Claudia Kleinheinz: Character Design

Splines are the Enemy

15:29

Hello everybody, this week was hectic. Fulltime-job, 3 freelance projects and Animation Mentor... didn't get too much sleep ;) I started...

11/08/2009

Hello everybody, this week was hectic. Fulltime-job, 3 freelance projects and Animation Mentor... didn't get too much sleep ;) I started splining the animation I posted last week and all the spirit of it got lost. I don't like splines. Really, I think they are mean ;) However, I managed to fix the worst parts of it and now I'm waiting for my mentor's critique. Next week I'll finish it hopefully and post it here again.

Today I want to show some designs I did recently. The character is ment to be a bank robber of the early 20th century. I did more of those, which I'll show in my next post. Let me know what you think. I'm off to bed now, next time I'll write more.

zzzzzzzzz

silhouettes and more

15:09

Hello again, I haven't been posting for a while, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. On the contrary ;) We've go...

11/01/2009

Hello again,
I haven't been posting for a while, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been busy. On the contrary ;) We've got a new assignment for Animation Mentor and I decided to go for a mix of Parkour and ninja action. This was a huge bite to chew, but in the end I was quite happy with how my blocking turned out. Now, however, I'm panicking because I know that I have to start splining it next week :D

Other than that, I did some thumbnail silhouette sketches for a small mountain cabin. I explored different approaches and styles, some more urban some more rural. In the end I decided that I wanted to have a more rural design that shows that the person who has built it, wasn't very skilled. The whole thing is for I project that I've had in mind for quite some time now, but it's still too early to really talk about it *mysterious silence* lol

Again, please let me know what you think- feedback always helps to learn and improve,
have a great time,
Claudi

PS: I also post the final version of my stairs assignment.

An Amazing Weekend

13:56

Hey all, this week I'm writing brimful of impressions of the last weekend. I attended a character design Seminar last Saturday and Sund...

10/12/2009

Hey all,
this week I'm writing brimful of impressions of the last weekend. I attended a character design Seminar last Saturday and Sunday given by Harald Siepermann. Honestly, this guy is amazing! He did character designs for Disney (Tarzan, Mulan, Brother Baer, Treasure Planet,...), worked on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (the movie that played a huge part in me wanting to become an animator) and tons of other cool stuff.

Check out his blog and be prepared to see hundrets of great drawings! http://haraldsiepermann.blogspot.com/

I learned so much and I'm so inspired that I spend the whole evening drawing. Saturday he even went to a pub whith us and I'm afraid that I've annoyed him by I continuously asking him questions till about midnight ;D But I just couldn't let that chance go by to learn as much as I can from such a talented person.

The sketches I post here are a bit older, I want to refine the drawings that I'm doing right now a bit more before I upload them. I also want to show the blocking I did for last week's assignment (a person walking up a few stairs).

Please don't hesitate to give me any comment you can think of- I got reminded how much there is to learn!

Humbly, Claudia :)

PS: Some of the sketches below were inspired by the work of Chris Sanders, another more than amazing artist.

just some drawings....

13:04

Good evening, everybody :) I didn't have time to go to the zoo this week- Animation Mentor comined with a full-time job and a weekend tr...

9/07/2009

Good evening, everybody :)
I didn't have time to go to the zoo this week- Animation Mentor comined with a full-time job and a weekend trip to the family living at the other end of the country was enough to tackle ;)
However, I want to show some drawings I did a few weeks ago. Let me know what you think!

Last week I started blocking my personality walk for Animation Mentor and this week I'll spline and refine it. I decided to go for a fred astaire musical kind of a walk and I'll post it as soon as I revised my blocking. Would be great to get some feedback then, especially before I start splining it. And I've made a mental note to start sketching everywhere I go (I just have to get rid of my shyness and the panic that my "models" will get mad with me when they realise that I'm drawing them) ;)

Zoo again

13:40

I went to the zoo again yesterday - which by the way turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would as I first missed my turn (you ...

8/05/2009

I went to the zoo again yesterday - which by the way turned out to be more difficult than I thought it would as I first missed my turn (you shouldn't talk to your mom on the phone while driving ;) ) and then had to walk for ages to get to the entrance. So in the end I had only half an hour till the zoo closed and therefore I focused on very quick sketches. Only the giraffe and the hippo weren't done at the zoo but afterwards at home. I also post some character designs/ sketches I had been working on a few weeks ago when I did a character design course at schoolism with Stephen Silver. Check out his stuff, he's amazing!! The character I've been developing here should be a kind of sleazy used car salesman :)

As always, feel free to leave any notes, comments or good night stories you want to, I'll read them all :)