Discord Weekly Design Challenge 002: Design a Deity

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtFundamentals/comments/7igmqf/discord_weekly_design_challenge_002_design_a_deity/

2017-12-08 17:50

Uncomfortable

So it's Friday again, which means NEW WEEKLY CHALLENGE THEME (on the #weekly-challenge channel on the discord)! This week we're doing:

Design a Deity! Pick a culture (historical or modern) and decide what your deity will govern. Then design your character to reflect these choices. USE REFERENCE! A good first step is to build a mood board (PureRef is a great free tool for that).

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that drawing from your imagination means relying only on the ideas you can come up with. One's imagination is built up around all of the things they've been exposed to, and the things they've studied. Using reference to inform your design choices is a major part of developing your 'visual library'.

While designing, try and lay out questions and problems that your design will ultimately answer and solve. Design is problem solving, so understanding the problems themselves is integral to developing a successful design. Ask yourself the who's, how's, why's, where's and when's. And most importantly, the what-ifs.

Lastly, don't forget to iterate. Design is very much a numbers game. Try to start out by churning out as many interesting silhouettes as you can. The silhouette is the first part of a character that is processed by the eye, so it needs to be interesting and recognizable. And don't stick to your first idea - churn those doodles out, then go back over them later to find the good ones. And of course: most of them will be garbage. Here's two examples of this process:

• Grinding out all of that garbage

• Iteration, iteration, iteration!

• More iteration, damnit!

As always, everyone is welcome to participate, regardless of skill level. Beginners are all too often afraid of putting themselves out there and trying things they've no experience with. There is absolutely no harm in trying. Failure is an integral part of the learning process, so you'd better start now.