Character design analysis

 

Character design notes

I find this design to be so intriguing because of its balance between mechanical and anatomical like shapes. The artist (Whom I cant find when I google search this image-sorry!) Has designed the figure to be very readable with an asymmetric shape to the body. We see half the body in a bigger silhouette with the giant arm piece and see this contrasted against his normal size arm. 

He uses the big shape of the arm to frame a lot of detail in the inside shoulder piece of the arm while implying that the other side of it has a much cleaner look. The top and bottom of the figure contrast with one another in terms of level of detail, value and color. We see the detail take a dramatic fall off once we get past his waist. 

Like I said what I really like is the play off these mechanical and organic shapes, for example dead center in his chest is a circular shape that seems to be aligned with the chest piece that extends outwards to his left arm. We see this same shape pulled and pushed to different sizes to unify the piece. For example we see oblong circles in medium and large sizes closer to the waist of the character where it looks like he has organs outside of his body. 

We also see in the detail of the belt piece as well as the arm little circles sprinkled throughout to add unification using the 70/30 principle: letting bigger shapes breath and have design by keeping the design within 30% ratio of the shape. We also see the obvious circle shapes held in his hand. The whole piece is red sandwiched between two lighter value colors.