Design Challenge: Found Character

Overview

For this post, I challenged myself to design a character using an object I found in my daily life as inspiration. That is, to create a character inspired by some trait or shape found on the object, not to simply  give the thing eyes and limbs.

Inspiration

The object that inspired me was this space heater that campus enhancement left in my dorm.


What I usually look for in an object as inspiration is something I can turn into a face. The most common place I find faces in objects is on the front and back bumpers of cars. The license plate has always appeared like a mouth to me, and the headlights like eyes. In this instance, I found my face on the control panel of this space heater.


If the dials don't look like eyes to you, I really don't know what to say. The ventilation read as a mouth, and the notation around the dials inspired some wear marks I added later in my sketch For me, this perspective was an excellent jumping off point for a meek little robot character.

Character Sketch


This little guy is the design I came up with. It's a worn-out little worker robot with a garbage can lid helmet and a forge for a belly. I thought that incorporating some form of heat-based element into the character's design was cute I imagine it's a courageous character that presses forward despite having seen better days. It's not the most efficient at its work, but it makes up for what it lacks in speed with overwhelming care and passion.

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Design Challenge: Found Character 2

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  Overview In this second found character challenge, I was given the express instructions to avoid making any deliberate reference to the inspiration for the character. I set out to do this in my previous post, but really dialed in on being transformative this second time around. Inspiration The object that inspired my sketches was this open panel on the instructor's panel in the game lab.  I sit almost directly facing this podium, so drawing a character using this was something I felt compelled to do. The shape of the support notches at the top of the panel and the gap created by the panel's removal read to me as a big gaping mouth with only two teeth on the bottom. Here I've outlined what became the mouth of  my character below. Character Sketch The character I created is a living mass of rocks. Scale isn't very apparent in my sketch, but I imagine it towering over a human being. Think of a cliff face, then imagine a piece of that cliff face stands up to begin a pilgr...
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