Fantasy Genesis Characters: A creativity game for drawing original people and creatures

by Chuck Lukacs

Overview

Conjure creatures and characters from your imagination!

To generate fantasy characters and inhabitants that populate an imaginary world, sometimes you need a little creative fuel...and a 20-sided die.

Fantasy Genesis Characters is a choose-your-own-adventure game where a roll of the dice decides what type of creature you create. Each chapter expands on mimicking the observable world to engineer original populations by mashing up unrelated quirks and concepts—think "vegetarian zombie," "Byzantine goth" or "gangster sheep." Roll the dice to combine traits from word lists. Mix random emotions, behaviors, costumes, cultures and anthropomorphic attributes to create infinite and unexpected characters. Short lessons supply the building blocks to develop character components—expressions, gestures, posture, etc.—while mini demos, creative challenges and RPG-like activities help you bring them to life.


 • 30+ challenges and demonstrations illustrate how to conceptualize and create fully developed fantasy characters
 • Use free-association word games to jump-start your brain into forming original ideas, crazy-cool mash-ups and visual solutions
 • Includes a crash course in anatomy, plus tips for drawing from life and reference photos
 • Learn to sketch facial expressions and modify classic archetypes

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781440349973
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/20/2018
Pages:	144
Sales rank:	1,031,519
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.80(h) x 0.60(d)

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

GETTING STARTED

Explore this swinging scene of elves, alien moths and jazz-singing, multicultural multipeds, but not for too long. The vast world of character design awaits you inside!

SUPPLIES FOR OUR JOURNEY

Every artist has their favorite tools: a host of markers, pens and pencils of different makes, a set of watercolors, or perhaps a graphics tablet. We all grow into exactly what works most consistently for us over the years, and there are bound to be differences in what we all create with. I've found it's worth trying high-quality materials first and then looking into less expensive substitutes.

Never be afraid to craft your own tools to fit your specific needs perfectly: gloves or rubber bands for a better grip, brass tubing for chalk holders, or a pencil holder refitted with tiny retractable erasers. Make tools that work for you, but remember that there's nothing in this book you can't do with just a set of dice, paper, pencil and your imagination!

Sketchbook and paper: Your sketchbook is your most immediate and reliable surface for creating your characters. So, whether small or large, smooth or toothy, whether you buy it or bind it up yourself, keep one or two around at all times. Along with my traveling sketchbook, I keep a pad of 14" × 17" (36cm × 43cm) Bienfang Graphics 360 semitransparent paper, along with loose 8 ½" × 11" (22cm × 28cm) sheets of copier paper on hand.

Pencils: Keep a number of sharpened graphite pencils around so you can grab one when the ideas come to you. Once one goes dull, switch to a sharp one or a mechanical pencil, keeping the dull one for thick outlines or wide hatching. I mainly use General's Kimberly HB–3B pencils, but their no. 531–4B sketching pencils and no. 555 layout pencil can be used for a variety of inventive marks. I also use Tombow MONO 2B3B pencils.

DICE

You'll need six gaming dice to roll most of these challenges (two six-sided dice, two four-sided dice, one eight-sided die, one twenty-sided die). Alternatively, simply pointing at the words randomly can be fun.

ERASERS, BRUSH & INK

I've used Sanford Union erasers for as long as I can remember making mistakes, but now I use them along with a thinner retractable rubber eraser on my Shorty's pencil holders for deductive marks from smudged-in tone. I also use a 2-inch (51mm) brush to wipe rubber shavings cleanly away without extra smudging.

Markers are effective for quickly concepting characters, using silhouetting techniques (see chapter 4). Tombow dual brush pens (nos. 879, 977, 912, 850 and 020) are excellent for making thick and thin marks like a brush. Digital inking and sketching can be the quickest inking technique, but drawing with vintage metal dip nibs, ballpoints, brushes and hand-crafted crow quills can give you rougher, more serendipitous effects that newer materials can't achieve.

MAQUETTES & TABLEAUX

There is no real substitute for life drawing or drawing straight from nature, but I'll sometimes enlist the use of maquette models and toys to help. I've constructed paper buildings and walkways, glued animal toys to pieces of Plexiglas, and made tiny capes and doll clothes to get the exact right light and forms for certain characters. Then I'll shoot photos of my maquettes and tableau scenes. It might seem complex, but it actually saves time.

MAQUETTES

The anatomy tutorials (see chapter 5) are up in my studio all the time, but I also use a set of anatomical models (écorché) to gain more realism and to help with theatrical light when my memory or photo reference is lacking. At most art supply stores you'll find Art S. Buck articulated mannequins, which can be very useful for their heads and hands alone. Truetype figures are also articulated and will offer more detail in their faces and skin textures.

3-D DIGITAL MODELS

Using 3-D digital models can be a great way to conceptualize a character's pose and expression as well as the setting and environment. I'll sometimes use 3-D Warehouse's library of 3-D Sketch Up models, life scans from Anatomy 360 (anatomy360.info), Handy phone app for hand poses, the many MARA3D anatomy écorché, and facial expression apps for your phone. If you're interested in sculpting digitally, Sculptris, the modeling engine that drives Pixologic's ZBrush is both easy to use and free!

CLAY SCULPTURES

When I'm not having any luck with photo reference, models 2-D or 3-D, I'll sometimes bring out the gray Roma Plastilina no. 1 clay from Sculpture House and just start sculpting what I need out of clay.

GAME PLAY BASICS

Fantasy Genesis Characters is a series of game challenges to jump-start your brain into creating new ideas, new combinations and new visual solutions. They're not really rules; think of them as modes of thinking to help create better, more memorable characters. Some of these challenges will contain two or more lists that will supply the building blocks of the character you'll go on to develop and bring to life. Roll the dice to get a number of words, then choose which words you think would become a fun character. It's that simple! You could even pick these exact same words, and come up with wonderfully different combinations of characters. And therein lies the magic of each challenge: your imagination!

HOW TO PLAY

1. Roll six emotion words and six action words. This should give you a really good range of emotional states and actions to choose from.

2. Pick out pairs of words from each list. For example, At Attention + Deadpan or Paranoid, Shifty + Absorb, Eat.

3. Search the words for photo reference. This isn't necessary for everyone, but I find it helpful for the serendipitous changes, which visual associations are bound to bring to my character.

4. Then create a character sketch by free associating with a combination of words from both lists.

DICE SHORTHAND

The first number plus the letter d tells you how many dice to use for that roll. The second number refers to how many sides the die should have. So, 2d6 means two six-sided dice. 1d20 + 1d4 means one twenty-sided die and one four-sided die.

EMOTION LIST 1d20 + 1d4

2. Embarrassed

3. Anger

4. Timid, Bashful, Coy

5. Giggling

6. Derision, Bored

7. Smiling - Smirk

8. Stressed, Disgust

9. Fear

10. Thoughtful, Contemplative

11. Deadpan

12. Berserk

13. Smiling - Insane

14. Pining, Forlorn

15. LOL

16. Shock, Surprise

17. Gape, Gawk

18. Relief, Ease of Mind

19. Sneering

20. Paranoid, Shifty

21. Bliss, Joy

22. Confusion

23. Sad, Crying

24. Stern, Pouting

ACTION LIST 1d20 + 1d8

2. Smash

3. Drenched by Water

4. Blown by Wind

5. Shove, Drag

6. Sneezing

7. Crouched for Attack

8. Hang, Climb, Plummet

9. Proclaim, Explain

10. Disco Dance

11. At Attention, Slouch

12. Grabbing, Pushing

13. Kicking, Punching

14. Jump, Jive, Wail

15. Absorb, Eat

16. Meander, Shuffle

17. Spin, Whirl

18. Jump, Dart, Dash

19. Melted, Glowing, On Fire

20. Squished in Crowd

21. Heave, Lift

22. Thrash Metal Dance

23. Snooping, Listening

24. Chop, Dig

25. Balance It on Head

26. Flick at, Pick at

27. Creep, Tip-Toe

28. Shoot, Slash

THERE'S NO EQUATION FOR CREATIVITY

TIPS ON FREEFORM CHARACTER IDEATION

The challenges you'll find here won't teach you to draw by themselves, but they will expand your skills through new possibilities and unexpected combinations. Some of the free associations and interpretations will seem completely mad until you form them into an idea. Read through these tips, never stop perfecting your sketching techniques, and these game challenges will help you explore new modes of thinking to imagine characters that no one has seen before!

MASH-UPS

Morph, mix and mash up the meanings of the words along with their forms, parts, behaviors, time periods, even symbolic meanings. Becoming skilled in mash- ups along with visualizing and rendering the transitions between the parts you're mashing up are valuable skills.

JUXTAPOSITION

A penguin tanning on a tropical beach. A vegetarian lion. Take an accepted generalization, and think about the opposite of that standard or norm. The purpose of a number of challenges is to play with juxtaposing what the audience sees as normal. Like a shadow archetype: bad guy turns out good. Or concentrate on size and scale, like an enormous baby. Think the opposite of whatever your character is known for and integrate that contradiction.

GROWTH AND DECAY

Think about the age of your character as well as their body shapes and forms. Should they be fresh from the egg or hunched and wrinkly? Will the construction and condition of their costuming be shiny and new, or falling apart with rust and holes? Perhaps the change of the seasons says something about their behavior, how they interact, how they appear.

HABITAT AND DIET

Think about your character's habitat and their costume. How will they have evolved in those temperatures, and what kind of craft or occupations may spring out of a specific habitat? Are they an herbivore, carnivore or omnivore? Will they hunt for energy, and how will they prepare and eat it?

ASK QUESTIONS

What, where, when, how and why can speak volumes about who. Don't be afraid of getting specific with your questions, and answer them all in detail. What is their taste in fashion? Music? Are they selfish? Team player? Apprehensive? Your sketches may never reveal these details, but asking questions about their tastes and ideologies will surely make them better characters.

WRITE IT DOWN QUICKLY

Ideas come and go quickly. Try sketching a thumbnail of what comes into your mind right when you make the connection of how the character or creature might look. Don't wait to flesh out the full gesture or look up photo reference.

RULES TO BE BROKEN

When you open your mind to impossibilities, ideas flow easily. Make your brain believe that anything is possible, and it will be far easier to make your character a memorable one. Try subtracting or adding a list of words, rolling over and over again, until your eyes open wide with an idea that you just can't pass up. Make up your own games, more specific to the cast of characters in your story, but make sure you search those infinitely impossible places to make things possible!

ASTRONOCEROS MASH-UP

The head of a rhino on a human body makes for a fun mash-up. Now add an astronaut occupation and presto! Meet your first astronoceros!

ON PHOTO REFERENCE

Since the dawn of optics, artists have used photographic reference to bring more realism to their work. Some Golden Age illustrators were able to hire photographers that would follow them through the countryside, snapping pictures of people, animals and landscapes that the illustrators would use to make stunning and believable paintings. It's no different when preparing for the challenges and games in this book. Every time you roll a word, look up a couple pictures for that roll to help you sketch and bring more realism to your work.

ACTION SKETCHING

If a character from a movie, television show or theatrical production keeps popping up in your search, look up that specific show and their role to see if you can screen-capture live footage. Sketching from live footage is the next best thing to sketching from life, as it contains movements, gestures and behavior. I paused a low-res video of a baby rhinoceros being born to create this sketch.

HUNTING FOR PHOTO REFERENCE

The Internet offers us the luxury of 2-D photo reference libraries as well as search engines dedicated to hunting down and cataloging any subject and 3-D 360-degree views of the most remote and beautiful places imaginable! Here are a few tips for a quicker and more effective hunt: Be specific. If you're looking up kicking/punching, first search kicking and punching, then try boxing or karate. Similarly, if looking up dancer, try looking up ballet dancer in Peter Pan or dancing the twist.

Look at societies or college departments who archive your particular subject, competitions and festivals, specific groups, or photo journalists who specialize in your particular subject. Look at the bibliography at the end of this book for books and websites that catalog some of the most interesting people on the planet. They're just waiting to be sketched as your new cast of characters.

SHOOTING PHOTO REFERENCE

I use a few cameras to shoot my own reference on different occasions: a larger Canon digital camera, my phone camera, and sometimes I'll even use silly phone apps and computer filters to distort faces and expressions.

Pay attention to dramatic and high-contrast lighting. Having your subject or model face the light isn't always the most theatrical. Try to stage your scene with underlighting, side lighting or even backlighting. I use bright tungsten bulbs for neutral color, fluorescent bulbs for a cooler hue, and incandescent to go a bit warmer. Bike lights with color film or paper can also be really simple and effective.

USING PHOTO REFERENCE

Look at the photo, then hide it. Don't let a photo get in the way of the character that's bubbling to the surface. Bend and twist the shapes in the photo to suit your needs, and draw from memory what you think the character will look like. When I was sketching this chef, I was looking at an illustration painted by J.C. Leyendecker for the period costuming and facial hair, but sketched as many of the natural shirt wrinkles in the photo as I could to keep the pose intact and believable.

CANDID CROWD SHOTS

Some of the most expressive poses and emotions can be caught when folks aren't reacting self-consciously. Capturing crowd shots can often reveal a genuine nature, impossible with a staged shot. Characters are everywhere if we look for them.

GETTING STARTED Characters, Characters Everywhere!

These two warm-up exercise challenges really help me limber up those sketch muscles and get my wig bubbler firing on all cylinders. They work purely through visual associations and how your wonderful brain imagines the funky world around you. The human brain is hardwired to react in specific ways to visual stimuli.

APOPHENIA AND PAREIDOLIA

Apophenia and pareidolia are psychological phenomena or experiences involving vague or sometimes random bits of meaningless visual data being perceived as something more significant or meaningful. Seeing animals in the clouds, or the man on the moon, even seeing dancing Ganesha in your slice of burnt toast is a form of apophenia and pareidolia. This exercise can produce some wonderfully unique characters because it's based on random shapes and your special ability to fill in the gaps. Create what's not there. Most of the time you don't even have to find these faces and figures, as they simply won't go away!

APOPHENIA & PAREIDOLIA CHALLENGE

Try your hand at sketching a couple characters from this leering technoid. Will yours have lasers shooting from their eyes or jet engines for flying? The knobs, spigot and drain on any sink can turn into eyes, nose and mouth.

Now find your own hidden characters — they're all around you! Look at sections of random pattern and a character might crawl out of the woodwork. Once you find them, sketch them quickly or take a picture. They can disappear as easily as they appear to you.

WALL PLASTER INFANTRYMAN

After rotating and looking at this wall plaster texture for a minute or two, I found this old gentleman with a long nose and sunken jaws, standing at attention. The hat shape could have given a number of different associations, but I looked up Civil War-era costuming, and this infantryman character emerged completely at random from all the shapes given to me.

TREE BRANCH CROCODILE

I saw a dragon or crocodile snout with eyes in the area high-lighted in these tree branch patterns. Then, as I sketched, some of the shapes looked like bows, so I gave my character longer eyelashes and made her a creepy crocodile.

PENCIL TTEECCHHNNIIQQUUEE

I use this sketching technique throughout this book:

1. Start with light, expressive use of the side of the pencil.

2. Then, build detail with darker, finer marks with the tip of the pencil.

3. Smudge in tone with the flat of your palm or side of your finger.

4. And finally, erase through the tone with different-sized erasers.

You may want to stop short of steps 3 and 4 if you get something you're happy with and don't want to overwork your sketch. Try gripping the pencil in different ways, and remember which series of marks were successful for you.

RANDOM PATTERN & TEXTURE SOURCES

Search for random patterns and textures in: wood grain, plaster walls, shower curtains, bark and branches, veins of leaves, clouds, frosty windows, polished gemstones and crystals, crumpled paper, foamy waves, blades of grass, fabric and embroidery, ink blooms, stains and rust, cracks in cement.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "Fantasy Genesis Characters"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Chuck Lukacs.
Excerpted by permission of F+W Media, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

WHERE WE LEFT OFF, 3,
1 Getting Started, 4,
2 Emotions: Our Inner Theater, 16,
3 Behavior & Archetype, 46,
4 Costume & Culture, 78,
5 Creatures Among Us, 102,
HALF-BAKED ADVICE TO STUDENTS, 140,
RESOURCES, 141,
INDEX, 142,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR, 143,