Character design - part two

 In this blog post I will explain the process of creating the digital version of my character and continuing on evolving the way it looks. 

I started by reviewing the sketches I did last time and thinking, what I could do differently to make this character look better. I was thinking about how I am portraying age and in my previous sketches, the character is very short which could possibly mean that it is a young person. I do want to show a young person, but not a child - more like a teenager. I think that was a valuable observation because it let me improve my sketch. 

What I started doing was placing the original sketch in Procreate and trying to draw next to it by getting inspiration from the drawing I did. 

I think I made my character look older by making it taller. I started sketching by creating the line of action. The line of action is a line that goes from toes to head and shows in what manner, the body is posing. I chose a very basic line of action because I wanted to give my character a simple pose. On that line I started building my character. I sketched it with a Sketching brush called Portemine. This brush works very well with the Apple Pencil because it really is like working with a real pencil on paper. Depending on how I hold it or how much pressure I give it, the line looks differently. I like that this is how it works, it makes sketching digitally easier. 

Next I created a new layer and I started the outlining and coloring process. Generally for my previous projects, I have been outlining my characters in black so it would be easier. I decided to do it differently this time and outline it in a color but in a darker shade than I am planning on using in coloring the character. 

In this screenshot it is visible how I decided to try using color in outlining elements of this character. I think it worked quite well and it is something new and different for me. I used the Plume Studio Brush for this process. It gave it a lot of smoothness that I like in this design. As I mentioned earlier I do want the design to be minimalist and simple and I think this is a good way of achieving it. 

For coloring in the character I decided to use some of my favorite colors since I am basing the character on myself. I do not have pink hair, but I really like the idea of it, therefore I wanted to give my character this surrealist look that I really like and I could see myself pull off. 

For the dress color, I have decided on the raspberry pink, because it is also a color I like and I love raspberries, so it is two in one. 

This is my character design that I have created. I really like it. It does have a lot of design mistakes, because it is not fully polished, but I need it right now only as a guidance for making my animation. I can worry about making the character look perfect later on. I can immediately see some tangent points that I will need to get rid of, but as I said, right now it is illustrating the idea so I can animate it. Poster designs come last, for that, my character will be corrected. 

I like what I have created, it is in the similar style I tend to draw in, but I can see myself drifting off from there which is good. I am trying new things and they seem to work quite interestingly.