Sometimes Less is More

Or something cheesy relating to simplicity.

In relation to AD102, creating a character to turn 3D, we are looking into artists and illustrators who have used a rather simplistic route to create their characters. In using Illustrator previously, we have discovered that the program creates very bold yet smooth lineart that a lot of character designers go for, mainly to create the main shape of the character.

It should be noted however that these character designers use very simplistic shapes to create their characters. I'm not in particular a fan of such simplistic character styles, but what interests me is how they are used in an image.

Friends With You
What interested me about this particular style is mainly the cartoon 'pie eyes' (as I tend to call them) being used in the characters. All of the characters used appear to be friendly and cute. I like the lack of lineart used in the images, it makes the characters appear softer slightly, despite their bold colours and unusual designs. I think it would be interesting seeing these characters tell a story and explain through the picture what goes on in their world. To me, that is a big part of what makes a simplistic design effective.

A few weeks ago, when we had to do a piece of our life model in a style of one of the illustrators we had looked at, I used Friends With You as it seemed to be an interesting challenge to work with such a detailed piece of work while making the model look as simpistic as possible.

Tado
This style is slightly more detailed and bolder as the characters are outlined with black lineart and the characters are actually shaded in certain areas. The colours used again are bold and unusual for any human or anthropomorphic figure. What I like about these characters is that they tell a story in the image, whether its a surreal situation or an everyday one, such as in this image shown. Everything is bold and outlined but your attention goes to the characters as they stand out. The setting catches your eye afterwards.