Character Design Process

After finally finding the character designs for the characters in the story, now I start to think how would they act, what would they personalities be like. In this stage I am still cleaning up my character designs, fixing them, tweaking here and there, editing, to make them the best they can be.

This is the first character line-up I came up with

After looking at the characters and receiving some advice from one great teacher I saw that I could push these characters a little bit more. Also they look like if they were kindergartners, and in this story they are in elementary school, so I needed to age them a bit.

I did some more sketches to find the right poses that would bring out their personality with a good design involved.

These are some of the quick sketches I did

After these sketches I saw what i liked, what i could take from the previous line-up and implement it to this set of new ones and I was confident enough to bring them to a final, completed sketch.

Now with this last set of characters I was really happy how they came out, you can really tell which one is which in this line-up. You can see the smooth/coolness of Mike, the arrogant, superficial, beautiful Lucy and the adorable, goofy, nerd, simple Simon.

Some Process shots:

Final Line-up

Sketchbook Drawings

 These are some drawings from my sketchbook from the workshops I go to. I try to go to these workshops every time I have some free time,  just to keep on drawing, cause practice and more practice is what makes you better.

Process

These are some of the steps I take before settling with a definite character design.

The early stages:

 I begin by looking at reference material and from there I start sketching out what comes to mind. At first, when I start to draw, my first concepts are shamefully awful. But eventually, as I work through my sketches I start to see some connections amongst them and greater and better ideas begin to develop. Out of all the sketches I draw, I pick the ones that I  think have potential and better fit the story. I look for the style, the mood and the personality of each character. I like to think that the character is already there, you just need to search for it through sketching out, until you find it.

Halloween Night Lights