Character development

I have to confess I was slightly confused by the term Character when asked to find examples. Did it mean people of character? I found images of Dizzy Rascal, Jose Mourinho and Anton Dubeck and a publicity shot of the cast of but perhaps it meant charicatures or drawn characters as we would be asked to create. Considering the predicament, I thought of ideas for a character to develop; I had two trains of thought a top hat and tails dance character and a 19th century Parisian novelist / painter inspired by a painting of Emile Zola by Cezzanne. Having little experience in drawing figures I did a bit of practice.

I found figures climbing steep slopes and playing football and sketched them substituting their atire with top hat and tails.

The idea being; the ballroom dancer in everyday settings.
At the moment the character has no facial features, my idea is to have a facial expression that is the same whatever situation. A couple of sketches...

Wow! more like Jack the ripper than Waltz wizzard. Second sketch is not too bad though. I had a rough go at a 360 view..

This is disappointing. I feel lacking in the vision and/or ability to craft my own facials. Looking at various examples on the web I decided to take a look at some Fred Astaire pictures.
From this one

curtesy of http://www.nndb.com/people I came up with

I try another 360 view

I am having real trouble adjusting the face to suit alternative angles. I need a re-think.
I revisit my idea based on the painting of Emile Zola ...

Courtesy of Saturday Telegraph review. I decide to concentrate on the aspect of adjusting the angle of view..with this in mind decide to make a sketch from the painting

And try and project from it a face on version. It seems moderately successful so I decide to work on the principle of a character representing 19th century / novelist painter.
In a funny kind of way I warm more to the idea of this character.
I sketch out each view surprisingly I had most trouble with the back view.
In the end I had an able assistant put on a jacket and sketched from her rear view.

I then used semi transparent paper to draw an outline. This was really to lose some of the detail to simplify the characterisation.

I then explored the characters face in various sketches.

Rather hopefully I believed this covered the exercise I could now launch myself into assignment 4. However reading through the exercise one last time reminded me that there was still more to do....
Create another character!!

I expect I could be accused of just creating caricatures of people rather than creating a character and developing it. But I am mindful of this and I am trying to extract facets of the reference face or whatever to assist the process.
Any way seeking inspiration I happen across a picture of Simone de Beauvoir, as you do. I create a quick line drawing from the photo in a magazine.
In an attempt to get to 'know' the face I sketched doodled and drew the face with out the reference image.

as with the previous character I experienced an inability to draft the face at a different angle, but in the end achieved a plausible version.

Excusing the wonky looking eye.

Flicking through one of the numerous clothing catalogues that are pushed through the door, I find a model in the yoga lotus position so base my character as yoga devotee.
I sketch out the pose and superimpose a copy of my head leaving it slightly oversized in comparison with the body.
Now all I need to do is project the image and create the other views to give the 360 degree perspective.
As per the previous character I sketch out a rough and then make line drawings on tracing paper.

I think the looseness of the lines adds to the character.
As to what makes the character,I think it depends to a certain extent on the context in which the character is used. It may be a one off where the impact is short lived, or repetitive where the viewer is required to get to #know the character in this case something instantly recognisable about the character is required. Features, expression that sort of thing.