Ah hello there. You might be wondering "Oh jolly! Another character breakdown, I can barely contain myself", and i'm honoured to tell you you're spot on. Haha just kidding I can't read minds, but for real I probably just click baited you with a sample of my fantastic and stunning art as always. Haha joking again, BUT for real for real please ignore my sub-par attempt at comedy and lets get cracking with this Artwork breakdown.
Before we start I'm going to explain my breakdown using these four points (please check my "What makes a great character design" for more detail)
· Personality
· Vibe
· Aesthetic
· Theme
T-Poisen
PERSONALITY
T-Poisen's personality is observant, cunning, stylish, precise, prideful, cool. An observant man, He studies people and surroundings, anything deemed useful would be categorically filed for later use, maybe blackmail or for his job, he does whatever. A mind capable of precise deductions and dangerous secrets, If you met him he'll seem friendly and sociable but cunning with agendas. Its questionable if he's bad man, his main game is getting in people's head and try to know them better than they do but in the end his prime agenda will always be keeping the streets clean of crooks. As a detective he dresses very unorthodox with a white pompadour, diamond leggings with gold jewellery, cool blue, and cross tattoos. He's obsessed with centre stage but also a soft passion for creativity. He has intense pride in himself as a person and his lineage.
VIBE
I wanted the audience to feel a beauty in male androgyny in T-Poisen but primarily I focused the most on creating a cool feeling through colour (The cool is metaphorical and literal).There is one prime consistent gradient in T-Poisen and that is dark blue to lime green, although there isn't a direct gradient because its always lime green touching dark blue to create contrast, just by putting a aqua rectangle behind him i've tied together that contrast to form a smooth transitional gradient. The way I do this is by Shape Psychology, the technique is used by character designers create personality in characters simply the using shapes in the character base by using three shapes, the triangle, square, and circle. The triangle gives a the character a edgy, hostile, hot-headed feel. The square/rectangle gives the character a reliable, trustworthy, sturdy feel. The circle gives a soft, harmless, friendly feel. So for T-poisen a rectangle is used as a backbone to the artwork to create a sturdy and reliable feel also serving as a metaphor for "cool" but at the same time "literally" by being coloured aqua, the colour in between dark blue and lime green to join the dots making it easy on the eyes.
AESTHETIC
I created T-Poisen so I could broaden the variety in my character creations, I've never really gotten around to draw dark skinned characters because it was in my comfort zone to draw light skinned character because the skin tone is so different. I used a lot of inspiration from an anime called "Jojo's Bizzare Adventure", its characters confidently wear "avant garde"(new experimental) clothing, which peaked my interest. The anime is very exaggerated and the characters pose like fashion models in serious situations but somehow it ends up being somehow very badass and masculine instead of cringe. I've admired how unafraid "Hirohika Araki", the writer and artist of Jojo's draws his characters because of that. I've also taken inspiration from all over Pinterest from avant garde clothing to fantasy clothing and references to dark skinned characters since I had to learn. Since T-Poisen is dark skinned I decided to use white as contrast, especially in his pompadour (Jojo reference) being the largest section of white would grasp your attention straight away. The leggings are inspired by an artwork that used the texture of a perfume bottle with diamond shapes to create leggings. The jacket was improvised to suit the leggings.
THEME
They call him T-Poisen but it's just a alias. His real name is Luther Poisen and he is a detective in the city of Auburnhead but not because he wants to rid the great city of murder and corruption but for the thrill and challenge of unsolvable cases. Being dangerously intelligent and sociopathic with seedy agendas he might as well be a villain but to the industry hes invaluable because when he cracks down on a case deemed worthy, genius fits the description. You might of noticed that he has cut horns protruding out his forehead, this is because of his lineage who all had horns and said to be a family secret. His whisper (magic is my universe) is that he can turn his body fluids into a deadly poison, corrosive to undetectable. This is an unusual ability because his whisper signature is crimson and normally people with crimson people have mastery over their muscles, being incredible strong to hardening their skin like steel. His most famous ability is the truth poison when infecting an individual they forced to answer any question, thats why they call him T.Poisen.
This is one of my favourite artworks and I learnt a lot about design and skin tone from it, not to mention fun. I hope you enjoyed this analsis! Peace.
