COP2 - Essay Pratical

For the practical side of my COP essay I decided to make character designs of known princesses in a way that goes against the princess stereotype.

Using references I collected in my concertina sketchbook I got to designing my warrior princesses.

Below are two examples of these references:

Taking inspiration from Cinderella's glass slippers I came up with the idea of crystal armour to make an awesome looking warrior.

I tried keeping the design relatively androgynous and to not focus too much on her appearance I decided to put a helmet to cover the face making less obvious it's a woman.

Draft for Cinderella's Crystal Armour

For this style I coloured individual outlines depending on what colour fill will be inside each part so that they blend together instead of having an all blacked out outline which would stand out.

Cinderella outline

In a previous character design brief I've come up with a way to create a crystal like pattern for my Cinderella's crystal armour (and sword) when I started adding colour.

Cinderella colour and crystal effect

For the final design I added a coloured backdrop and added a light glazing on the crystal armour to make it appear more crystal in appearance.

Final Cinderella Crystal Knight with lighting

I also took some time to make a short gif just to demonstrate some form of animation

Shining Crystal Armour

Again, using the references I collected I started to work on creating another character design.

This time I am creating a rogue type of warrior for Snow White. Taking the concepts of "the fairest in the land" and her description of "hair as black as ebony, lips as red as the rose, skin as white as snow" to make a sort of shell of who was the fairest in the land. I did this by adding wrinkles as if she has gotten old or worn out over time and with a mean facial expression will create an odd looking appearance combined with Snow White's description. This goes away from how she is usually depicted with a cute delicate appearance. I even gave her some muscles to show she is physically strong and some hints of what's left of her beauty.

Draft Snow White Rogue

Again, I coloured individual outlines depending on what colour fill will be inside each part so that they blend together instead of having an all blacked out outline which would stand out.

Snow White Outline

As shown with the final design the black hair, pale skin and colour red make her appear more sinister then she supposed to be, "the fairest in the land". She looks almost looks like a vampire.

Final Snow White Rogue Warrior with shading