#I tried to draw period-accurate clothes but everything is high-waisted so I gave up

[hater-era]

they’re on a little date (people watching but they have different definitions of it)

[wstewartanim1004-blog]

Character & Characterisation -character development-

Choosing a Character for my assignment brief:

Personally I don’t read much so thinking of a character to begin with was very difficult for me personally, I decided to ask friends for recommendations on a story to get a character from and the Book series “the Final empire” was that chosen book series. 

The book is based on Mystical powers and old style almost pre-Victorian era environments. My chosen character ‘Camon’ is a master thief, Old and pudgy looking now but still just as sly and cunning. Camon was quickly described in the first chapter of the first book where features like his ‘pudgy face’, ‘Nobleman’s suit’ and ‘matching black hat’ really helped describe the look and feel of the character. “The thief master looked very convincing in his nobleman’s suit. It was as rich a costume as Vin had ever seen—it had a white shirt overlaid by a deep green vest with engraved gold buttons. The black suit coat was long, after the current fashion, and he wore a matching black hat” Chapter 1.

Camon is not a good character in this story, in fact he is killed quite soon after the end of Chapter 1, but he still causes a lot of issues and trouble for the main antagonist during these first few pages of the story, just proving how important the Author:  Brandon Sanderson, made every character in his novel.

Although Camon was a thief he did often dress as a nobleman to confuse others, he was very good at this and even though he didn’t have the money to afford it. his clothes were made of fine material, including expensive golden buttons.  “Camon did an excellent job of imitating a nobleman—when it came to playing a role, there were few thieves more competent than Camon. Assuming he could keep his temper under control.” Chapter 1.

Setting and Environment:

The book is based in a mystical citadel - “the city of Luthadel - Seat of the Lord Ruler” it’s a gloomy sight with most buildings being made of stone and as little metal as possible.  Most buildings, unless owned by the higher noblemen, were bland - designed to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. “ Every structure in Luthadel—virtually every structure Kelsier had ever seen—had been blackened to some degree. Even the city wall” page 28     Structures were packed closely together with the odd Stone built monolithic keeps placed here and there around the city.  The only open space really available to anyone was around these stone keeps. “The patches of space amidst the tenements were like clearings in a forest” 

Environment research:

For the environment that my character is designed around “the city of Luthadel” I have taken a lot of inspiration from the game Warhammer - and the expansion Warhammer 40k & 30k, this is because the building sets in this expansion are very resembling of the environments as described in the first few chapters of the book. 

I also took examples from Anglo Saxon design architecture with it’s use of stone and wood.

In the opening pages to the book the environment is described as a “gloomy Sight” with muted colours and dark buildings, high walls all covered in a later of ash. Using this description from the book and images as seen above I craeted some environmental sketches to better show my own interpretation of the world.

Character Development:

To start bringing my character to life I looked at silhouttes, this was to help me come to a conclusion on the shape and feel of the character i wanted to see.

It was at this point when I came to stop as I already knew what i wanted, After a few pages of scribbling and messing around with character forms and shapes I drew something that I really liked the loof of and wanted to carry further into development. This is seen on the image, made clear with the arrows pointing to the particular drawing. 

Clothing:

once a shape and initial Idea was thought of I had to know what sort of clothes people in this themed era would wear, My Character - Camon - was already described as wearing “nobleman’s suit, white shirt overlaid by a deep green vest with engraved gold buttons, matching black hat”

So i had an idea what i was going to draw him wearing already, but just to get an idea of the style of clothes I wanted to do some quick research online.

The Site: https://www.gentlemansemporium.com/mens-early-victorian-clothing.php had a lot of clothing styles from the familiar long coat and cane to Vests and waist coats. 

Although not a green vest with golden buttons in sight, It was still helpful to know the materials used as it gave me a better idea of the thickness and texture these items of clothing would have.

Facial Features

 A lot of a character is shown through a face,my character - Camon - is a pudgy looking mean fella with red cheeks, this is as described in the novel, however my own interpretation also added a few things more because i pictured him with sickly looking green-ish yellow skin thanks to the lower style of living as thief. 

I knew that Camon was a strong character as some pages have him thrown into violent situations where he usually comes out on top:  “Camon’s hurled wooden stool hit her square in the back, throwing her to the ground. Pain flared between her shoulders; several crewmembers cried out as the stool bounced off of her and thumped against the floorboards nearby.”

To show this sort of attitude in a still image is not easy so I did it with his facial expressions.

I looked closely at skin tones and hair styles to match the characters clothes, style, attitude and environment as best as possible. The longer style of hair - un cut and un clean represents his lower stature as a thief, his sickly skin also reflects this.

Turn Around:

Camon’s style and attitude is described well in the story, everything from his green and golden vest to his cane is mentioned and described so I have tried my best to implement it into the turn around of the character.

I tried my best to make him look as noble as possible but almost in a fake way, his clothes don’t fit perfectly, as you can see with his long to the shoes trousers and big wavy over coat. The fabric is thick like any expensive clothing of Victorian time period i designed them after.

The green vest is clearly visible, so Is the black hat and cane which all help to tie in the character as an individual.

Conclusion and Reflection:

Drawing human formed characters was new to me and so was the idea of character concept design using extracts from book, however I am still pleased with my overall resulting work.  The Character Camon was mentioned early on in the story and died almost just as quickly as he was created. This didn’t however mean that the character was under developed, in face he was one of the main villains for the first short part of the opening chapters.

From the descriptions given I firstly envisioned some fat oaf, laid back in his home surrounded by his stolen spoils. It was after much further deduction and research into the character and story that a more accurate description was explained, changing my overall idea of the character almost completely to someone more likely to get up and do something about his problems.  There is no doubting that Camon is a bad guy, a mean person with a nasty temper so incorporating this into the final design was important and although human faces and features are a new area for me I feel that I have expressed this anger though the images I drew well.

Camon’s style of clothing and style worn by the ‘noblemen’ in the story made me think of Victorian style clothing of the upper class; with their long coats, canes and waist coats. Although Camon’s clothes were described well and in detail in the novel some things like the style of hat and over coat was left to the reader’s imagination, thanks to this some unique ideas came to mine, like the idea to replace to traditional style top hat of the Victorian era to a more common Bowler hat that would usually belong to the middle and lower class. This was a decision I made to represent his thieving nature and the fact that he was only pretending to be a nobleman.

Camon’s figure and attitude was described as “pudgy”, “ill tempered” and “violent”. These things were key description pieces that really showed throughout the whole development of my character from the fat and lazy silhouettes of him sat on a park bench, to the arms folded – cold attitude of the more finished initial drawings.

Trying to incorporate everything and all the features of the character Camon as mentioned in the book did prove harder than I thought. There are a few things that on second thought and with more research I have realised I have missed out on including in the concept, such as his golden pocket watch and ring covered fingers. Still though, even on reflection of this, I personally feel very pleased with the way my design from research to initial concept and then concept to finalised design and turnaround turned out. I have stretched myself to drawing new things with this brief, such as human figures and faces. I have learnt a lot about how important initial stages of development are like silhouettes to creating a finalised character with the right attitude and feel to match the referenced piece. I do feel that the character is finished now and I am happy with all the work I have put into this assignment.

Bibliography: 

Ent, D. (2017) Mistborn chapter One. Available at: http://brandonsanderson.com/mistborn-chapter-one/ (Accessed: 13 January 2017)

Early Victorian clothing for men at Gentlemans Emporium  Available at: https://www.gentlemansemporium.com/mens-early-victorian-clothing.php (Accessed: 13 January 2017).

OCP Timeline (2007) Available at: http://www.nottsopenchurches.org.uk/education-secondary-timeline.php (Accessed: 13 January 2017).

2016 (2000) Warhammer 40k. Available at: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki (Accessed: 12 January 2017