The Old Man

The design process 

 

After creating the younger version of my character I began building ideas and looking for references on an older person. Such as there facial features and how certain aspects change when we grow older. I wanted to create a character that I could compare how he was young and living before the incident happened, to how he has grown and changed his life to survive. I wanted this to show on the character.

Beginning with the design I pretty much just blocked out colours straight away and left it at that. At this time when designing the character I had a small obsession with trying to draw wrinkles. I find that they tell the story that I want to be told to the audience. It’s something that captures me and draws me in.

Starting with the eye I began to block out colours and form the left side of the face and nose. I tend to have some trouble with colours and how they react with each other but before I created my character I again watched YouTube videos on how I could better my technique.
I done these on numerous layers and used only one brush to block out the colours.

After blocking out colours I drew the pupils and used a hard edge brush to go back in and blend the colours together, making sure the edges of certain lines were crisp and clean. At this point I almost give up because with all my previous drawings I know that when it comes to the hair I struggle a lot.
At first I tried a method and began blocking out colours but it just wasn’t right, it looked unrealistic and I got really frustrated. After getting fed up with it I decided to take a break and again watch videos on how I would go about it. Several hours later I came back to my drawing and tried a different method.

Putting down the darkest colour I worked from the darkest shade to the lightest. Once I had the basic shape I went with a slightly lighter shade and worked out how I would want the hair to fall. At this point it was looking really blocking and I was really discouraged but I still continued. After doing this I went in closer with a hard edge bush and defined some of the more detailed hair. Knowing when drawing that you can’t see every single strand of hair, I began bunching up the colours so it looked more realistic. Adding the mouth and tweaking with stuff here and there, you can really tell the difference from where I started drawing the hair in number 5 to where I started to finish it in number 11.

Below is the final version of my character and I was pretty much happy with the overall drawing. I learnt stuff and pushed myself more in this design as normally I would have given up on certain points. I wanted to improve and I learnt a lot more in this one project than I did in several others.