Design a Character in Photoshop with @JackieDroujko (Ep 3) | The Brief | Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud
24 Apr 202405:42

TLDRIn this episode of 'The Brief', Jackie Droujko, a character designer for Disney TV, shares her creative process using a box of inspirational items provided by Adobe. The challenge is to design a character that reflects qualities she admires in herself. Jackie incorporates elements like elf ears and a charcoal stick, inspired by her love for fantasy and her recent interest in Muay Thai. The character evolves from a sketch to a detailed illustration, with a focus on a post-boxing, sweaty, and determined anti-hero. She uses Adobe Stock for textures, plays with lighting to enhance drama, and adds final touches like charcoal war paint and sweat details. The result is a compelling character that Jackie envisions as a noble elf fighting for her father's land, with a subtle background and contrasting rim light that adds to the villainous glow.

Takeaways

  • 🎨 Jackie Droujko, a character designer for Disney TV, shares her creative process in designing a character with qualities she likes about herself.
  • 📦 Adobe sent Jackie a box of inspirational items, including elf ears, charcoal sticks, and an opposable wooden mannequin, to create a character.
  • 🧝 Jackie relates to the elf ears and decides to incorporate them into her character design, reflecting her personal connection and aesthetic preference.
  • 🥋 Jackie's current interest in muay thai influences her character's design, giving the character a fighting spirit and physical prowess.
  • 💭 She experiments with the character's role, considering both hero and villain, before settling on an anti-hero with a ruthless and determined personality.
  • 📝 Jackie spends over an hour sketching and goes through multiple iterations, emphasizing the importance of the sketching phase in character design.
  • 👕 She chooses to depict the character in a post-boxing state, exhausted and covered in sweat, to convey a strong emotional and physical state.
  • 🧵 Jackie opts for boxing wraps instead of gloves to maintain the character's sleek appearance, showing attention to detail in the design.
  • 🎨 She uses lighting to create a dramatic and moody atmosphere, playing with three different light sources to enhance the character's presence.
  • 🖌️ Jackie's approach to coloring is to stick closely to the original concept sketch, only introducing new colors where necessary to maintain consistency.
  • 🧵 She struggles with drawing braids but uses reference images to overcome this challenge, demonstrating the value of using references in the creative process.
  • 🌟 Jackie adds final details like charcoal as war paint and enhances the character's sweaty appearance with lighting effects to complete the illustration.

Q & A

  • What is the name of the character designer featured in the video?

    -Jackie Droujko

  • What is the main task Jackie Droujko is given by Adobe?

    -To create a hero or villain character that incorporates qualities she likes most about herself.

  • What item from the box of inspirational items does Jackie relate to and decide to incorporate into her character design?

    -Elf ears, as her Dungeons & Dragons character was an elf.

  • What is Jackie's current obsession that she decides to include in the character's background?

    -Muay Thai, as she has been attending kickboxing classes for the past year.

  • How does Jackie describe the character's emotional state in her initial sketches?

    -The character is depicted as exhausted, tired, angry, and covered in sweat, as if she just came out of a round of boxing.

  • What change does Jackie make to the character's boxing gloves?

    -Jackie decides to switch out the boxing gloves for just wraps, as she feels the gloves are too clunky and do not fit the sleek vibe of the character.

  • What is Jackie's approach to coloring the character?

    -Jackie uses colors from her original concept sketch and picks existing colors from her palette, avoiding the creation of random colors.

  • Why does Jackie decide against making the character's eyelashes white and eye whites black?

    -Jackie finds that the contrast does not work for the character and opts for more normal-looking eyes instead.

  • How does Jackie enhance the textures in the character's design?

    -Jackie uses a woven texture from Adobe Stock, applying it to the character's shirt and playing with overlays to make it fit seamlessly.

  • What is Jackie's strategy for dealing with the complexity of drawing braids?

    -Jackie uses overhead lighting to emphasize the mood and partially cover the braids, avoiding the need for detailed drawing of the braided hair.

  • What final details does Jackie add to the character to make the piece more dramatic?

    -Jackie adds charcoal on the character's face and body as war paint, adjusts colors, applies gradients and RGB split, adds noise, and includes dust particles and more sweat for added realism.

  • What is the final interpretation of the character's role in her society according to Jackie?

    -Jackie envisions the character as a noble in an elf society who has to fight the main queen or elf to save her father's land.

Outlines

00:00

🎨 Character Design Process with Inspirational Items

Jackie, a Disney TV character designer, introduces the Brief series where she receives a box of inspirational items from Adobe to create a unique piece of art. She's tasked with designing a hero or villain character that reflects her most admired qualities. Jackie selects items such as elf ears, charcoal sticks, and a wooden mannequin, relating to her personal interests and experiences, including her Dungeons & Dragons elf character and her recent muay thai training. She decides on a character concept that combines these elements, aiming for a determined, passionate, and ruthless anti-hero. The design process involves multiple iterations, settling on a character that appears exhausted and angry after a boxing match, opting for hand wraps over gloves for a sleeker look. Jackie experiments with lighting to enhance the dramatic and moody atmosphere, and she uses Adobe Stock for textures, emphasizing form and texture in her rendering. She also discusses her approach to coloring, staying true to her initial concept while making adjustments for visual impact.

05:02

🌟 Final Illustration and Background Story

Jackie concludes her design process by detailing the final touches to her illustration. She enhances the character's appearance with charcoal as war paint and adds sweat for a more realistic effect. The character is envisioned as a noble elf who must fight a main queen to save her father's land, adding depth to the character's background story. The background is subtle but sets the scene, with a red bounce light giving the character a villainous glow and a blue rim light providing contrast and pizzazz. Jackie expresses satisfaction with the final piece, which encapsulates her character's emotions of anger, determination, and passion. She invites viewers to share their thoughts and encourages them to explore their creativity with Adobe Creative Cloud, ending with a prompt for likes and subscriptions to Adobe's channel.

Mindmap

Keywords

💡Character Designer

A character designer is a professional artist who creates the visual appearance and style of characters for various forms of media, including television, film, and video games. In the video, Jackie is a character designer for Disney TV, which means she designs characters for animated shows and possibly movies. Her role involves infusing personality and style into characters, which is evident when she creates a character that reflects qualities she likes about herself.

💡Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud is a suite of software and services offered by Adobe Inc. that gives users access to a collection of applications for graphic design, video editing, web development, and photography. In the context of the video, Adobe provides Jackie with a box of inspirational items to create a piece of art, and she uses Adobe Creative Cloud tools to design and illustrate her character.

💡Elf Ears

Elf ears are a common fantasy element often depicted as being pointed and elongated, characteristic of elves in various mythologies and fantasy settings. Jackie mentions elf ears as part of the inspirational items she received, and she relates to them because her Dungeons & Dragons character was an elf. She uses this as a starting point to design her character, incorporating the idea of elf ears to give the character a fantasy aesthetic.

💡Muay Thai

Muay Thai is a form of martial arts that originated in Thailand, known for its use of fists, elbows, knees, and shins as striking tools. Jackie mentions attending Muay Thai classes, and she imagines her character also participating in this martial art. This influences the character's design, giving her a tough and athletic appearance, which is conveyed through her clothing and overall demeanor.

💡Sketching

Sketching is the process of rapidly creating rough visual representations of an idea, often used by artists as a preliminary step before refining the concept. In the video, Jackie spends over an hour sketching different variations of her character, indicating the iterative nature of the design process. She goes through several iterations before settling on a design that she feels captures the essence of the character she wants to create.

💡Anti-Hero

An anti-hero is a central character in a story who lacks conventional heroic attributes but is still considered the protagonist. They often have flaws and may engage in morally ambiguous actions. Jackie describes her character as an anti-hero, suggesting that while the character has some heroic qualities, she also has traits that make her more complex and less idealized than a traditional hero. This is reflected in the character's design, which includes elements that are both appealing and edgy.

💡Lighting

In the context of art and design, lighting refers to the way artificial or natural light interacts with objects and subjects to create a desired effect or mood. Jackie discusses using different light sources to make her artwork dramatic and moody. She uses lighting to emphasize the character's emotions and to set the overall tone of the scene.

💡Textures

Textures in digital art refer to the visual and tactile quality of a surface, which can be simulated using various techniques and tools. Jackie uses a woven texture from Adobe Stock to add depth and realism to her character's shirt. This shows how textures can enhance the visual appeal and detail of a digital illustration.

💡Braids

Braids are a hairstyle where three or more strands of hair are woven together. Jackie mentions her difficulty in drawing braids, which is a common challenge for many artists due to the complexity of the intertwined strands. Despite this, she uses braids in her character design to add a level of detail and cultural or personal significance to the character.

💡Sweat

Sweat is used in the video as a visual element to convey the character's physical exertion and emotional state. Jackie wants her character to appear sweaty and exhausted, which she achieves through lighting and shading techniques. This adds to the realism of the character's portrayal as someone who has just finished a round of boxing.

💡War Paint

War paint traditionally refers to the paint or markings used by warriors to signify tribal affiliations, intimidate enemies, or for personal identification. In the video, Jackie uses charcoal as a form of 'war paint' on her character's face and body, which serves to enhance the character's fierce and determined appearance, aligning with the character's backstory and personality.

Highlights

Jackie Droujko, a character designer for Disney TV, shares her creative process in designing a character with Adobe Creative Cloud.

Jackie incorporates qualities she likes about herself into the character design, aiming to create a relatable and personal piece of art.

Adobe sends Jackie a box of inspirational items, including elf ears and charcoal sticks, to spark her creativity.

Jackie relates to the elf ears, drawing inspiration from her Dungeons & Dragons character.

She decides to blend fantasy elements with her current interest in muay thai, creating a unique character concept.

Jackie emphasizes the character's determination, passion, and ruthlessness in her design.

The character sketching process involves over an hour and multiple iterations to achieve the desired look.

Jackie experiments with the character's role, toggling between a hero and a villain, before settling on an anti-hero.

She opts for boxing wraps instead of gloves to maintain the character's sleek appearance.

Jackie uses three different light sources to create a dramatic and moody atmosphere in the artwork.

The character's silhouette and colors are blocked out, using the original concept sketch as a reference.

Jackie considers and then discards the idea of making the character's eyelashes white and eye whites black for a villainous look.

She incorporates a woven texture from Adobe Stock into the character's shirt for added detail and realism.

Jackie struggles with drawing braids but uses overhead lighting to strategically conceal this part of the character's design.

The character is given a sweaty, angry, and determined appearance to reflect her recent boxing match.

Charcoal is added to the character's face and body as a form of war paint, enhancing her fierce and combative nature.

Final details include gradients, RGB split, noise, and dust particles to add depth and complexity to the illustration.

Jackie envisions the character as a noble elf who must fight to save her father's land, adding a backstory to the design.

The final illustration features a subtle background, red bounce light for a villainous glow, and blue rim light for contrast.

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