with the top three design concepts, as a class, we completed 1 SWOT analysis for each design, considering the strengths and weaknesses.

SWOT 1: Landscape Design

Strength: Landscape design gives an entirely different perspective of design (coming up with design problems). Furthermore, it could be reestablished into art instead of 3D models.

Weakness: It would be hard to develop a design problem of why I want to design a landscape.

Opportunity: The landscape could be applied to real-life situations, such as the ISB campus.

Treats: To design a landscape, I need a 3D modeling software or a game design editor, which ISB does not support, so I will have to, for example, download an unreal engine myself to start the design.

 

SWOT 2: ID Card Design

Strength: Easy to design/come up with various ideas because, in ISB, most people use ID cards every day. It could be designed to be environmentally friendly…

Weakness: The design problem and athetetic may be too easy to develop.

Opportunity: recycle plastic materials/could be used at ISB/education

Treats: We cannot be on campus, which means we are not allowed access to, for instance, 3D printers.

 

SWOT 3: Character Design

Strength: Fun to draw. Every character is unique and different with different aspects. Character design could promote a fair share of various events/activities.

Weakness: It would be hard to develop a complete design problem as character design is a general topic instead of something significant.

Opportunity: It could be fun and engaging to promote a specific event or place such as ISB.

Treats: It could be challenging to get feedback because we are online, and it is tough to give feedback if the characters are not in line arts.

---

After choosing one of the general design problems, we continued brainstorming, and under timed conditions, we came up with a design brief and right after, we were partnered up and received feedback from each other:

Brain storming first design concept
Design problem: Many people love arts, anime, and cartoons but almost 90% of them does not give interest in illustration and exploring the parts of digital art. I intend to redesign a character to show that art is fun and not complex which hopefully will encourage new talents. Digital arts could also be integrated into stickers…etc. This character would be made to look simple however very engaging (such as only using a limited amount of lines)I would mainly focus the style around ISB.

User/audience: For this design project, I am hoping to target young audiences that are just entering their teens to people who have experience in traditional art. Furthermore, I am also targeting teen's parents as well as members of ISB.

Purpose: Increase interactions with arts and introduce art to young children. Change peoples views of lao long to be what the name suggests, elder dragon.

Constraints: The character design would not be interactive and engaging as we have limited time with a limited audience. What is different about this character? How do I intend to achive the purpose?

Goals: I hope to achieve something that is sustainable and can be reused in posters, banners, story....etc

Materials/resources: Photoshop? Clip Studio Paint? Affinity?

Mentors, assistance: Teachers, designers..

FEEDBACK: During the first process of defining my design problem, I received feedback for my design problem, such as, “How will you achieve the promotion aspect of this character?” After reviewing and rethinking the issue, I have decided to focus on the ISB promotion aspect of the character solely. This makes it easier for me to spend more time working on the presentation and the actual illustration than trying to portray the design problem, which in my opinion, is a better distribution of time. Furthermore, having spent a few classes working on the new dragon persona, I have noticed that it would be pretty hard to argue my design problem because it was a person, and Lao Long was already personified. So, I swapped the direction and decided to go with a more realistic dragon that would ultimately represent what Lao long looks like, which is something grand because obviously, the name: Elder Dragon sounds accent which finally solidified my project.

UPDATED DESIGN CONCEPT

Problem

• Redesigning The International School of Beijing’s mascot Lao long from a personified cartoon-like character to a more realistic dragon with a backstory to change the student’s (ISB) and everyone else’s view of the ‘Elder Dragon.’

Audience

• I would be targeting several specific audience groups; however, the main area I would be making the redesign towards would be ISB students/faculty members. Considering this is a redesign of the mascot of ISB, it would only make sense to first target the members of that community. Furthermore, would be targeting outsiders as well to hopefully gain more attraction and promote ISB as a whole.

Purpose

• Considering I will be making a backstory for Lao Long, it makes sense to say that this project is to entertain and make/change the various audiences’ views on the Elder Dragon, making ISB more respectable in specific ways.

Constrains

• I have already spent an absurd amount of time developing this updated design concept. It is valid to assume that time would be the biggest constraint on this project.

Goals

• I wish to again practice my digital drawing skills, which I haven’t touched in a long time (not including affinity because I didn’t really do digital art on there). I also aim to create a presentation that is both engaging and entertaining by utilizing different techniques and presenting it with a unique style.

Because I chose to redesign Lao Long, I would not have needed to due more brainstorming because the character has already been set (with the targetted audience). So, I jumped straight into how I would make the presentation while doing the redesign illustration.

---

PROCESS

As classes go by, I continue to work towards a presentation on the final design of Lao Long, which will be due June 10. Considering the limited time and how late I decided on the design problem, I had to be more efficient with my illustrations. That is not a good thing considering my whole presentation depends on that. I began the process by searching for presentation inspiration and identifying what they had done successfully and what aspects I could borrow from it. From there, I have learned that most of the ‘professional’ character design presentations revolve around several aspects, such as showing your character from different perspectives with detailed but short descriptions of the backstory, personalities, physical features…etc. Here is some inspiration I collected – Padlet: https://padlet.com/lucasduan/1e30kzh9k29t1fpq 

However, considering that I decided on my final design problem late (really late), when I shifted to the making of the redesign, I was only able to create one whole drawing with some parts shaded, which is still okay because I have learned that there are many styles/strategies to present your character. Here is a pre-sketch before any coloring/shading of the dragon:

After finishing the shading, I went for a simple but effective presentation design because of time limitations. I decided to add small text boxes to the presentation explaining the elder dragon with some context but mainly what the ‘Elder Dragon’ can do (fictional story). Here is the finished presentation:

As I was working on the main component of the drawing, I shifted my attention more to the presentation instead of the semi-finished Lao Long, which proved beneficial because soon, I learned I was running out of time. In my presentation, I used a standard character design style presentation with the primary information surrounding the character. I presented this redesigned character with a brief context introduction and described the character’s unique features (mainly physical). [I talk more in-depth about how I came up with the style of the presentation in REFLECTION: Strength]

---

REFLECTION

Strengths

• I believe I created a good design idea for my goal of redesigning Lao Long in a more realistic way. I managed to produce a good presentation, although not wholly describing the features of the redesigned Lao Long, and successfully summarized the process/of defining the concept and reflecting on it. Moreover, I was delighted with the style of the presentation; because I did not finish shading the entire dragon, I found a way to use that to my advantage in which I made a style of presentation that is partially colored (text in color) which fits in with the unfinished drawing instead of having a full background with a half colored dragon in the middle.
• Furthermore, I am delighted with my sketches of the dragon. Although not finished (shading-wise), I did successfully portray the idea, which to an extent could be considered finished.

Weaknesses

• To start, there are lots of weaknesses to this design. I was trying my best to hide them, from the completely incomplete drawings to the brief description of the dragon with no backstory [I purposely chose not to have a backstory for the Elder Dragon because as this design is only targeting the ISB students, I am giving them the chance of imagining their backstory of how Lao Long came to be]. First, the main component that pushed me back a bit from making a good design presentation (+blog) has got to be me not having a solidified design problem which stole time away from me working on the presentation. Furthermore, the cause of not confirming my design problem also affected me; I was scared to invest in my time drawing because if the design concept changed, then I would have to redraw everything, which ended up with me not having a design problem + any reference/outline until later on.
• One of the final presentation’s weaknesses is that it could confuse the audience if they only saw it. If there is not a backstory or anything to explain what the dragon was, nobody would give any thought to it nor recognize it besides ISB faculties and students. [I made a little backstory above]

Where did you think you did well, and why?

• I think I did well adapting to the challenges I faced, and I was proud of the presentation style idea: how I integrated the half-colored dragon into the presentation without looking out of place…sort of.
• Furthermore, considering I have not touched photoshop in 2 years, I was delighted with the final illustration results.

What was difficult?

• The idea was a challenge. I have always struggled to find a valid reason for my design problems, such as why I chose it. This project was especially hard for me because, first, character design was new to me. Second, it is not an area with a set design problem, such as redesigning a house (which would be something like making a living better..).

What would you do differently next time to further improve your design?

• If I had a second chance, I think I would switch the design problem. However, if I had to stick with character design, I would say I would come up and solidify the design problem in 2 classes and immediately start with the inspiration for the presentation.

---