Monday, June 9, 2014

Red 3 - Character Concept

I had the recent opportunity to join Iain McCaig's workshop at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 3, the art convention in Kansas City.

In the workshop on visual storytelling, McCaig demonstrated his process with a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood.


In a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, Red is a brain-washed clone who's arm was harvested by the Originals. Perhaps for cruelty or entertainment, the Originals replace the clone body parts with all manner of prosthetic limbs.

In the above concept Red 3 has a cumbersome, but effective, weapon.

Below, is a completely different interpretation of the same character. Only this time, the gun arm is a crippling burden.
I think it's interesting to think about how changing one factor can effect all other aspects of a character.

Many thanks to my friend Mark Foster for great ideas on the second interpretation.

Here are some good notes of Iain McCaig's storytelling workshop:

8 comments:

  1. I really love how much more story the second interpretation has. I Always think about design but i really should think more about what implication it could have on the life of the character. Thanks for this post it's really eye opening to realize something that's so obvious once somebody shows you.

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  2. Thanks Vincent! Good to hear :)
    It was a fun challenge to approach the same character in completely different ways.

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  3. I love these. Especially the second. The amount of story and feeling you imbued into a simple character concept is amazing. Fantastic work!

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    1. Thanks Sara! I'm looking forward to doing more character concepts like these.

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  4. These are great! Sounds like an amazing workshop. The first version looks a lot like the girl who plays Arya on Game of Thrones!

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  5. beautiful artwork.

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