Intro
This week we were taught the importance of anatomy and proportions in character design and how the lack of these concepts can lead to a character feeling unnatural and inhuman. we were taught basic ideas to research upon like muscle groups, and simplifying them down into simple more memorable shapes, and gesture drawing, or expressing motion and emotion with simple shapes and very few lines. I focused my research on muscle groups that most define the body shape.
Practice
Before designing my own character I decided to do some quick anatomy practice using Path of Exile’s Marauder character as a reference. I wanted to see if I could redraw the character by identifying and focusing on his muscle groups. I chose this character as he has very well defined and exaggerated muscles.
I started by drawing very rough guide lines around where I thought his muscles were located. After this I began sketching on a new layer.
I didn’t want to spend too much time on this as it was only meant to be practice, but I think my proportions ended up looking okay.
Original piece
I drew the initial sketch keeping the rule of 8 in mind, where the whole body of the character is 8 times the size of the characters head. I wasn’t completely satisfied with how it was turning out at this point, despite the proportions being okay. I think to me the lack of pose in the drawing hurt my ability to really imagine the character and scene. Since it was still only a sketch I decided to redraw a different more dynamic pose.
After finishing this sketch I already gained more motivation to continue drawing. I planned on creating a barbarian character, some kind of muscular, bearded, axe-wielding berserker. Perhaps a little inspired by the marauder from earlier.
After finishing the sketch to help me keep track of proportions I moved onto a slightly more detailed sketch and then blocked in the silhouette on a separate layer.
Conclusion
I didn’t want this piece to take up too much time so I stopped at the 3 hour mark. I am decently happy with how this piece turned out although I think it could have been a little more refined. Regardless I believe it accurately represents a bit of my new anatomical knowledge.
Grinding Gear Games (2010) Path of Exile [Video game]. Available online: News – Path of Exile – A Free Online Action RPG [Accessed 18/11/2022]