CHOW CULTURE - a resource for character design

[S.C. Watson]

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii293/chowarchive/CHOW-LINES/chow-culture.jpg

[Tonic]

Well, a lot of game art designers have great works, but only three persons carved into my mind: George Kamitami who is responsible for art design of Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire games, Kou Yoshinari and You Yoshinari (they're brother and sister :P), who made stunning artworks for Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth game.

A lot of Odin Sphere artworks can be found there (http://www.creativeuncut.com/art_odin-sphere_a.html). A example picture. (http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-05/art/os-misc01.jpg) Generally speaking, his artworks has very nice designs, marvelous colours and brush strokes. Characters are drawn in manga style.

Now, Kou and You Yoshinari, their artworks from Valkyrie can be found here (http://www.creativeuncut.com/art_valkyrie-profile_a.html). Example (http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-02/art/vp-lenneth10.jpg).

Also, I recommend to explore site, some of galleries contains neat artworks! As expected from Japanesse guys :P

EDIT: Seems hotlinking doesn't work, so I put links to images.

[Moai]

Great idea for a thread, Oregano.

Earth Album Alpha (http://www.earthalbum.com/)- Click on a country, and view photos from that country. Or, zoom in, and click on a city, and view photos that were taken in that city!
AncientWeb.org (http://www.ancientweb.org/)- A nice site with info on past cultures from around the world.
Godchecker.com (http://www.godchecker.com/)- "We have more Gods than you can shake a stick at." Searchable database of deities and myths.

[Mirana]

The Met - Collection Database (http://www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/listview.aspx?page=1&sort=0&sortdir=&keyword=&fp=1&dd1=0&dd2=0&vw=1) Not only can you look up art of certain periods to influence the style you might take in your piece, but they also have zoom-able images of their armor, weapon and clothing selections.

A lot of museums have searchable databases. Depending on the culture called for, you can even do a search for a national museum within that country. Example: Tokyo National Museum (http://www.tnm.go.jp/en/gallery/index.html) for all your samurai sword and armor needs.

Good luck getting through all of the Louvre's databases (http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/bdd_oeuvre.jsp?bmLocale=en), though. The site is in English, but the database is in French. You'd need to take a quick trip through a translator (http://babelfish.yahoo.com/) to get the words you want and then do a search. On the up side, it looks like they've just started a theme section (http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/liste_themes.jsp) that will probably develop nicely.

Costumer's Manifesto (http://www.costumes.org/history/100pages/costhistpage.htm) - Some general ideas for period clothing, though mostly euro/western.

Encyclopedia Mythica (http://www.pantheon.org/mythica.html) - More myths, yay!

[iuvo]

I'm not sure if it fits here, but i found a guide to drawing different human ethnic types. It also includes beauty ideals for many types.

[Part 1 ] (http://cedarseed.deviantart.com/art/Guide-to-Human-Types-part-1-32046017)

[Part 2 ] (http://cedarseed.deviantart.com/art/Guide-to-Human-Types-part-2-33220929)

[Part 3 ] (http://cedarseed.deviantart.com/art/Guide-to-Human-Types-part-3-34877428)

[Jazz]

Ohhh, this is a great thread!! I'm looking forward to seeing how that Met database works. :) iuvo, I've actually been wondering how to draw and colour some of those different enthicities, so that's very useful for character design too, I think! :D

[The_Macedonian]

Moai~ interesting sites, but the site about the gods it looks like is made as a joke and the info is not true at least about the slavic gods

[Orunitier]

http://www.norsemythology.eu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_mythology
http://www.obakemono.com/
http://www.nativeamericans.com/
http://www.britannia.com/
http://www.samurai-archives.com/
http://www.chinahighlights.com/

http://www.laleyio.com/
http://www.maasai-association.org/welcome.html
http://www.bluegecko.org/
Flickr has great stuff....Namibia (http://www.flickr.com/photos/26539559@N08/sets/72157604999413504/), Java (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics/sets/72157606644293918/), massy1970's photo sets (http://www.flickr.com/photos/massy1970/sets/)

[MJ_Alcazar]

Really awesome sites guys! Here's a site I found. It has some pretty cool old photos and things on it.

http://www.old-picture.com/theme-index-001.htm

[GriNGo]

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/ <--- good source for ancient references of all types, from cartoons, to ancient manuscripts!

[Petteson36]

:lounge: Thanks a lot buddies,

I was searching for this in the internet, So I have got this page, It is amazing, I have got great links to other sites too, It is very helpful and informative,

Cheers,
Petteson,
shinkansen (http://www.tokyo-forum.com) Guy

[shannanigan]

I'm one of those people who refuses to draw nudes... why? Because its boring... designing and drawing clothing is the best part of character design!! (So says I... :) )

I have a few websites I visit a lot for inspiration, fashion history and vintage pattern sites (I have more bookmarked at work, I'll update later)....

http://marquise.de/en/index.html
http://www.agelesspatterns.com/
http://www.pastpatterns.com/

And don't forget the good 'ole US Library of Congress for Vintage and Historical Photos!

http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html



Also when I'm trying to break out of a color combo rut (I catch myself using the same combos over and over!) I love going to this website for inspiration:

http://www.colourlovers.com/


WOW! The Royal Collection of England On-line! Pretty amazing stuff here.... including Leonardo and Michaelangelo Figure Studies...

http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/eGallery/
.

[eminkey2003]

I'm a big fan of http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/. Lots of great artists and interviews.

[blumarling]

Hi everyone ... i'm a chinese student in Italy and i'd like to show you a good art magazine. maybe you know it yet..

It's an interactive magazine, the problem is that is written in chinese but you can download and enjoy the huge amount of images from all the world that's the link. The good thing is that is completely free :)... http://cgart.cgfinal.com/ (http://cgart.cgfinal.com/)
I had used it as a reference a lot of time ... hope to help someone :]

[thesaint]

Great topic! here is some stuff I use:
http://characterdesign.com/
http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/
www.cgtextures.com

Soon I'll post some more. (I'm not at my computer)

[rut.fogel]

Thank you so much this thread is like a treasure box
:yum:

[Yeshin]

Thank you everyone for sharing!

[Traveler]

Catalog of human stereotypes:

http://www.exactitudes.com

[ladydove7]

Costume Links
http://www.costumersguide.com/ - Guide and collection of costumes from movies
http://demodecouture.com/ - Historical costumes and how-to's

Historic Links
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/10940/10940-h/10940-h.htm - An ebook gathering custom and dress facts from the Middle Ages

Fairy Tales
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/ - Annotated fairy tale reference

Also, I have a request for links. Does anyone have any links to share that talk about the lexicon of terms for concept artists and their design processes? (ie. orthographic study, silhouettes, etc)

[Ellijah Sakovsky]

Wow, this thread ... I mean, you're great, people!

[Belarin]

Ah, thank you people! This is just what I've been needing.

Here's one that's full of fashion plates:
The History Of Costume (http://www.siue.edu/COSTUMES/COSTUME1_INDEX.HTML)

[Juicey]

Thanks for sharing everyone. Here's a few from me.

http://www.imaginefx.com/-2287754330326480692/Workshops.html
Mayang's Free Textures (http://mayang.com/textures/)

[stabby2486]

http://creativeuncut.com/game-art-galleries.html

There's tons of great videogame concept art here, including the character designs from them.

[reginanegra]

i recently discovered this place --->http://clothesmonaut.wordpress.com/
apparently its... "A blog about the psychology of clothing and costume".

[PxelSlayer]

And speaking of costumes, if you are ever in need of some fancy historical ensemble for one of your works, OMG that dress! (http://omgthatdress.tumblr.com/archive) is a place to visit.

Features -

- historical clothing (female)
- historical clothing (male) (not as much, though)
- historical clothing (children) (some)
- 20th century formal wear of all decades (from top fashion designers)
- historical accessories (shoes, caps, some jewelry)
- lots of other hidden gems

Highly recommended by this costumography junkie! :hatsoff:

[PxelSlayer]

so your brand new character is all dressed up, but still missing that special something? Need to accessorize? Well then, if bladed weapons tickle your fancy, head over

HERE (http://www.swordsantiqueweapons.com/forsale.html)

and pick what you need. Different periods? Check. Different cultures? Check! Lots of blades? Double check!

[Lii-chan]

Wow, I feel like I just stumbled upon a gold mine!

[madhatter106]

Shorpy is an online archive of thousands of photos from the 1850s to 1950s. (Their namesake, Shorpy Higginbotham, was taken from a photograph of a teenage coal miner from the turn of the century.) Great detail, since the resolution scans are so high...

http://www.shorpy.com/

[JaneLasso]

wow thanks for share this links

[silentinjections]

So amazing! Thanks!!!!

[Dayle]

Hi guys.

I just stumbled across this site and thought it could be worth adding here. Contains Final Fantasy concepts and character designs.

http://www.ffcompendium.com/h/art.shtml

[jsn]

Awesome thread!
Very grateful!

[tonymercado25]

Hello guys ,i'm just new here in the forums , can someone help me give the best reference in digital painting using photoshop.. i want to become a graphics designer .pls sorry for my bad english! thank you guys God Bless