Tag Archives: Character Design

Computer Graphic Design

Spring 2016 – 36 – You Toon: The Shirt

Objective:

  • Using knowledge of design and color, and skills acquired in Illustrator, produce a design for a t-shirt promoting your original character.
Student-Friendly Objective:

  • I can produce a t-shirt that represents my original character.

Video Link:

  • None.
Topics Discussed:
  • For a complete list of Topics Discussed, please see the previous lessons (21 – 32).

Assignment: The Character T-shirt

Did you know that most of your favorite cartoon shows don’t make their money from show advertising? Cartoon producers make their money by selling merchandise. That means your show needs an awesome shirt for your fans to wear and spread the word! Use your character and logo to create a design that every fan of your show will want to wear with pride!

 

The Details

  • Using Adobe Illustrator, create a T-shirt design for your character/cartoon show.
  • You will produce two designs, one for the front of the shirt, and one for the back.
  • Use the Adobe Illustrator document titled“T-shirt Template.ai”to produce your designs. (Edit only the Design Layer, not the T-Shirt Layer.)
  • The front of the T-shirt should include the following:
    • A big, bold headline that includes your character’s name.
    • Your character’s logo (should be the biggest and boldest object on the shirt!)
    • Any additional text, graphics and/or design elements that will help the shirt look its best.
  • The back of the T-shirt should include the following:
    • Your character’s logo
    • A picture of your character.
    • Any other text, graphics or design elements that will help the shirt look awesome.

The Catch:

  • You may only use three colors in your design (not including the page color). (Review the Live Color and Color Guide videos on the Adobe Design Center website – they will be your friends.)
  • This assignment is due on Wednesday of next week (04/06/16).
  • Do your best on this assignment – the best two designs from each period will be printed on actual t-shirts on Thursday of next week.
  • If you would like to have your shirts printed next week, you may bring your own t-shirt, and the iron-on print material will be provided.

Assigned: March 28th, 2016
Due Date: April 6th, 2016

Computer Graphic Design

Spring 2016 – 34 – You Toon: Character Model Sheet

Objective:

  • Using knowledge of design and color, and skills acquired in Illustrator, finalize the design of the original cartoon character created in the previous lesson, and create a character “model sheet” representing how the character looks from multiple angles.
Student-Friendly Objective:

  • I can produce a character “model sheet” representing how my character looks from the front and the side.

Video Link:

  • None.
Topics Discussed:
  • For a complete list of Topics Discussed, please see the previous lessons (21 – 32).

Assignment:

  • Now that you’ve brainstormed your character and determined his/her/its key character traits, you will finalize the visual design of the character.
  • Using your character analysis paragraph and your rough sketches as a guide, begin drawing your character in Illustrator.
  • Begin by drawing a front view of your character. Use simple shapes to draw the character’s arms, legs, body, head and any other elements of the character’s design (ears, tail, clothing, etc.).
  • Draw the character with arms and legs spread out (this will aid you when we begin applying animations to this character at a later date.
  • Once the character’s front view is complete, draw a side view of the character. (Hint: copy body parts from your front view and modify them to produce side and back views.)
  • Place both views of your character into a single landscape Illustrator artboard, and then place the full text of your character’s descriptive paragraph on the same page. Remember your principles of C.R.A.P. as you do this, and make it look neat and professional.
  • Your finished model sheet with the three character views and descriptive paragraph are due at the end of class on Friday. (03/25/16)
Assigned: March 21st, 2016
Due Date: March 25th, 2016