Captain Hook- Need character design feedback

[flackattack]

Lately i've been drawing some classic fantasy characters in my own style, just for fun. The first two that I started were captain hook and the crocodile that craves him.

What do you guys think of them so far? I'm mostly interested in feedback on the design and feel of the characters. Also, if you guys have any thoughts on my linework and what I could do to improve, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

[David_a_ray]

Point of curiosity: how is hook supposed to draw his sword? There are two problems. One: the hook; being on his sword arm. Two: the clasp is rather too small for the blade to pass through.

One might also wonder at the hilt sizes on the blades sticking out of the crock’s back. Some of them are too small for anyone with hand sizes like Hook’s to use. The same could be said of the daggers in Hook’s chest-belt thing… bandoleer? Anyway, that’s my two cents. I’m not so good at judging stylized work such as this.

[flackattack]

haha, you make make some very good points there. I'll definitely be making some adjustments. Thanks a lot for the feedback!

[arenhaus]

Show the preliminary roughs for these, please?

[JOELB]

I think that you have a pretty good start so far. Though I would like to know what the goal of the design is. Is this a character design for a game, movie, animation? Knowing that would help to give you a better critique as to how the design works.

[TinyBird]

I also personally question the design of the crocodile, is there a point making it less of a crocodile and more like a Manzilla with long humanoid arms and manboobs? I mean I can't help but to imagine that when it swims its knuckles keep dragging the bottom because the arms are so out of proportion to the rest of the character.

[Hexokinase]

I really liked the bust on the captain. As I scrolled down, I liked the character design less and less. The body is horribly static, and I have no idea what's going on with those legs and feet. And for someone with such a huge neck and barrel chest, those sure are some tiny arms.

[flackattack]

Thanks for the advice everyone! Lots of really great feedback and stuff that I never would have though about on my own. I'm going to have another go at these characters, keeping in mind the points that you've all made. I'll post an update soon!

[flackattack]

Alright, I've got an updated rough of Hook that I've been working on based off a lot of the feedback that I received.



-Tried to make his pose a bit more dynamic and "Pirate-ish"
-Made his legs a bit beefier and longer, hopefully making them look less silly
-Actually looked at references for "pirate shoes" (yes, that is what i googled), and adjusted those accordingly
-Got rid of the fish, because I felt it was distracting from his hook too much
-Moved his sword to the other side so that he can grab it now
-Opened his mouth! He's yelling something!

Anyway, he's obviously not finished yet. But what do you think so far? Am I heading in a better direction?

[Kiera]

Ok, quick one: The new Hook with fresh pose and some research is better .

It still looks flat though, a lot of design decissions seem random and that has several reasons...
All figures lack a line of action, something that unifies their movement and makes their stance interesting:
http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/lineofaction2.jpg (from Preston Blairs book about animation, full book here: http://animationresources.org/?p=2091
Then they lack the feeling that they are 3 dimensional, a lot of things are seen flat on (crocodile is complete side view, almost all of Hook's limbs are drawn straight from the front or the side view).
Did you construct these characters out of 3 dimensional shapes or did you just do lines?
Additionally there's almost no squash and stretch going on:
http://sevencamels.blogspot.de/2011/...-part-two.html
It's hard to feel the material, everything is wooden and stiff.

These are the biggest flaws I can see in these two drawings, I think reading that Preston Blair book up there and constructing a handful of figures from the book according to the steps could help you out big time.
Two small things about the book: There's an updated print-version of that book available where someone redrew the copyrighted 1930s characters and made them worse. The original book is only available online.
Those are instructions for oldschool cartoon characters that look really soft and cartoony. It just takes some straight lines and hard edges at the right places to make the style look more modern.
The gist is still in the book though: line of action, construction out of shapes, hierarchy in shapes.
The rest is just reading up some blogs about cartooning, John K has a nice one: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.de/2008/0...y-of-form.html


Ok, and a last tiny crit, it is far less important but that jumped at me:
Some materials look like they are made of paper and have no volume to them, especially the clothes. It's because they lack an edge that indicates thickness.
F.e. the cloak is paper-thin, the metal that wraps around the clockface has no volume, the wood on the barrel has no edge.
And some things aren't arranged according to the shape or block the feeling of the shape (f.e. the right side of the jacket continues from another direction under the belt buckle, the bandages on the thick strap are in a random direction and don't wrap around it in perspective)
Attachment 1632864
I still have no idea what those things on the left side of his chest are - syringes? mini-daggers? Candy? They look a bit like they are melting.

[flackattack]

That is some great feedback! Thanks a bunch.

You bring up some very good points, and I honestly think that most of my problems stem from the fact that I sort of jumped into this drawing without doing a whole lot of sketches. I think if I had spent more time thinking about the pose and details, there wouldn't be so many issues right now.

Oh, and thanks for those great links. They'll be really helpful.

[arenhaus]

That's not a rough, that's a clean drawing. Are you using rough structural sketches to plot your figures, or do you begin with the contour line itself?

[flackattack]

No, it's a rough. Trust me.

Generally I start with structural sketches. But for this drawing- as I stated in my previous post- I jumped in to drawing the character before really developing structure or thinking about the pose. Which is probably where a lot of my troubles are coming from.

I'm thinking i'll probably take him back to the drawing board and use this as an excuse to practice drawing form. I'll post some sketches later tonight if I have time!

[arenhaus]

Generally I start with structural sketches. But for this drawing- as I stated in my previous post- I jumped in to drawing the character before really developing structure or thinking about the pose. Which is probably where a lot of my troubles are coming from.

There you go.