internship

my role

During this internship, I was 2D character artist and I have worked on several character designs. In addition to this, I have also helped developing the official art style of the studio, as well as some concept art for environmental assets.

admission assignment

In order to determine if I would be a good match with the studio, I did an admission assignment. I had to design and draw a character that would fit an existing lineup of characters. While designing this character, I focused on matching mainly the pose and colors to the existing characters; my style already happens to be very close to the style of the studio's lead artist.

environmental assets

The environmental assets shown on the right were all drawn while I worked on developing an art style for the studio with the other interns. The task proved too difficult for us since the studio wasn't entirely sure what they were looking for either, but the concept art that came from it did end up giving them more to work with in the future. I am very happy with the pieces I created.

the twins

The first character I had to design, was a researcher. I played around with many different thumbnails and concepts, jumping between different kinds of researchers. I eventually settled on continuing with the alchemist, and since two of the designs looked similar enough but still fun to play around with, I ended up creating twins instead of just designing one character.

Bonnie is energetic and curious, and her design is supposed to reflect this. I gave her wild hair, big eyes, and a wide smile, and she carries herself well and appears full of energy. Galen is more reserved and calmer, though the barely contained curls in his hair and the prosthetic arm hint that he used to be a lot more like his sister, before he lost his arm in a lab accident.

I've worked out full expression sheets and turnaround sheets for the twins. The turnaround sheets were pretty difficult to get right, and I had to pick up some anatomy classes during this internship to hopefully make things easier for myself. I learned a lot from it all and definitely need to practice more with turnarounds in the future.

the trickster

The second character I designed, is the trickster. This character went through a lot more different iterations, so I have only included the most important art on the right to give you an idea of the main design phases I went through with this character.

I decided to design a puppeteer satyr, who travels around and does shows for kids and adults alike, and uses her charm and her puppeteering skills to pickpocket rich people when they're watching the show. My main struggle was, again, the anatomy, especially because I gave myself the added challenge of drawing animal legs; on top of that, the color scheme was a struggle too to get right.

Her final outfit has elements of a laughing and crying mask in it, which fits with her trickster theme. I also ended up going with a purple color scheme, since purple has mystery symbolism tied to it which also works very well with her themes.

the rival

The last official character design I worked on, was for the rival. The process I handled was mostly the same as for the previous characters, and I ended up working on two different characters; I have only included the finalized version, as the other character concept was abandoned later in the process.

The rival is supposed to be unpredictable and fiery, which I highlighted by using a lot of asymmetry in her design. I also experimented with a lot of bright colors to make her stand out of her environment more.

reflection

I had a lot of fun working on the character designs during my internship, despite it getting a little difficult every now and then because of the anatomy. I also enjoyed working on the art style and all that came with it, though it did distract a little from what I wanted to do there, which was mostly just work on the character designs. I definitely need more practice with anatomy to make technical stuff like turnaround sheets easier for myself.