Meet Klou

a character I made for @w0olf Design a character contest!
This is my 3rd time participating in @w0olf's contest and I like it because I can challenge myself to design a character! It is so fun to create something new when there are limitations because you never know what will be created :D For this challenge, we need to design a character based on a given color scheme. I use Photoshop CC to draw.

The color scheme

I know I wanted to create a character but for this color scheme, I had no idea what to draw. Normally I could already imagine a character and just need to sketch it out. But, none came to me. So I try to approach it a little different this time.

Shape of the character

I decided to start with shapes! Triangle for the head and a square body. Then I try to imagine how would the head and face look like. A triangle is hard! I took some time to figure out what to put on his head and just go with the flow. At the same time, I use the basic color scheme on it to get the colors out. When the head is done, here comes the body. It is even harder to give him a square body because his head just doesn't match. So I play around sketching on it and decided to add some props behind him to get a nice silhouette.

Adding Details

Next, I painted more details like shading and cleaned up the edges. I use my previous sketch line as a reference and paint the basic shapes before adding details.

Mysterious plant

Okay so I don't know what is this plant but I had the urge to make them round and fluffy. I painted the shades first and when it looks nice and composed, I add white strokes around them. Then it's shading again. This one is the overall shading. I use black with 40% opacity and just paint over places that are blocked when the light comes from the left.

Creating shadow

Now to create shadow, I merged everything, duplicate and made it black. I use perspective to shape it until it looks flatten. Then I put it behind the original layer and decrease the shadow opacity to 40%. Finally, I changed the background color and add little lights around him.

Klou is created

Here's a story I made of him.

Every morning, Klou's daily life starts by harvesting the Pupari grass out at the cliff side of the forest. He knows that the Pupari grass is good for its soothing scent and it's weirdly tasty taste when put into cooking as spices. It is his family special ingredient passed down through generations. Klou uses it in his cooking and many came to have a taste of his weird tasty meal that makes you crave for 3rds and more.

Making of Klou

Thank you for reading and have a good day! See you in the next post~

Love
Ellie & Klou