Sams illustrations

Character design research

Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke

Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke are illustrators who are best known for their character designs that mainly include cute colorful small-deformed animals and bizarre looking creatures. With most of their characters some don’t actually have a mouth to express words, so the characters rely on their eyes to show their emotions this is what gives a few of them a cute appearance, along with the portrayal of alternative ways of communications e.g. facial expressions and body language since actions can sometimes speak louder than words.

I find both of their designs very bizarre and somewhat useful I could possibly use their style to make my character grill look more ugly while also giving his arms a more lanky appearance that could portray him as a more agile but also clumsy villain.

Bruce Timm

Bruce Timm is an American character designer/animator who is best known for his work in developing the styles of characters for the DC animated series Justice League and his own comic book series that involved designing new forms for heroes and villains such as Harley Quinn. I particularly like his style for the antagonist know as Gorilla Grodd, plus seeing that he is a villain I could use this to my advantage at portraying my character Grill in a similar fashion.

Gorillas and cyborgs reference imagery

Apart from Bruce Tim and other Pictoplasma illustrators I have searched through other character designs that somewhat related to the character I am planning to create, for example anthropomorphic gorillas and cartoonish cyborgs who have robotic implants yet still retain the organic body parts of their original self.