Hi my loves welcome back.
Today’s sketchbook session starts with a little bit of brainstorming on some scrap
printer paper, I’m just laying out some really basic simple shapes to get an idea
of the build of my character.
Character design is not something I have remotely any experience with, I do the odd original
characters in my sketches and paintings and things, but never anything extensive, and
I actually realised I don’t make up bodies a lot, as in I usually end up using references
for drawing bodies and tend to go for more realistic proportions.
So anyway I really quickly sketched out some ideas, I really didn’t have anything in
mind beforehand so they’re all different builds and ages and all that and then I narrowed
it down to a couple of bodies that I liked the look of and drew a couple of quick faces,
still keeping it quite ambiguous and then finally I jotted down some notes about who
this person could be.
So once I was in my sketchbook, I carried on laying things in really lightly at first,
just mapping out the page so that there could be like a larger full body drawing, showing
the person in like a pose that is sort of typical to their personality, then a couple
of smaller full body sketches just to show them at different angles and a few heads to
practice some facial expressions.
So the first face I added real detail to was like a neutral one.
And then because I thought this character would be quite clumsy, I decided to do like
a shocked face that they would obviously have you know whenever they mess up and things
like that.
Um if you haven’t noticed yet, my character is a young woman, she’s wearing a hood,
I wanted her in like a baggy hoodie and skinny jeans, I just like the shape of that silhouette.
The last face expression was kind of a smirky smile, another face the I just thought she
would use a lot.
For the longest time drawing this I couldn't think of a name so I just decided to wait
till the end and see what name I thought would suit the finished character.
Alright so moving on to the body, this is the part I struggled with the most.
The smaller sketches turned out alright, they were just to get a basic idea of her shape
and proportions, but when it came to the larger sketch, I found that the more detail I added,
the less natural it felt.
It got a bit stiff.
And the position felt quite yeah, unnatural.
I think that’s just down to lack of experience with this kind of thing, I definitely need
to spend more time drawing bodies, different body shapes, making up poses and things and
not just drawing from reference.
She’s holding spray can cos I thought she could be like a graffiti artist, but like
always getting caught, always making mistakes or like having and causing funny accidents
with her clumsiness.
And I was originally gonna ink these sketches after I had pencilled them in but I’ve really
been loving the pencil look recently and I felt like I had dark enough lines that adding
ink wouldn’t really make the biggest difference.
Umm so yeah after a few attempts at putting her face on that full body sketch I just wrote
in a few little notes about who she could be, still trying to come up with a name.
I spent a bit of time adding a few extra details just mulling it over and in the end I thought
she looked like an Amira.
So that’s her name!
Anyway guys thanks for watching, I’m by no means the best at inventing original character
but I feel like this was a decent start and I hope you enjoyed it too.
See you soon for the next video!
Bye!