Back in the past I did a series of analysis articles on the Aeon flux art and character design, but I feel like I've learned so much over the last year or so that I want to return to these character designs and compare and contrast the design decisions of the characters and try to understand how I can incorporate this look into my work.
The first thing I did was take these drawings and do a draw over of each individual one in the Ethan Becker style of study that is referenced in this article from couple of weeks back. I focused on finding converging lines and later on as I did the individual breakdowns I realised that this characters head anatomy is dividable into individual triangles that are all arranged in big medium and small scale just like the proportions of the three sections of the face are also arranged to have a rhythm of proportions. This is big shape, (forehead/hair shape) medium (eyes and nose proportions and then 2 smalls ( space between nose to mouth and mouth to chin).
This was an interesting development for me, I didn't realise that I could take lines and run them to converging points and find so many triangles that start wide at the face but converge into smaller narrower triangles as they go away from the face towards the jaw.
Above you can see some of my attempts at copying each individual mask and the complications of doing so. Each time I took notes and then went to try again. I still have a tendency to make things wider than they actually are, and understanding the smaller and smaller triangles on the side of the head is helpful in combating this habit. Interestingly, in the profile one we can almost see a Fibonacci sequence taking place as the triangles get smaller and smaller as they Some of the other things I noticed was the parallel lines one could find on the sides of the head that connect the hair to the jaw and also follow the inside of the ear down to the back of the hair of the head.
After doing this one of the Breen woman I wanted to then take this and compare it to one of the other good character face model sheets which is Trevor Goodchild.
I was able to find two really good examples of his face in perspective although I question whether the sideview is ultimately what they decided to stay with because the back of the head is so elongated but we don't see it so long in the from view or 3/4 perspective view. His head definitely has a more egg like shape which is interesting cause this could be some sort of subtext related to the use of eggs in the main story. The eggs found in the story contain an alien in them, we see this creature on a microscopic level in the Leisure episode and then later on in its full size when it kills Aeon.
From left to right you can see my two attempts to copy the mask of Trevor and as I did I noticed more convergence between different shapes. Its almost like he is being purposefully economical with his line work, for example the hair on the top down view ends right where the brow extends and converges to the other side of the head. I notice again my tendency to make things little wider than need be and when I compare my attempts to his I can see the clear differences in design.
The design of his are more purposeful in their use of straights and curves and we see the overall shape off the head seems to funnel down to a strong blocky chin, so we have again another example of exaggerating the top of the head and the bottom with big and small shapes while the middle is more proportional and is a medium shape. This seems to be his signature way of caricaturing his characters.
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