The Difference in Composition between Character Design and Illustration - ‘Fluffy’ Process + PSD File

Hey everyone,

Here is the process video, file, and brief insights of FLUFFY, my latest illustration. These kinds of articles are often split into two parts: the concept, where I share the idea behind the piece, and the execution, where I explain the technical aspects like shapes, colors, and value choices. I hope you find this useful; have a great read.

Concept

While scrolling on Pinterest in search of casual pictures, I found a pillow and I thought it would be a nice opportunity to play out the dream theme.

My immediate thought was about sheeps, based on the popular idea that you can count them to sleep. This idea led to a shepherdess character, whom I figured would be interesting to look at, based on the dress these often had, full of fabric shapes and folds. However, I did not want her just standing there in the composition, directing the sheeps. I wanted her to do some work. So, I thought it would be fun to look at her shearing the sheep, while another is piling the wool around, as if they were inside a pillow. The idea of the huge eye in the back came afterward as a way to suggest they were inside of the pillow.

The whole idea was very abstract and difficult to structure in the composition, but the fact that the wool had very clear values helped me blend it with the white background. I still don't know if this was clear enough, but I think some people got it.

The list looked like this:

• Color: White, grey, purple
• Reference: Pillow
• Action: Shepherdess shearing sheep
• Costume: Shepherdess dress

Execution

The way I frame compositions most of the time is to show off a character design and use other objects or secondary characters to add a little extra. This time was different; this composition was more of an illustration than a character design presentation. What's the difference? Basically, when it is character-focused, if I removed the info around, the piece of art would still serve its function, which is to show off a design. But when it is an illustration, by default, it is more narrative-focused, which makes the rest or "extra" objects important to actually understand what's going on, making the character design less relevant.

As a consequence, you will see at the beginning of the process how messy the shapes were for each piece of the composition. I had an idea in my head of how it was supposed to look - the whole scene inside of a pillow - but I was not sure if it would be understandable. I guess I just assumed the risk anyway, as it was "okay" to me, but you never know how others will interpret the final result.

Despite being a more illustration-oriented composition, I still drew the way I often do in regards to hierarchy, giving my attention to a "main character," which is the one in the front shearing the sheep, and then the character in the back, sheep, and so on. To come up with a more accurate gesture for this specific task, I searched on YouTube for "Sheep Shearing." It's fair to say that although it was useful to see the process, I did not find any pose that fitted my vision, so I simply made the character sit while holding the sheep upside down, which seems to be the way to go for this job.

About colors, I used variations of white with a bit of desaturated yellows and purple, mainly to resemble the pillow reference and the sheep's tones. Additionally, I integrated some dark tones using more saturated purple in a few parts of the costume, as well as black for hair, boots, and sheep paws.

When shading white surfaces, I tend to use colorful tones, not very saturated but saturated enough to be noticed. This is to balance the bright side where colors don't get too much appreciated. Please check the PSD and video to find out more about this execution.

Conclusion

Regardless of whether the composition is illustration or character design-oriented, my execution process is very similar. The difference is that illustrations rely more on narrative, which might or might not show the character design in a clear way and might rely more on objects around these characters. If you have more questions about this subject, just DM me here or on Discord. I'm more than happy to help!

Thank you for your support