Right off the bat, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this exercise. I work with some friends on a video game, and I decided to take advantage of this exercise and began working on the character creation of two characters.

My first character is a lighthouse keeper from the early 1900s. And references for this were easy enough to find considering most lighthouse keepers today aren’t really the same as the ones before because of the advent of technology, consequently they don’t have any particularly specific characteristics, more specifically, a uniform. Most images of lighthouse keepers that can be found on google are those of lighthouse keepers from the early 1900s and later 1800s. And from a recent feature film with Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson.

I then began drawing my character out. This was a bit difficult, perhaps because of the photoshop brush I was using, so until much later, creating an idea became very tough. Also understanding the body language, the possible actions of a lighthouse keeper were a little tricky.

But then I began to visualise the character better, and I realised the problem with the brush, so I switched and started a new page of sketches altogether. These came out more unique and things started to become a lot clearer. The specific process was just drawing a simple, scribbled figure as the base on one layer, then reducing the opacity of that layer, and adding another layer on top and use the scribble as a framework for the actual sketch, followed by another layer on top to create shadows by adding blotches of black in parts that would be restricted from the light, and then reducing the opacity of that layer. Anatomy is still a problem, and confidence an even bigger one, because I’m still not entirely sure of the coordination between cloth and the body. Even perspective persists to pose a rather painful hindrance to the sketching process.

Eventually I created a final sketch for this character.

At this point I had pretty much exhausted myself with the process, so I decided to at least try starting the development process for the next character, so I could do something for the final part of the exercise. The next character is the daughter of the first. A lot of the inspiration for this character came from Anne Frank. Although I did have to research typical 1940s fashion in Britain. and most little girls had a very typical dress so I didn’t have to look too far for reference. Here the drawing technique also changed, “loosened up” in a way because I consciously avoided overdrawing and limited my strokes and while this isn’t the first time I’ve done it in such a context, I’m starting to realise that should be the way I approach most of my work of this nature.