character design

Character Design for Beeline (Homework)

In drawing class we got one corporate design assignment: Design modern versions of St. Nicholas, Ded Moros (Santa) and Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) for the Russian company Beeline. Needless to say “modern” is a very vague description and can be interpreted in various ways. Oh, and the corporate color yellow is a mandatory. Green and red on the hand are to be avoided as much as possible.

I didn’t have a lot of time so I just colored the figures with crayons 🙂

St. Nicholas

St. Nicholas

Santa

Ded Moros (Santa Claus) Note: One fellow student told me he looks like a professional killer. He's not a hit man XD He's bringing presents and he doesn't want to wake up the kids...

Snegurochka

Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden)

I included the bee pattern in every character. After doing some research on the company’s page I figured that’s a must-do.

Most frequent drawing Assignment

Every 2-4 weeks we have to create new characters for drawing classes. Sometimes we are given preset information on the appearance or the character traits (like being afraid of cats or being shy etc.). And other times we only get names, nationalities or very vague descriptions like “make him/her look modern”. The more creative freedom one is given the more complicated the initial concept can get, but on the other hand you can give your characters your unique design (it’s best not to get too carried away, this is design and not art!).

Well, let’s return to our story. After the accident in Odessa (Harald survived ;)) a new disaster takes place: Someone steals all our luggage and on top of that the police officer we turn to doesn’t speak English well enough to record the exact stolen objects. After drawing (!) every single stolen item (this was part of the homework) everyone leaves the police station disappointed…

(Western reading direction) As already said, some of the main characters leave the police station. Harald (panel 4) feels bad about not being able to overtake the bandits because he's sitting in a wheel chair (he used to do a lot of martial art). While speaking a young man called Ludomir suddenly appears out of nowhere overhearing our conversation. He is a Ukraine student and he HATES criminals, hence he decides to help us and inspires Harald to take his destiny in his own hands and stop feeling sorry for himself.

Ludomir takes everyone to Olga, another Ukraine student with psychic powers, who can help find the luggage. She performs an exhausting ritual with her magical orb and gives Ludomir the "card of answers". He reads it and it turns out the stolen bags are at the police station. Everyone assumes the police officer is a criminal himself. Ludomir is full of rage and comes rushing into the policeman's office accusing him. And indeed, the he has the bags, but it turns out they were just retrieved. The accusations were uncalled-for.

Well, this is the main story so far 🙂

Oh right, designing the characters of Ludomir and Olga was part of the homework, which was mainly to show how the stolen luggage was found. These are my Ludomir and Olga:

Given information: The names, both are Ukraine and university students. The rest was up to me.