Kaylee Butler's Best Work

Hello there! My name is Kaylee Butler, and I am a third year studying at CDW studios. These are a few of my best projects from over the past 12 months. The captions for each image are above the image itself.

Living Dolls

In my character design class, we were tasked with designing a 4-to-5-character line-up. For each character, we were told to explore different parts of their design, so the process for each one will be different.

Background:

For this task, I wanted to really push myself to draw things I was not the most confident with. So, I decided to create a fantasy lineup, because I usually tend to stick to more modern designs. Memories of learning the Indonesian language and culture in school inspired me to create my characters based on Indonesian puppets. Drawing characters based on cultures and identities different from my own does make me somewhat nervous, because I would never want to be insensitive. However, I think that more harm comes from not attempting to represent different people in art, so I went ahead with my Indonesian puppet idea.

Story:

My characters are Indonesian puppets that are used to tell stories. One day, they gain consciousness, break free from the rods that were once used to move their bodies, and go on to have many adventures. These events, however, are only in the puppets’ heads as they are being used to reenact the stories from a puppeteer. I imagine this premise as a TV show or film, and have the fact that the puppets aren’t conscious as a plot twist. In terms of realism, my characters don’t make complete sense anatomically because their wooden limbs can move like ours can, but this is important for showing emotion.

The characters that I have designed are:

The Fisherman – An older man in his 60s whose livelihood is fishing. He uses his spear or his fishing net to catch fish and uses a hand-carved box to keep sharpening tools, and a repair kit. The work is gruelling, but he does it to look after himself and his family.

Young Warrior – A child of around 10 who’s ambition is to become a warrior. He has a mischievous nature and is always trying to beat others in competitions. He enjoys running and wrestling. His prized possession is his mask, which his kakek (grandfather) made him to “scare away his enemies.”

The Bachelorette – A young adult who wants to find “the one.” She is very beautiful and skilled in dancing and singing, so among the young men in the village, she is considered a catch. She is flirtatious and confident, although around the man she truly loves, is very shy.

Village Healer – An elderly woman in her 70s who is the go-to for any ailment in the village. She carries around many different medicines in her basket (which used to be her hat), so that she always has what she needs. When she isn’t treating patients, she is outside collecting ingredients, or just any flower that is pretty.

Process:

I began by creating simple gesture drawings.

These are the images that I referenced and drew inspiration from for this project.

I then sketched some possible designs, three for each type of character.

These were the designs I chose.

The Bachelorette 

For my first character, the bachelorette, I explored drawing her in different poses and with different facial expressions. At this point, I also decided that my dolls would be jointed at the shoulders, upper legs, elbows, and knees. 

This is my final drawing for the bachelorette. I do really like this character and how it looks the most like a real Indonesian puppet. However, the design is simpler compared to my other characters. I struggled with the joints the most because of how important it was for them to look accurate. I used simple shapes to figure out how the different parts would articulate, and how they could twist into the poses I wanted. 

After the first character was complete, we were told to design some more versions of them to teach us how to be resilient to change when in a job setting. It was so fun to draw these different dresses and would have loved to take them further if it wasn’t for time.

For my second character, I explored head designs. Because this character wears a mask, I sketched some options for that too.

So that I could show both the face and the mask, I drew the young warrior holding his mask as if he has just taken it off. 

I really like this character, but my favourite part is the mask. I think it is constructed well and looks cool. I did have a bit of trouble picking the colours for this character though, because I couldn’t get the mask to contrast with the rest of the drawing like I wanted. I ended up going with an off white for the mask so that is contrasts well with his dark skin tone right behind it.

Village Healer

I drew some designs for my healer based on my original sketch. For this character I went deeper into designing their props. I liked the sash with things hanging off it, but it made the upper half of the drawing look too cluttered and drew attention away from the face. So, for the overall design I chose concept A but with the hat basket from B.

I am so happy with how this drawing turned out, and I think that this is my favourite character from my line-up. Something that was really fun, but challenging to draw, was her basket because of all the glass bottles it contains. I’m surprised to say though, I think I did a pretty good job. I like how the colours are different but are harmonious so that they don’t distract from the face. 

For this character, I also had to do a character turn-around. It was good to further explore the forms of this character. I think it would be interesting to try to animate a turn around in the future just for fun. 

The Fisherman

For this last character in particular, I focused on the structure of my drawing and shading techniques. I tend to struggle with drawing folds in fabric, so I put a lot of effort into them in this drawing. I think that the folds in this drawing are some of the best I’ve done so far, but I still think I have a way to go until I can draw them with full confidence. I am also happy with the pose and composition of this drawing with him holding the net of fish, which creates some nice movement.

For this character, I also made a reference sheet explaining the textures of the character in depth. 

Here is my final character line-up. I like how the characters feel harmonious together and yet distinct. I learned a lot from this project, especially regarding lighting and rendering. In the future, I’d like to try being looser with my line art and colouring, as I feel that sometimes my perfectionism when drawing can result in a drawing feeling too rigid. 

Fighter game characters

This was a project for my character design class last year in which we had to design 3 characters for a hypothetical fighting game.

Background:

The game that I have imagined for these characters is a fighting game, similar to Street Fighter, in which all the characters use kitchen appliances as weapons.

Process:

Barbra the Bloodthirsty Baker

Here I designed my first character. I wanted her design to play with the contrast between how strong and serious she is, and the light-hearted theme of baking. As you can see, I played around with a bunch of different elements of her design individually before making a final sketch. 

Here is the completed character of Barbra the Bloodthirsty Baker. 

Blueberry Toast

I really got into designing the weapon for my second character, which is a modified toaster. And so, I designed the rest of her character, inspired by bread, mostly with her hair which looks like a loaf of bread. 

Here is the completed character of Blueberry Toast. 

Alessandro Green

I knew from the start that I wanted my third character to revolve around tea. However, this original character concept felt very boring to me, so I tried something new.

Here is my new concept for my third character. Even though it didn’t match the other two characters, I decided to use a looser, sketchy line art for this character to try to make my drawing feel more dynamic. I think that this was successful in this drawing, however drawing loosely is something that I still struggle with to this day. 

Here is the completed character of Alessandro Green. 

Even though my last character is in a looser style, I think that my 3 characters look great together. I think that my planning of not only the individual characters, but how they would complement and contrast each other really paid off. For example, each character has a striking colour scheme, clothing inspired by a different time period, different ages and different shape language. But they all have modified kitchen appliances as weapons, which ties them all together.

Creature design

Last year in my creature design class, our project was to design a creature’s bust and full body using Zbrush and Photoshop.

Background:

This creature is a kind, old forest troll, who treats his fellow creatures’ ailments with his potions and spiritual magic. 

Process:

This is my original sketch.

I modelled my sketch in Zbrush using dynamesh to periodically increase the resolution of my sculpt. I began by creating the largest forms by using the clay build up and polish brushes, and then used the standard and the dam standard brush to sculpt the finer details like wrinkles. 

Once my sculpting was complete, in Zbrush, I used polypaint to lay down some basic colours and textures before exporting a high-resolution export and BPR render passes.

In photoshop, I composited the BPR render passes and used the brush tool to draw in moss and extra details. This is the final image of my creature. I am happy with the lighting and composition and think I succeeded with making him look warm and friendly.

Here are my sketches designing the full body of this creature. Because my creature is humanoid, I gave him a robe and props to show more character.

To sculpt my creature’s body, I used Zmodeler to block out the basic shapes in Zbrush.

I continued to sculpt my creature, focusing first on the primary forms. I had never sculpted fabric before, so that was a fun challenge. I kept everything low poly at this stage but sculpted the hands separately as they needed more resolution for me to be able to sculpt the individual fingers

Like for my creature bust, I polypainted my sculpt and exported the necessary render passes.

In photoshop, I composited the render passes and painted extra details like I did with the bust, and then combined the image of the bust with the body. I used photobashing for the staff and the rope. This is the final image of my creature’s full body. It was very difficult designing and making a whole creature as opposed to a bust, but I am very happy with how it turned out.

Thank you for reading!