Character Design Analysis #6: Hua Lu

 The more I explore pinterest boards of great character designers the more I'm blown away by how creative and out of this world these are! I feel like I could get lost for hours digging through pinterest finding new character designs that take the art in all sorts of unexpected directions.

70/30 rule

I only see this as applying to the head and bottom of the robe. These two areas are more open and less detailed and seem to bookend the piece on both sides and "hold" the details of the rest of the image. 

repeating shapes

Definitely the repeating shape we see here is the circle and one could make the assessment that what we are seeing is one large circle haloing a very big triangle shape. The other repeating shape would also be triangular in the form of the feathers that start out small close to the head but get progressively bigger as they go towards the arms. 

Also notice that the repeating circle shape is in various sizes, we have the big one going around the head, the smaller ones on the fan and then the medium ones on the robe around him. 

layer caking and counterbalance

If we apply the layer caking analysis to this we can get an even better idea of how this is being organized into some interesting shapes. We have the head and next area which for the most part is a bunch of medium shapes that are decorated with smaller shapes. As we go down we see this counterbalanced with small black shapes that contrast against the head shapes both in size and value. As we continue we see these smaller shapes countered by medium shapes of his robe and feathers and finally we have the underrobe which is a very large shape. 

rule of 3 

The only places where I can see this applicable is if we look at the 3 figures on both sides that seem to be emanating from him and the smoke around his head which creates  a balance on both sides. Notice that the one of them on the right is bigger than all the rest and all of them are at various sizes of small medium and large. The rule of 2 might also apply to the head which we have 3 "faces" at the head area and the costume overall could be broken down into 3 layers, the one thats feathered, the long dress and the underdress. 

curve vs straight 

We can see in a lot of these shapes that he has a very nice design of shapes using the straight vs curve rule especially in the smokey shapes. We can see long straights that then turn into curves before turning into smaller straights. Curves that turn into curves going in the opposite direction and then turn into straights.