What do you get when you have a sketchbook
and an xbox controller? The other day
my husband actually had to repair this xbox controller
with a little bit of superglue because the padding came off and then I thought to myself
'whoa, wouldn't it be cool if I designed a character based off of an Xbox controller?'.
I Just got so inspired by all the buttons and the colors. Very
different from what I usually do. I know
this may be slightly inspired from Lavender Town. I don't know
subconsciously, but I want to see. I want to see if I can design a character based off of this controller.
What's inside this bag? I literally just cleaned this out - oops I'm low on led.
This is back-to-school season. This is a really good time to stock up on new
pencils and lead
so cheap - and I like these ones. I know I want to do something kind of cartoony. So we'll keep it like that.
I don't want to do an oval head for this because I already have an idea.
I want to inspire her head shape off of an upside-down controller.
Kind of a little bit more roundness at the bottom, but that's why I'm not doing the typical oval head
Something exciting should be happening. I kind of want a peace sign to be going on. Something I've been really pushing myself with
For the last I would say
two months is
bodies.
I really - I really made it a goal with my last sketchbook for
just drawing Anatomy.
I know I would fear it quite a bit and I wanted to break that and
let my art show more personality, I guess.
But we're
taking this Xbox controller and trying to design a character based off of it.
I got this hand drawn, it was a bit of a struggle.
Looks a little different than the one that I doodled, actually. I
pictured her in like a
Like a tight top at first, but I'm kind of feeling a sweater now, so I don't know let's roll with it. Okay
so you're probably wondering where the Xbox stuff is coming in. It is coming
You just have to wait for it, I need to get the body shape down a little bit of a struggle here.
Really baggy sleeves. Oh my goodness. This is making me want Fall to come here now
Now the face, oh, I'm so excited for this. Oh you can see in my sketchbook that is not what I'm drawing
in case you're wondering
not what I'm drawing
Okay, so the face is gonna be like really round
And I want the eyes to
kind of be like 'oh peace sign,
Close those eyes'
and really far apart like this, so that's how we're gonna
stylize this - ooh, maybe some like raised innocent eyebrows and
then the nose a little bit of a bridge of the nose showing
I'm gonna make it really rround and tiny cuz everything
everything needs to be squished a little bit. Okay. I want her to have that cute round face.
Okay, maybe a little smirk. What do you guys think, a little smirk? That's cute.
Okay, we have a smirk that looks like it's actually a smirk and not some accident on my paper. So we're good now.
Okay, I want to
Continue the head but making it wide cuz your lady's got plans
okay, and
a
little bit of a side bang. I haven't quite decided how I want her hair to be
I've been really into these like bobs lately in my drawings so
I'm gonna stick with that theme
We can work with this. Oh, yeah. Now this is the kicker. This is where I wanted to
make it seem more Xbox-y
So the handles of the controller this is like what inspired this entire project guys are her ears
Yeah, ain't that cute? Oh, I am obsessed
Okay, so I made this button on the shirt
So far so good.
I can do like the A controller over on this cheek and then the Y on this cheek and it be like "AYYY".
I don't know if I should do that
Okay, we are going to do a voiceover for the rest of this I decided to use watercolor
because I found these paintbrushes on clearance at Hobby Lobby and it was a big score
I think I got 20 or 30 brushes for maybe four or five dollars. I don't know. I wanted to test them out
I'll leave links to everything I used down below though.
I'm using Prima watercolors for the skin tones and Arteza watercolors for the outfit.
I was very intentional about the color scheme though
so if you look at the xbox controller, and then you look at this piece, you will see that I used
the color of the actual controller for her outfit and then the colors of the buttons for all the little accents.
It was so fun bringing this to life. I
kind of thought about this for a couple nights actually. Ever since my husband repaired the controller I kept thinking
'Okay, what can I do to make a controller into a character?' and I tried to tell him this idea once
and he just kind of gave me the strangest look like what - what are you doing Miranda?
But then he went to school one day and I took his controller and
I sketched a little thumbnail on my sketchbook
I debated on it and then I really thought to myself. Okay. Can I turn this controller into a character? Can I actually do this?
So that's when I started sketching on this larger piece of paper and seeing if I could really make the color scheme work
Would it look too busy? Could you even tell where I got the colors from and
I just chose the classic controller instead of like one of the fancy ones because
Xbox vibes, I wanted Xbox vibes.
So I'm gonna ask you a question of the day
What gaming system is your favorite?
Honestly for me, I would just say a computer. I like playing games on Steam
Mostly just Stardew Valley. But yeah, I
I do enjoy watching my husband play games on the Xbox though. He's playing this like plague game right now that I bought him
it's it's really cool and
He also plays like The Witcher and stuff and it's just fun to watch him play most of the time
But if I'm playing I have to do like peaceful games and most of the time they're on the computer
I also love me some old-school
Rollercoaster Tycoon. Oh, yeah, raise your hand if you've ever played that in the past, let me know
So another thing that I kept from my idea in the beginning
was the A button and the Y button I thought about
Tattooing her cheeks with like an A and a Y like right under the eyes
because you know how some people
they do like the stars under the eyes on the cheeks, I wanted to kind of do that
but then I thought you know, I know her hairstyle could really use some barrettes.
Why not an A barrette and a Y barrette so when you look at her with the peace sign?
She's like "AYY!"
When I was deciding the composition for this piece and
selecting which buttons I wanted to show on the character
I had to omit some of the buttons. I just felt like it would be unnatural to force
every single button onto her outfit or in her hair or something like that.
So that's why you see some of the colors portrayed but not the actual button
For instance the X button and the B button
They don't actually have their letter anywhere. They just have the red and the blue
And then all the other buttons on the controller, basically
except for the plus sign one on her sweater. They were also omitted. I
just felt like it would have been a little
forced to put them all. So yeah, we don't have like the right toggle and the left toggle and stuff.
We don't have that and if I'm saying those names wrong, I'm sorry. I'm not an Xbox girl usually
I
am most proud of the
handles of the controller
being her ears. I think it is so cute. It is literally my favorite thing about this entire piece.
That was pretty much
what inspired this aside from my husband fixing a broken controller?
And that's literally how this entire project came about. I sat down everything I was doing like
other art project wise because I was so inspired to do this piece and you
guys have been requesting that I just sit down and do a piece like this for awhile. So it worked out.
I hope you guys enjoyed this. I
Have been really inspired to just draw people
showing their personalities more I feel like
in the past with me drawing people they've been kind of stiff and
expressionless, they're not really doing much.
So she's just kind of chillin in her pajamas all smirking and happy,
Holding up a peace sign and you can tell she's a gamer girl, and she's happy.
She's embracing it and I think it's sweet. So yeah, I want to do more stuff like this in the future
Let me know if you enjoyed it if you want to see it more stuff like this
Should I make a series with like
turning game controllers into characters or something. Let me know. I am working on
developing some new series for my channel this winter. So this would be a fun one.
Okay, guys, this is the finished piece.
Thank you so much for watching! Have a good day!
And if you want to keep your adventure rolling click my playlist we can finish together.
Bye!