Whitechapel - Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T07:35:43-08:00

I'm interested, for various reasons, in the process of illustrated original character design. So, Whitechapel, I have come to you for insight. Most of the questions will be phrased as if I'm asking you about a single character/team designed for a client [author, publisher, whatever]. If you are one of those multitalented Miller/Mignola-types that does all this for yourself, or have some other similar circumstance, feel free to reword some things in your head and respond accordingly. This is already lengthy enough without trying to make it apply semantically directly to each of you, but I do want to hear from anyone who has ever designed characters, commercially or personally. I want to see similarities and differences in the process across many projects.

So with that in mind, I grill you thusly:

The project:
- What was the character designed for? A comic? video game? role playing game? novel? webcomic? children's book? product packaging?
Everything from busty, scantily-clad mercenaries to anthropomorphic squid pirates for lines of school supplies. In other words, what did/do you design and for what purpose?

The process:
- How was the character information communicated to you? Email? phone calls? twitter messages? singing telegrams?
- How much information were you given at each step? Did you recieve a general character description? have to read an excerpt from a story? a whole novel? drunken notes on cocktail napkins?

Examples:
This is where, provided you have the proper permissions, you give us some examples of the descriptions, excerpts, whatever, and then examples of your designs and sketches from beginning to final design. Basically show off/promote yourself here.
- Did you nail it on try one?
- Did you spend six weeks going through tiny changes and improvements?
- Did you have notes for a character lying around somewhere for two years?
Give us the meat of it, man.
And again, for the sake of legality, ONLY POST DESCRIPTIONS, NOTES, SKETCHES ETC WHICH YOU HAVE LEGAL RIGHTS TO. Otherwise, describe these things generally to the best of your ability for us.

Turnaround timetable:
- How long did this process take?
- How long does it typically take, for the type of work you do?
- Do you have a design that took two minutes that you love and another that took six months that is less than stellar?

Your general opinions and whatnot:
- Do you enjoy the process of designing characters?
- What kinds of projects are your favorite?
- Do you hate drawing vikings?
- Do you love working for a particular type of client?
- Do you have a lot or a little experience in this sort of thing?
Give us some random inside information about you, your process for this particular challenge, and how you feel about it.
Feel free to add anything you feel I've forgotten to ask.

And just because I feel like I might need to clarify, we're talking about original designs here, so even though some of the same concepts apply, please leave the Remake/Remodel characters in the R/R thread.
Thanks. Very much looking forward to your responses.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T08:50:52-08:00

Okay. I've created a bunch of characters for my own webcomic which hit it's fifth year last week. W/r to creating the characters each was developed based simply on what the name evoked. For example Audley Strange came about from me speaking about Lizzie Borden to my good lady, my friend then turning up with a comic book about Lizzie Borden and my wife saying "that's oddly strange". So I knew right away I wanted a female psycho with an axe. The name though reminded me of Beryl the Peril or Minnie the Minx and so I wanted to go for a Beano style cartoony type of kid with a big axe. When I got something I was content with (even though I was shit at drawing) then the whole concept of my story came flooding into my head.

This lead to other characters, which were also evoked out of names. The first was her sidekick who I wanted her to have a kind of Calvin and Hobbes relationship with. At first he was merely Beelzebub. But I changed that to B.L.Z and made him a big great oaf with goat horns which worked. Then I needed an antagonist. Since it is set in Hell I thought Satan was clearly going to be the antagonist, but since I was kinda modernising Dante's map I decided that President Evil worked as a better name. So I just made him a shadow with horns and white angles for eyes
wearing a suit.

Once I had these characters it was simply a case of developing my skill in drawing them. I'll be honest, I started from nowhere and am only recently getting to a stage where I am satisfied with them.

Here is my first actual page with my characters and a more recent page to compare.

In short though. The name is everything I think. The R&R threads are actually a good example since I only contributed when the name of the character inspired me.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T13:42:33-08:00

Lessons Learned from Pigeons, or, How Geist Came to Look Like Cobra Commander

This was an ongoing thing around other projects, so it's tough to put a timeline on it. We did all collaborations and conference over email/IM. I'd say all told, it was a week and a half of design and testing, you know, once that seed took, once the various sketches had found their hook.

Heist is a comic about the world's greatest super-villain. The heroes have no idea he exists, and the other villains who hire him have seldom seen him. If he ever leaves evidence, it's deliberate to frame some other, known crook.

Designing the main character, Geist, we thought pretty hard about what would be an exciting design for someone whose entire outfit had to be low-key. The source of his powers is his ring, which can tweak his appearance and generate an outfit, so we weren't worried about quick change or hiding his clothes as he infiltrates a place. Our basic rule was going to be the ring can alter you only as much as you could alter yourself. So he can't sport a new face, but he can look older, younger, thinner, fatter, any change you might have over time, and it would cobble up pretty much any outfit needed. I guess that's The Venom Rule.

He has ghostly powers, so we first thought of robes and cloaks to lose him in, something ethereal. The problem is, Geist can only stay ghostly for a couple of minutes, tops, and if there's one thing you don't want to wear on a burglary, it's a loose, flowing garment. So we decided he'd be in something pretty well locked down. Not form-fitting spandex, because he's not there to show off his physique, but something unobtrusive. Very tight gloves so he won't leave fingerprints, but can still pick up things with dexterity.

We still wanted a ghostly element, and Geist can't leave anything exposed in a world where superheroes will be scanning for even a scrap of DNA, so he got a full hood. Here the loose fabric helps us, making it far more difficult to map Geist's face, not that he ever lets anyone see him.

So with all that in mind, here was one of my sketches to Andres:

He did what he does with my straw, and spun it into gold:

That visor didn't really work for me, so we nixed it. He's our main character, so we did need a little connection to him, as opposed to Blackbird in Invisible, Inc., who's supposed to be completely remote. We decided to go ahead and show his eyes.

Still not really there, so we figured we'd just draw eyelets and indicate with the coloring that there was some kind of translucent sheath. Even that eventually fell by the wayside. Call it a conceit. But by this point we had pretty much the look down.

Time for colors! As we avoided spandex, we also deliberately ran screaming from bright costumes. Or even dark costumes. Grey or dusty brown make the best camouflage, and our entire concept for Geist was a supervillain so damned good at his job the heroes had no idea he was out there. But grey is really, really visually boring. A guy slinking around in grey is extremely generic. It undoes all the great design work Andres put in there. You saw above Andres used some muted blues, which was a good idea, so we stole from that and used two shades of grey to keep things dynamic.

Almost there. Almost...there just needs to be some kind of element of color. But why? And how? What's the reasoning?

That's what was tumbling in my head as I walked to the subway and noticed the pigeons...

Grey all over, but with wandering iridescence. A little splash of purple and green, a bit of oily attraction for our anti-hero. Yeah. Yeah...pigeons, right under foot, but you don't even notice them. Pigeons, going anywhere in the city, seen as just wandering idiots by us, while we think we control the world. A perfect idea for Geist, who passes as just one of the citizenry looked down upon by the jingoistic Patriot.

What if certain sections of his costume, say, the dark, tight bit under the lighter grey, was green while he was using his powers, turning more and more purple as things became critical and he needed to return to solid state, or else risk falling into that phantom zone hazard we'd imposed on his powers? Seems silly, designing your character after an extremely dumb and harmless creature, but it's so silly it was perfect for our needs. The look was right, at any rate.

By this point, we'd acquired Rocio Zucchi as colorist. She's the greatest. She nailed it instantaneously, and that was it! We had our man.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T15:23:20-08:00

If there was a yearly award for Best Use of The Sticky, this would be a strong contender. Only two replies so far, but... fascinating.

I shouldn't be surprised, but Whitechapel as a community is obviously loaded with talent and a willingness to share.

And I'm not even an artist. Thanks, all.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T16:46:41-08:00

I'm just going to answer the applicable questions because my process is: Doodle, and then doodle some more. Which isn't very descriptive. Generally, ALL of my designs start life as a doodle. Sometimes I try to create a comic to fit them.But most of the time, they sit in a sketchpad or notebook, waiting for me to start work on a comic that I can fit them in as supporting or main characters. These are all for my own webcomic projects.

- In other words, what did/do you design and for what purpose?

It depends upon the comic.

- In It's About Girls I needed a collection of 20-somethings that reflected the multi-ethnic reality of modern times. So they're all wearing normal clothing. (note: They were all designed in the late 1990s)

In a way, it was easy to make them since all I had to do was look around me for manner of dress. But then I had to make sure their faces and bodies were different enough for readers to tell them apart.

- Bang Barstal was supposed to be a throwback to an earlier age. A man who refused to accept change. So I made him a middle aged man with a mullet and a muscle car wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off. That way not only would he be a throwback in the story, but he'd be a throwback to the reader as well.

The monsters were all also doodles where I just let my hand go loose and I tried to follow whatever strange image came into my head.

- My current project is in redevelopment because I disliked what I was producing... but it being an action comedy in a fantasy setting, I'm a bit more free to create outfits that normal people wouldn't be caught dead wearing. Since the leads are pretty girls, their costumes and characterizations are vital to tell them apart... Attractive people are that way because their faces lack interesting features, and there are only so many attractive hairstyles to work with.

The monsters in this one are a bit more traditional looking: Minotaurs and demons and whatnot.

- Did you nail it on try one?
- Did you spend six weeks going through tiny changes and improvements?
- Did you have notes for a character lying around somewhere for two years?
- How long did this process take?
- How long does it typically take, for the type of work you do?
- Do you have a design that took two minutes that you love and another that took six months that is less than stellar?

The designs for the characters in the first comic I mentioned, It's About Girls, sprung from my forehead like Athena, fully dressed for battle. It think they were get-the-job-done designs. Not stellar, but not bad.

Bang Barstal was a doodle that got simplified in the drawing process. It's really easy to create this sort of detailed character with all sorts of junk on them, but then you got to do that consistently panel after panel, and well... stuff gets dropped. It took a few weeks for him to reach his final look. The problem was that I'm not skilled enough to draw his unusual features consistently, so things got pretty rough at times. I'd say that in more competent hands, he'd be stellar

The current project's set of designs have been tooled with for about six months. I don't know if I'm lacking confidence in my abilities, or have become really strict with with forcing myself to try and create above my normal level, but I've been fussing for a long time over what is going to be a really simple comic. I'm feeling confident that the designs both look good, and can be drawn consistently.

- Do you enjoy the process of designing characters?
- What kinds of projects are your favorite?
- Do you have a lot or a little experience in this sort of thing?

1- I sure do. It's like being god. I also spend more time creating characters for video games that let you do that sort of thing than I do playing the games themselves, if that tells you anything.

2- The ones where I force myself to get better. The problem with this is I'm always doing things I'm not good at and ignoring my strengths as a creator. So in a way, I'm only presenting my weaknesses.

3- Despite my weak art skills, a lot. I've been doing my own comics since I was a teen.

Anyway, I hope this helps you find whatever information it is you're seeking.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T20:10:28-08:00

@William George I loved Bang Barstall, read it a long time ago, and I always wondered what the creator was up to. Nice to fucking meet you.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-22T22:09:58-08:00

Hah! Thanks! Nice to meet you too.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T06:33:47-08:00

@Audley Strange First post and already I'm surprised! I hadn't even thought about the name first angle, even though it makes a load of sense and I'm sure there are plenty of creators that work this way. Reminds me a bit of my own process of graphic designing from a font/type. It's a small detail to start from, but sometimes the most important. Thanks for sharing!

@Brendan That is fantastic, thank you so much for letting us peek at your process. I love how the color inspiration just sort of fell into place and I really, really dig the final design. Nicely done.

@Tim Haha, Thanks! I don't say much around here, but when I do, I try to make it worthwhile. I've got a few similar threads in mind already, so we'll see how this one goes, and if y'all are having fun, I'll try to make it sort of a regular thing.

@William You guys are rocking these replies. 3 totally different responses and all exactly the sort of thing I'm after. Mostly what I'm looking for is plain and simple curiosity slaking, I just want to see how it's done. And just like any other creative process, it's likely to be done pretty differently by just about everyone. I thought it also gives you guys a chance to pimp your stuff, and gives me some new work to look into both online and off. So far, so good.
And I don't think your art skills are as "weak" as you think. I'm not the be all, end all of art critics, but you definitely have ability. I think from here, what I'm seeing is that you have a particular style, and you maybe want to be able to accomplish a certain other kind of style. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think if you embrace what you're able to do [which you seem to be doing, just by keeping at it] you'll eventually find a style you're really happy and comfortable with.
FWIW I love Fifi's outfit. Someone needs to steal that two belt, one buckle design so that I can buy and wear it, for real.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T06:49:08-08:00

Okay, these are character designs for some toys/gifts, rather than characters intended for print, but I thought some of you might be interested in the process.

For a few years I was the 'Brand Guardian' (one of those silly creative department/marketing terms) for Sugar Puffs. I came up with ideas for the in-pack gifts, scamped them, visualized them, etc. There were quite strict guidelines: the toy inserts had to be small enough to fit into the packs but be big enough not to choke a child if swallowed. The items also needed to be cheap to make but be open to multiple uses to add to the play value.
One series of characters/creatures I designed were called DINO TOPPERS. These were a set of plastic dinosaur characters that could be used as pencil-toppers - but they could also be split in two to reveal a hidden fact sheet. These fact sheets were two-sided and contained various bits of info, including (on the reverse) an illustration of the dinosaur's skeleton and a human figure positioned next to it for scale.
I think I came up with these critters because I knew that Jurassic Park 3 was going to be released the next year (I had to work in advance to allow for the production of the items in Hong Kong.) As dinosaurs are, of course, public domain, the toys could cash-in on the interest created by the Jurassic Park movie without the need to pay for expensive licensing rights. Creating something that will hopefully intrigue consumers who like an existing/upcoming license is called creating ‘borrowed interest’ (another wanky marketing term!)

These are some of my initial designs. As you can see: I had to make sure that the items were a certain length (so that they couldn't be swallowed by a child), even when the items were split in two so that the fact sheet could be accessed:

Close-ups of some of the scamps:

These are the finished characters (I also oversaw their creation at a model-making studio before the prototypes were sent off to Hong Kong.) The other items in the photo are Sea Squirters (mini water-squirting toys fashioned to look like sea animals):

Shots of the Dino Toppers (I had to design the critters with tails that wrapped around the side of their bodies because of size limitations):

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T07:18:14-08:00

Sweet dinosaurs!... Er, toppers.

And I don't think your art skills are as "weak" as you think. I'm not the be all, end all of art critics, but you definitely have ability. I think from here, what I'm seeing is that you have a particular style, and you maybe want to be able to accomplish a certain other kind of style.

Thanks for that.

And maybe you're right about the style thing. I'll have to keep it in mind.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T14:25:54-08:00

@Ken Ha! I KNEW there'd be someone around here that had designed something weird and cool like this. I love comic/toon character design, but this is equally fascinating to me.
I remember being a little kid, maybe 10 and looking at my cereal box one day and realizing that it was someone's job to draw the cereal mascots on the box. It was a FANTASTIC day for me, because I realized that somewhere, out there, even if the people doing it hated it [because living in poverty at age 10 all you know of jobs is that everyone hates them] there was some sort of creative job waiting for me somewhere that *I* would love. Anyway, that was crazy awesome and I really appreciate you sharing. It's interesting [because of some sort of dark wash?] to see the difference in the original pantone color swatch and the final look of the toppers.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T15:10:18-08:00

I will try to be as coherent as possible!

Here is my process/the road to creating Space Shark. The idea had been in the back of my brain for a couple of years. I was just bored in bed one night and imagined a slot machine, but with nouns. Then the words "Space" and "Shark" lined up and I thought "Haha, that shit writes itself!" But I left it in my sub-conscious all this time up until early October.
It was while I was collecting Wednesday Comics that something clicked for me. I wanted big paged episodes like that. But not episodic, more like an arena for me to do anything. But also I am giving myself one big page to say what I gotta say and then get out. I intended for him to be a instant mythical guy, like Batman. He'd be interpretable in many ways. I think that idea got thrown the hell out.
These are my initial sketches of Space Shark from September just to give myself an idea on how he would look and how much detail to put on his suit. I did not know what to DO with him just yet.

A couple more of me getting closer to what I want.

After I got comfortable drawing him. I decided to just go for it and hit the ground running for his first episode:

I drew that one on a 11x14 bristol board. But for future episodes I threw out the rule book and began to draw most of the panels separately so I can draw bigger and get more detail. Then i will scan each drawing and arrange the page in photoshop. Example here:

Every panel was drawn separately on a board you get with your comics, or scanned from my sketchbook. I did not see it this way in my head, but in the process it takes on a life of it's own and I am pretty much collaborating with something invisible. It is dictating what it wants me to do until we join back together as one satisfied being.

Turnaround time: One episode can take me an entire week. From doing each drawing, scanning, photoshop wizardry, and lettering. The photoshop part takes the longest because I can be stuck sitting at the computer all damn day figuring out how to arrange everything on a blank document until the whole thing clicks together and my mind decides "Fuck it, it's finished!"
I don't know if I can be clear about this, but every Space Shark so far was not what I wanted, but I get satisfying surprises because of it. A lot of times I mean for it to look very clean and cartoonish, but then my sub-conscious will make me add some grimey texture to it all and it will end up looking gritty. I realized earlier today in the shower that is is just the truth rising to the surface. Sometimes I want sooo bad for my stuff to look slick and clean like Mike Allred/Darwyne Cooke, but the truth takes over and what you see it what you get: the bastard child of Saturday morning cartoons, and Templesmith comics. I'm very comfortable with my style, but I am constantly hungry to present my style in different ways, kind of like Becky Cloonan did on DEMO. Space Shark is pretty much my arena to do what I want.
I hope that was helpful/informative. I'm nobody, really. But it feels nice to share your process once in a while.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T15:41:33-08:00

@Chris Again, thanks for sharing. Costume variations are, I think, the most entertaining difference to see in the process of comic character design [it's like playing "spot the difference"] And the word slot machine name creation is a pretty fun concept, I might borrow that idea to title some photos.
Also, totally unrelated to character design and sort of off on a logo design tangent, I LOVE the star "A"s in that second logo.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-23T15:50:22-08:00

@lexmachine - I really enjoyed working on all the Sugar Puffs insert toys, it was a hoot. Re: the dark wash on the Toppers. I worked with a company called Premium Factory that liaised with the guys mass-producing the insert toys. They came up with a painting process that allowed for a dark wash to be swiped across the models, accentuating the skin details (well spotted!)

Sometimes I've been asked to redesign a character, rather than come up with a completely original one. I had to re-imagine the polar bear character featured on the Iced Gems and Choc Gems packaging. The original dude looked too much like a gopher or something - so, of course, I made him look more like a bear:

Here he is snowboarding, proudly holding aloft a prized Choc Gem:

And here are some scamps/designs for a branded gift. The bear-camera was made and I own one (which I've never used, so I don't know if it worked!):

These are a bunch of animal characters I designed for a Cow & Gate relationship-marketing publication. The small B&W image shows the original character designs, which I tweaked to make more stylized:

These are kung fu puppet crustaceans I designed for a Jonathan Ross TV show. The TV series (which was a celebration of Asian martial arts movies, hosted by Ross) was going to be shown on Sky1 and called 'Dubbed And Dangerous' - but it finally appeared on (what is now) BBC3, and was retitled 'Stop! Kung Fu!' The puppets never got made (partly because of the move from Sky to the BBC), but I got to work on the show anyway (I was the guy who got to choose all the kung fu clips to be screened!):

@chris g - I just LOVE Space Shark!

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T03:12:07-08:00

Wow - this is fascinating to read!
@Brendan, thanks for sharing all of that - really great to see a character come together like that - he looks amazing (as do the pages), and so true about the eyes adding an element of connection.
Sadly I don't tend to keep older sketches these days, so I don't think I even have any progress work :(

One point I always make when running workshops or the like is about level of complexity. I've seen some amazing character design work at shows when looking at people's portfolios, but when working in comics especially, we need to draw that character over and over again....so keeping a design simple but instantly standout and recogniseable is important. Complex may look awesome in pinup, but you'll be grateful of a simple design when you've draw the same character 200 times, haha XD

My own design process varies according to the job a lot;

On my own projects, like Dragon Heir or Violet, my characters are often born of their environment and their story background because I know them so well. So I consider: are they likely to need protection, do they have money, how confident are they, are they a lover or a fighter...^_~

On the flip side, i've been doing some work for children's magazines in France recently, and the character design process is totally about the visuals. I'm designing characters before I even have a story sent to me, based purely on 'what's fashionable, what will look appealing to that market'. It's a pretty different angle for me, but quite fun in its own way. In those cases I rely a lot more on my editorial team.

Then, somewhere in the middle, we have adaptation character designs. This is a really odd one as you're creating a character that's already loved; so the pressure is on! With Hamlet, I wanted to maintain an element of Shakespeare's classic look despite the futuristic setting, so made a kind of meld of billowing sleeves and leathers. Originally he was designed with blonde hair because, hey, he's Danish. But the editors wanted something more unique and recogniseable, and so the black and white style came around...and I think they were right!
When Much ADo came along, it was a little different as I didn't have to worry about any sci fi elements...but I also didn't want to just recreate Brannagh's film version. I came back to my personal design process for that: considering character and personality and designing the visuals from there: so a fiery character like Beatice ended up as a red head. Benedick's laid-back attitude and lack of regard for social status meant that he often slobs around in loosed military gear.

Some, like Claudio, were helped by Shakespeare's descriptions in the text. 'he performs in the body of a lamb the feats of a lion' etc...

In very shallow moments, I like to consider what I can see looking good in future story points: eg, got a character who leaps around a lot? give them flowing clothing/a scarf so that we can make some cool visuals out of that trait. My fighting spirit (furose) in Dragon Heir has long black hair because I wanted to use the hair visually in later scenes when he's in full fury mode...shallow, as I say, but hell - we're drawing comics, they should look good XD

I'll enjoy seeing this discussion grow! ^_^

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T09:22:39-08:00

Wow this is awesome stuff. Loving everything posted so far.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T12:26:14-08:00

Seriously quality thread. Thanks for all the detail. Nice to open a door to people's processes.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T19:24:02-08:00

Great thread, I LOVE seeing all the sketch processes people use. I always have a concept/sketch section in my books, so I figured I'd already said it once, so why not just show?
From my second graphic novel, MOPED ARMY:

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T21:19:44-08:00

Well, I guess I'm kind of the odd man out in that I don't do much conceptual work before I begin on a project. It's not that I don't do any, but I tend to correct anything I'm not happy with on the initial sketch work that I do. In addition to that, most of the comics that I make don't involve much in the way of uniforms aside from minor characters or military/police. Most of the time I spend is figuring out the person's facial structure, body type, and how they carry themselves, but a lot of that is done on the page itself. I guess I've grown confident enough in my abilities as an artist that I don't like relying on sketches that I'll inevitably second guess when I put it into action anyways. This mainly applies to comics work, as any video game or small film work I've had I've had multiple sets of revisions, etc, but those are a different animal than working on comics.

This project is an anthology type of comic drawn by myself and written by my studio mate, Ethan Ede. They're all two issue stories revolving around the theme of love and relationships contrasted against technological or societal advances. The first in this series is Thought Swarm. The only real bit of off-normal design work was that the main character has small hair piece that covers the node that was implanted into her frontal lobe. I did some quick pen and brush sketches in my sketchbook to get across height differences, potential looks, etc. Again, I don't go much into the details, because the story takes place over the course of over a decade, so styles change, work outfits change just like yours and mine, and the characters mature.

The meat of the design work took place on the page after establishing the basics about the characters. When the character first appears, she's 12.

Here she is again at 16. I tried to take elements of her look in that first page and age them a few years into a snarky teenager in the throes of puberty. The character is also company-raised and has little contact with other people thanks to the thought interpretation device they gave her at the start of the story, so I tried to convey that she doesn't know how to do her own makeup, communicate with peers, and other stuff that most teenage girls would learn communally. She only has television/media to ape, but she tries anyways so she can feel a sense of normalcy. Again, I'm not the writer, so these are all things that I have to convey sub textually through the artwork itself.

Another story from that same book is called Dumpster Dive, and it involves kids who are left to scavenge the remains of their town that was obliterated in an attack. Their attire consists completely of found material and items, and the only consistent pieces that they wear throughout the story are their large packs that they use to carry things they find in the rubble that they can barter away, and the helmet that the girl steals from a cop near the start of the story. This story takes place over the course of 15 years, so the characters age here as well.

The character on the left is the main male character of the series, Tox. He tends to favor finding jackets and other clothing items that have lots of pockets so that he can carry around any number of tools to use when scavenging, while the girl to the right, Olive, doesn't particularly care about practicality, she just likes to wear things she thinks look cool. These are consistent character traits that follow them throughout the story.

The cops here I designed completely on the page. They only appear in these four pages, so it didn't seem like a great use of time to do a full round of concepts for them. There are cops that appear later in the story, but that is 11 years from this scene, and they will have some redesign to them to account for the passage of time. The other children on the page were also designed on the fly.

My webcomics are almost entirely concepted on the page. Pretty much everything in Light Years Away, for example, is made up completely on the spot as it comes up. I don't have the luxury of time to spend creating concepts for them since my deadlines are so tight on it every week, so I tend to just trust myself that whatever I draw in that strip will be good enough.

As for my other concept work, I take a different approach than my comics work. Since it isn't something that I don't need to repeat from panel to panel ad infinitum, I can kind of dive in and play around a bit more with the details. These are all personal drawings, since I'm under NDA for most of the concept work I've done, but they follow the same process that I use in my concept work.

I tend to be a real perfectionist when it comes to my comics, but for some reason I approach my other concept work with a much looser mindset, so its nice to get those jobs every now and then to work a different set of creative muscles than I usually do.

Kind of a merger between the two, I tried my hand at Project Rooftop's Wolverine redesign contest. I was one of the top entrants, which was nice. I tried merging his established look with some practical enhancements. I gave his cowl a more helmet like appearance and added an ear shape that doesn't cover up his ears like all of his other cowls do. My basic approach going into it was making sure that the costume didn't obstruct his senses, and was modular enough that he could do without any one piece. I left his fingertips bare so he could utilize his tactile senses better than with full gloves, but gave the rest of the glove gecko foot texture to improve grip on any surface. His boots I gave a set of retractable climbing claws. These are in the boot itself and not in Wolverine's foot. I tried giving the boots a bit of a pawed look but still maintaining a utilitarian aesthetic.

I've got a few other projects with concept work done on them, but I'll leave it there seeing as how I've pretty much flooded the page already. My concepting style is a bit esoteric and I wouldn't recommend it to most people, but it works well for me, and hopefully it shows in my output.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T21:46:45-08:00

Working with Adam means that I have never been handed a page of artwork or a design that didn't look either exactly like I saw it in my head or better. Adam and I also both live in the same city and work very closely together so we talk a lot about characters. For us, early on we knew that we wanted to make science fiction comics, and that there were several things we wanted to do with in that. We never wanted our characters to wear costumes, we wanted them to wear clothes, that they -like most normal people- changed after they got dirty. This can be difficult in comics because your characters need to be instantly recognizable. So Adam makes sure that the characters have strong faces and unique ways of carrying themselves. But he touched on all that in his post above.

The other thing that we talk a lot about is the science in our work. Our webcomic Light Years Away aside, most of what we do is hard science fiction. I love hard science fiction and we are both huge science nerds, but there is a problem with a lot of prose hard SF, and that is: the writing can easily get too bogged down in the science and lose focus on character. Now because Adam and I feel that comics are the best medium for story-telling we used this to our advantage when we work on hard SF comics. We spend a lot of time talking about the science behind the comic an there is a lot of it in the script, but it doesn't come up in captions in the comics and characters rarely talk about it. We know how it works and that means Adam spends a lot of time drawing this stuff into the comic, but that the characters are free to take the forefront of the story. The science is in his background details and he is obsessive about it. I tend to favor the 'less is more' theory of writing when it comes to captions and dialogue anyway and working with an artist as strong as he is means I never have to worry about adding captions to clear things up.

So a lot of the design we do isn't for costumes but rather for the worlds our character exist in. We make sure we know how they work, but we don't bog down the story explaining it in words. For instance this page:

In this comic there is no artificial gravity in spaceships, they have acceleration based gravity if they are going fast enough but that is it. This is a small cargo ship and having crap float around banging into other crap in the cargo bay's wouldn't do. So Adam designed a strap system he calls Mag-Grav to secure shipping containers in a highly mobile fashion. Mag-grav is not in my script, but because Adam and I believe in a truly collaborative process, he thought about what the ship would need and designed and implemented it.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-24T22:44:47-08:00

Dude. @Adam Rosenlund. Fucking blowing my mind over here.

Really astonishingly good stuff.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-25T01:19:46-08:00

@emsie - It's interesting to see how you factor in what a character does (leaps around a lot, etc) when you come up with character costume details.

@Paul Sizer - Yikes! Tons & tons of prelim sketches & notes. Lush!

@Adam Rosenlund - It's interesting that you don't do any conceptual work before creating your wonderfully finished, detailed stuff (especially Dumpster Dive) - but as this thread is about original character design I guess it's the prelim/notes/scamps/finished work comparison stuff that folks are going to want to see here.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-25T12:13:09-08:00

@ Adam and Ethan

Fantastic work. You can take my money when you want it. Please keep us updated.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-25T12:24:10-08:00

@Adam and Ethan
STELLAR work, really nice to see all the aspects of how the two of you work solo come together so well in your collaborative work. I love the clean lines of your work, Adam, and the nice design sense in your costuming. I also like the very clean rendering and volume of your backgrounds; very immersive and inviting to the eye.

Thanks so much for sharing; this thread keeps getting better and better.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-25T12:36:46-08:00

While I've got several that fit this thread, I'm opting to go with this one first, due to the content and that it's currently Wednesday.

"Boobie Wednesday" (or #boobiewed and the lesser used #boobiewednesday, which are the Twitter hashtags) is a theme started by two women on Twitter who wanted to do something to promote Breast Cancer Awareness. Every Wednesday, there's an increasing number of people who change their Twitter icon to something breast/cleavage-related for the day. Additionally, a number of them submit photos for the blog, in support of cause.

You can find their blog and site-affiliated Twitter here:

http://boobiewednesday.blogspot.com/
http://twitter.com/boobiewed

FYI: While my picture below is safe for work, some images/photos that go onto the blog are NSFW, as they may contain nipples. So, if you work in a strict environment, you might want to look at the site at home.

I wanted to find a way to contribute (after all, who doesn't like breasts?), and decided to do a piece of artwork in support of it the week of Halloween, gratis. The idea came into play that Tuesday, and I bounced it off of one of the two women who started Boobie Wednesday. She told me to go for it. In turn, I opted to do the whole of it on Wednesday.

As I'd just started playing with Manga Studio, I thought this would be a good exercise in learning the software a bit more. So, I did the initial render, up through colors under the linework, and exported it to a Photoshop format. As I'd saved it that way, I didn't bother with saving it in the default Manga Studio format, and closed out the program. Little did I know that it was not a .PSD format, which would bite me in the ass in short order. I opened up Photoshop, and looked for the .PSD file, only to not see it. So I looked for all formats, and found that it had saved as a bitmap. While a minor nuisance, it wasn't a huge deal, right? Wrong. I opened it up, and descended immediately into gratuitious use of the word fuck. What happened?

The image had saved with all of the layers merged. In monochrome. Or, to put it more bluntly-- all I had to show for that first 1.5 hours of work was a black silhouette on a white background. What lesson was hammered into my head? Make sure you have a viable copy of the file saved before you close the program out. Yeah, I won't be doing that again anytime soon.

I walked away from the computer (so as to not give into the urge to punch a hole in the monitor). Came back. Started over from scratch in Manga Studio again.

(Click for larger version.)

So I recreated the original image to the best of my ability.

1) On the base layer, I used the pen tool to rough in the image with the default (I'm assuming non-photo) blue color for said layer.

2) Once I got to that point, I created a new layer, using the same pen tool, but with black, and did the inked linework.

I found the "export to another application" option or some such, and copied it to the clipboard. Opened PS, created a new document, and pasted the image into it. Only then did I go back to MS, save it to the default format, and close the program out. Having discovered that it saved as an opaque B&W layer (I've yet to figure out how to copy a layer just as linework, or for that matter, a multi-layered file), I used the magic wand tool, clicked on one of the black line segments, and then picked similar on the selection menu. This selected all of the linework. I then inverted the selection, and deleted everything else (the white).

3) Save the image, ported it to ArtRage, and painted in the underlayer of color. Did tweaks, played with layers, etc., until I got to the point that I was good with the image for details, textures, and such in PS.

4) Heavy layer creation/manipulation, filtering, opacity work. Integrated rough necklace idea. Addition of texturing via both photo and brush usage. Brought in a couple of photo overlay components on both subtle (skin/face/hair) and not-so-subtle (necklace/corset texture and clasps). More filtering and opacity work. Added more depth to the form via filters and erasing.

5) It was almost midnight, and I was pushing time, so I took a shortcut with the background. Found brick photo I liked. Altered it. Did a few layers of filtering with it. Then I did the shadows and lighting for all of it.

For what was ultimately 8ish hours of time from start to finish, I was happy with it.

What am I not happy with? I'm an artist, I'm my own worst critic, so I'm not happy with a lot of things. ;) I'd have liked the sleeves to have been more in line with the rest. I missed fixing a couple filter-related errors with the light and shadow on the face. While the brick wall works with the picture, I don't like that I took such an overt shortcut to put it in there, but at the same time, it's far better than a blank white background with this piece.

I've given them consent to utilize the image in any capacity, so long as it's for the purpose of promoting Breast Cancer Awareness (this includes promotion of the blog and Twitter themes, as they were created for the same purpose). As such, they're using it on a T-shirt, all the profits of which will go toward the cause.

For those interested, or simply curious, you can order it here, courtesy of the girls who founded Boobie Wednesday.

All proceeds go toward National Breast Cancer Foundation (it's my understanding that there are other options for printing, for those who may wish a v-neck style shirt instead).

As a bonus, I'm posting the linework and giving permission for anyone to color said line work.

Thanks for reading. I hope this was informative.

X-Posted to the Artists Thread

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-25T13:26:37-08:00

@Ken Miller - I'm glad it was helpful! It's terribly superficial, I know, haha! ^_^ But I see it a bit like real life: we consider our outfits partly depending on what we're going to do wearing them - so why shouldn't our characters? :)

@Adam - interesting! I confess I have jumped into projects without design work before....it's true that characters often come to life once they're thrown into a scene! :)

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-25T17:36:09-08:00

@emsie agreed, I think it's interesting that you design for action and activity, it's probably loads of fun to work with the characters that way. And the way you approached those Shakespeare redesigns was a very interesting read indeed.

@Paul Sizer The sketchpages are always my favorite "extra" in comics, I always read them completely. Which is partially where this thread originated. Thanks for chiming in an sharing your stuff, I'm a huge fan.

@Adam Rosenlund So much detail, and again a totally different process. I think you might be insane, but in one of those really good ways. Really, thanks so much for taking the time.

@Ethan Ede And thanks for telling us a bit about the process from your perspective! I really probably should have asked specifically for the input of writers and co-creators too in the original post, because seriously, this shit is fascinating.

@Seantaclaus And another new process and application, woot! When I initially scrolled past, I genuinely thought for a minute that you had illustrated that from a photo. I love seeing the steps and progress.
Also, hooray for boobies. Thanks for the info and linkage, I will definitely be checking out that site.

Keep em coming! I know some of these replies can probably be lengthy to get down, but I love you guys for this.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-28T14:31:24-08:00

Didn't see anyone note these in their responses so:

http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/
(artist interviews)

&

http://www.animationarchive.org/
(more character art w/notes)

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-28T20:48:21-08:00

I meant to tackle some of these with the previous post, but I overshot the character count for the post by a bit with it. Now I've done it again with the new post (next), so I'm posting this separately. ;)

@Audley Strange - It's always interesting to see how our style and skills evolve over time as we work on something.

@Brendan McGinley - That's a really solid presentation of group effort done well. Thank you for sharing that.

@Willian George - Do you think the constant character design retooling has delayed publication of the comic longer than you'd have preferred, in retrospect?

@Ken Miller - That must have been really cool, being able to see something you designed make it into 3d form like that.

@chris g -

Sometimes I want sooo bad for my stuff to look slick and clean like Mike Allred/Darwyne Cooke, but the truth takes over and what you see it what you get: the bastard child of Saturday morning cartoons, and Templesmith comics. I'm very comfortable with my style, but I am constantly hungry to present my style in different ways, kind of like Becky Cloonan did on DEMO. Space Shark is pretty much my arena to do what I want.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Rarely does what appears in your head make it to the page, but often what makes it to the page is every bit as good in it's own way.

@emsie - Nicely done. Are you coloring that with Illustrator, or something else?

@Paul Sizer - I love seeing the progression from the raw elements to something more refined.

@Adam Rosenlund & Ethan Ede - Really stellar work. It's impressive that you two take the time to think out why something works the way it does, rather than just putting it there and only addressing it later if you have to.

@lexmachine - No worries. I've been experimenting heavily with filter usage of late, as well as playing with some photo textures. Between that, and the lighting/shadow that I do, I've recently realized that a number of people were under that impression before I started posting detailed process on some of the pieces.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-28T20:49:09-08:00

Here's a character design for a different situation entirely. All pieces were rendered strictly digitally from start to finish, using Corel Painter X, with no utilization of photos for textures or any other aspect in their development. Also, as rough concept art pieces, these aren't really supposed to represent finished works on any level.

During 2007-2008, I was doing various conceptual design work on and off for Red Juggernaut. One of the things I was involved with behind the scenes was fleshing out bits and pieces of their world setting. In this case they wanted a different take on a dwarven race, under the auspice of being evolved from the Australopithecus robustus. Or, as they were referred to in their setting of Terris, "Thulean Dwarves". Short, hairy, and not nearly as much facial diversity as a human would have. Initially it was suggested that they have a touch of similarity to the orcs from LotR, but that was scrapped.

First, I sketched up some basic options for body type, hair coverage, and head shape:

The preferred versions of each were picked, giving me a rough guideline of where to start.

The description of them puts them as a race living in the cold north, sharing some similarities to viking culture, that's resorted to scavenging to to having fallen on desperate times. While seemingly savage to many outsiders, they're actually fairly civilized. Here's the initial 5-10 minute rough speedpaint that sent off, just to have somewhere ot start:

(This image is low res all around, so I've opted not to post the full sized version. If you really want to see it, click on the RJ Concept Art page link below.)

After the initial bit of feedback, I opted to experiment, and created a digital "paper doll" version, much like the ones that kids would have various different clothing options they could slap on. With this, I had the core template for the stance and body shape of the Thulean Dwarf, with extra detail put into the face, but the rest left open to be detailed with each iteration. This is the result:

Once we established that I was on the right track, I started slapping some different clothing items on them, working on maintaining a balance between being scavengers in a harsh, cold environment, and being showing some glimmer of civilization. My first shot at that was a bit too much on the basic side:

The next iteration was more along the lines of what they were looking for, but not quite there yet. On the one hand, it reflected more of the brutal northman scavenger look, it was still lacking some degree of the civilized aspect they wanted to show as well. So, while not directly on their concept art page, I've included it as a bonus piece for those curious to the process (and to be honest, there are some aspects of it that I was quite pleased with for what was basically a fast and loose speedpainting type of concept art):

After one more round of feedback, we came up with a "final" version, which gave the best feel for the race, and incorporated some aspects to reflect an alliance between them and the another world race that was more Roman-based. For concept art that's not intended to be a "finished" piece, I was pretty pleased with how this came out, as was Red Juggernaut:

For those interested, here's the direct link to their concept art page for the Thulean Dwarves. There you can find two other concept pieces for the race done by another artist (I'd guess they were the initial concepts before I worked on them-- it was the first I'd seen them, and they weren't presented to me for reference).

X-posted to the The Artists Thread

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-28T22:27:32-08:00

@Seantaclaus - For some reason, looking at your dwarves made me think "Ape shall not kill ape"

@Willian George - Do you think the constant character design retooling has delayed publication of the comic longer than you'd have preferred, in retrospect?

Well, the beauty of not wanting to make comics my job is that it gives me the freedom to sit back and tinker with the comic to get it the way I want.

In webcomics (and print as well, now that I think of it), the goal is almost always to make a career out of it. There are a number of things you must do in order to reach that goal, including posting up not-ready-for-prime-time work on a regular basis in order to feed the bottomless pit of free entertainment seekers.

So for me now, this comic is more about studying and practicing The Craft than it is about producing a work others may enjoy.

I'm not saying that I won't try to make a comic others will enjoy. To me, making a comic that is both accessible and enjoyable to everyone is just as much mastering the craft as is drawing hands well.

If any of that makes sense.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-29T04:55:27-08:00

The project:
- What was the character designed for? A comic? video game? role playing game? novel? webcomic? children's book? product packaging?
In other words, what did/do you design and for what purpose?

Characters for a "sort of" post apocalytic type thing of a friend. it's only sort of because digital technology has ceased to function.

The process:
- How was the character information communicated to you? Email? phone calls? twitter messages? singing telegrams?
- How much information were you given at each step? Did you recieve a general character description? have to read an excerpt from a story? a whole novel? drunken notes on cocktail napkins?

Various discussions, e-mails and the like. Details given were along the lines of what was practical, and most important of all the personality of the characters involved. In addition we decided on what the characters would wear consistently which helped in establising a sense of personal style and aesthetic.

Examples:
This is where, provided you have the proper permissions, you give us some examples of the descriptions, excerpts, whatever, and then examples of your designs and sketches from beginning to final design. Basically show off/promote yourself here.
- Did you nail it on try one?

I very nearly did to an extent the basics were hammered out in a couple of meetings and some rough sketches to make sure it fitted the art style and then to cut superflous details out so that it fitted with what we were tying to accomplish.

- Did you spend six weeks going through tiny changes and improvements?

Longer than that, I think I'm still doing varitations now, since the characters are people and therfore wear more than one outfit. Adding some small details on jackets and adding pin badges to things mostly.

- Did you have notes for a character lying around somewhere for two years?
Give us the meat of it, man.
And again, for the sake of legality, ONLY POST DESCRIPTIONS, NOTES, SKETCHES ETC WHICH YOU HAVE LEGAL RIGHTS TO. Otherwise, describe these things generally to the best of your ability for us.

Not at this very moment because I'm in someone else's house at this time.

Turnaround timetable:
- How long did this process take?
- How long does it typically take, for the type of work you do?
- Do you have a design that took two minutes that you love and another that took six months that is less than stellar?

About half an hour or perhaps a couple of hours leafing through magazines and the like until I fins something that resonates then it's usually a couple of minutes with a pencil or biro, this is the advantage of drawing desighns for someone else to put into a digital image.

Your general opinions and whatnot:
- Do you enjoy the process of designing characters?
- What kinds of projects are your favorite?
- Do you hate drawing vikings?
- Do you love working for a particular type of client?
- Do you have a lot or a little experience in this sort of thing?
Give us some random inside information about you, your process for this particular challenge, and how you feel about it.
Feel free to add anything you feel I've forgotten to ask.

I love drawing people and ideas for stuff, it's the best since I'm essentially an inveterate world builder at the best of times. I also like the challenge of bringing someone's ideas to life on the page.

I like the more action type stuff becasue soemtimes you really need to draw something fanciful because I wathed a lot of Ghost in the Shell growing up. Don't spend much time doing vikings but getting the proportions right on buildings and vehicles is a pain. I'm a total amatuer when it comes to this sort of thing aside from enjoying putting pen to paper and I always seem to be the one my friends come to for ideas, or used to anyway.

And just because I feel like I might need to clarify, we're talking about original designs here, so even though some of the same concepts apply, please leave the Remake/Remodel characters in the R/R thread.
Thanks. Very much looking forward to your responses.

I don't have access to my stuff right now but if I remember I'll see if I can find the sketchpad with my concepts for a story involving Fantasy Pirates. Also some non specific stuff but this all relies on the scanner complying to my wishes.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-11-29T15:49:35-08:00

@William George -

For some reason, looking at your dwarves made me think "Ape shall not kill ape"

Heh. When I was told there wasn't as much diversity in facial characteristics, I tried to show a bit of that elsewhere among the various iterations, and there was certainly some influence from ape diversity brought into the mix.

If any of that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-12-01T09:57:56-08:00

ConceptArt has what should be a lively character design tutorial tomorrow

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2009-12-03T10:13:25-08:00

@Hokus Krokus & @Brendan Thanks for the links!

@Seantaclaus It's funny, I couldn't figure out what it was I liked about seeing your process, but I think, especially after seeing the dwarf process, that it's because it's what you might call digital impressionist. And I'm frequently drawn to impressionist paintings.

@Darkest I am dying to see some of this stuff. Take some camera phone pictures or something if you have to, but please give us some visuals.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2010-01-01T08:15:55-08:00

it´s amazing having access to the creation process from such a fantastic designers & writers : ) thanks

Since i´m not a pro in comics, my characters design work had been always intuitive & chaotic: not even knew how i used to do it, so, thanks to this thread i´ve investigated my own research method.

The project is a comic about real violence & how the people get it through the media.

Being a personal work (my first), the character information was comunicated to me by "the voices", in this case through TV. The idea came from a bloody events program (this kind of programs are evolution of the ancient "crime newspapers" like "the case" & before that there used to exist blind people singing crime stories through the villages: ballads from the blind).
Years ago, the journalists used to pay the police to get photographs of the crime scene while the blood was still fresh.
Now, for a lot of reasons, its an impossible task for the media to put the bloody images on air. So, they tell us the crime story with images of the village, the streets, some spots that seems like blood at the dead´s door, etc... & don´t forget the neighbors opinions...
This is the story of two children killing another boy from there own school, during a game. With this comic i wanted to tell that same crime story puting the bloody images on.

The process: put together information from reality. Thats the most important part, & then develope & synthesize all that information into a comic character. In this particular case i´ve drawn a lot of children from the street & media (animated films & comics):

in this panel there are children from the Otomo´s manga "Nightmares" (spanish title) & from Carlos Giménez´s Civil Spanish War orphans stories "Paracuellos" & sketches from the beach & the park.

Then, the characters developed themselves through the story-board.

The killers are these brothers: two children who killed a smaller one, a class-mate from the same school (now i remember, it happened in England, & there were on the TV some security cam images with the two brothers kidnapping the victim), & in this step they have already born at the story-board sketchbook. The first appearance, at the page on the left.

Here you have the last sketch-book page & some final drawings:

At this point, the look is too Japanese because of the inspiration fonts (manga) & because of hair design. In this kind of history, the clothes are not so important realy. The hard work was dedicated to the expressions & the body lenguaje between the brothers (the victim was just a puppet)
Something very important, the environment can be vital for the characters, because it gives us behaviour patterns, & this is how we learn important things about the characters: going through the Story.

Some finished pages:

edited for the net:

Even having a lot of preliminar sketches (so necessary for me), i think the vital work on developing a character is cooked into the comic, starting with the script, growing & evolving with every day work & getting inmortal or dying in the reader´s head.

Here, as an example, you can see the evolution of the Lieutenant Blueberry character during 40 years, by the hands of Charlier & Giraud:

http://tangenciasuno.blogspot.com/2009/12/blueberry.html

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2010-02-25T10:11:41-08:00

I wish my connection were kinder, as it seems to be having trouble loading so many images, but what I have seen, and everything I've read, has been really good stuff.

Artists! Give us an education in ORIGINAL CHARACTER DESIGN.

2010-06-15T05:34:14-07:00

@ Ken Miller

I remember the dino toppers, had some of those on my pencils in primary school. God that makes me feel young. Its really cool to see how a relic of my childhood was created, cheers.