FINAL BATTLE: THE VISUAL DESIGN !Now that we covered
-the basic character types of void
- the pros and cons of short and long storytelling styles
- the dynamic of void battling
- and the role your opponnent will play
And generally all the things that are a bad idea to do, we can finally cover the omega of character creation;
Visual Conception.
On Style..In plainest terms, style is the consistent method by which an artist chooses to render their work. Whether they use traditional means or a tablet or both. Furthermore style can range from the symbolic and abstract to the naturalistic and immersively real. The former is easy is execute, but difficult to master. Meanwhile, drawing things realistically and technically is HARD to execute but has a clear direction of progress. However those who develop naturalistic styles tend to veer off into a stylistic approach after a certain point because they soon realize that drawing things "realistically" can only go so far before everything starts to look the same. No approach is "better" than the other but each approach is the "best" at something, simply because styles can't be described as GOOD or BAD but rather, Warm or Cold, or Old or New, sweet or salty, simplistic or complicated.
Some styles are cobbled together by research,
others by years and years and years of illustrating
whatever it may be, it's good to break down the pros and cons of what you're doing.
To simply say " it's just my style" is like saying " I draw necks disturbingly wrong because it's part of me "
It's irresponsible to your work and immature as an artist to leave it at that. Whether or not you change is your choice, but not noticing what you're doing will not even empower you with that choice.
Style will determine if your lines are meant for action, or if your faces are better suited for girly highschool drama. If you're stuck with pretty boy faces and you want to make action comics then perhaps consider a period piece, or a dark and suspenseful genre. Do you draw bubbly cute animal people ? Then do comedy, slice of life, or extremely kiddy hero quests. Or perhaps, mix it up, make cute animal people that are psychotic villains ! Western drawing styles would be great for gritty and realistic stories, but perhaps taking on a comedic approach against new age characters would be breath of fresh air ! (Looking at you, Underwood)
If you draw attractive anime characters and obsess about making them anatomically correct ? Do Hentai. Do you like making drawing machismo male fantasies where your dude is super 'roided up like a football player and all the women fighters are objectified and want to ride your fighter's dick ? Get the fuck out.
Style is literally the genetics of your work. But where can one even begin to take on that massive undertaking you ask ?
Step 0. Origin IdeaMuch like how anime is an appropriation of Disney animations, or how manga's visual style was a borrowing of french comics, or how Final Fantasy's Yoshitaka Amano was originally inspired by the works of Mobieus and Happosai prints, your idea will have its starts somewhere. And to claim that there is no one outside source is true, however to also say that this all came up in your head is either
1. Complete fucking bullshit
~or~
2. Doomed to fail like everyone else.
Realizing which ideas drive your work is important, as it will also allow you to conciously dictate whether or not the works you are drawing from will fit what you are doing or what is needed right now.
Source materials when looked into deeper will provide much more needed insight to enforce the themes you were looking for, or better yet, surprise you with something not many people have seen before. Regardless everyone will be happier that you put in the work to research this stuff. And in the end, this step will inform what kind of style to use in order to maximize the effectiveness of your character.
However the core of your idea - that unchangeable bit that you can actually call your own and got you to make this character in the first place- can never change.
1. The Core
It's strange that the core idea is introduced before the origin source. But if you are like me, you likely saw a couple of things you liked and even though you can't really explain to yourself why the thing you like is cool, you go ahead and take it anyway.
Every anime/marvel comic/videogame/movie you've seen followed followed a classic story. Harry Potter is a retelling of King Arthur. Every Videogame is retelling of Beowulf. Dragonball is a retelling of the Journey to the West. And the Hunger games is retelling of Battle Royale, which is a retelling of Lord of the Flies. And for all these stories and all their heroes and variants, they all followed The Hero's Journey.
The core of your idea should further distill all these parts into its basic components. The simpler the bits and pieces, the easier they are to work with. And the fewer the parts, the more difficult it is for it to fail.
This core idea should be the fixed point that should drive your character, and get YOU excited to continuously make comics for, and should right away get you excited. And if some parts don't work together ? Change them out. Nix them. Edit, rearrange, extrapolate and edit again. You may come up with a better idea than your original source if not something completely different.
In one sentence, Agent Black started out as " An assassin" , a two word description that just about 4 people on void could be described as at the time. The idea could have easily been trashed to do " A mechanical engineer" or " A big sword", whoever it was was going to adopt an amateur anime style and I was going to be completely convinced that it was going to be badass because drawing anime makes you good, right?
RIGHT !?
that was until I watched Memento, played Killer 7, and read an issue of Violence Man and thought to myself that if I did an assassin with mental problems, done in the style of 90s noir anime that would be amazing. I was also 17 and extremely easy to impress, and so I did the rookie thing and included a few dozen ideas too many.
[Half of them never saw the light of day, either]
So now, the one-sentence idea became: An assassin, with short term memory loss that's stuck in the 90s. Slightly better. At least now theres a style and once the idea can no longer be developed on words alone, it's time to break out the pencils.
1. Silhouette
Now that you have your magical perfectly informed idea in your head, it's time draw your characters.
Characters.
What , did you think you were gonna get this right the first time ? Characters. More than one, in fact 50.
In concept art, a popular method of character creation isn't to write a 10 page prose and magically imagined the perfect visual design from their gut without any references or external mechanics. Instead, they put
words in a hat and picked three of them. And you know what they did next ? Drew a million fucking versions of that same idea.
But that's not what you'll be doing. You already have your "3 words" If not, go buy a hat and do it how those gents did. Instead, you will first work out the visual broadstrokes of your character using silhouettes and do 20 of them in a single hour. Why the time constraint ? Because if I was allowed to give you more time, you will waste it prettying up the first 2 until they are nigh un-drawible (sp?). This is comix ! Characters must be drawn fa
Characters that are recognizable in silhouettes are iconic and convey their character to the reader even if you have never met them before. Their ease of execution, but lack of details will force you to pick and choose which details you should prioritize. It will also force you not to just think about wardrobe and face, but also body type, demeanor, and overall shape. Even though most anime samefaces and have similar body types, the wild protrusions in hair, the ridiculous armor designs all add up to making the characters distinct from each other. In the example I posted, you can easily tell characters apart, you can also divine what one "group" is known for and what the other "group" is capable of.
Now let's begin.
" The Skillful Huntsman" was a community project in which artists also tackled the similar three word concept: The Skillful Huntsman. Countless artists had their version , and their own version was picked out from a countless pool of 50 or more silhouettes while they were crunching ideas. Do you know which one this artist picked ? More importantly, what can you decipher from this character's setting and backstory on visual cues alone ?
Don't answer that question. Draw those silhouettes.
2. Paring Down.
Once you have achieved those silhouettes picking out one that is striking and effective is hard, for one, it's possible that you may like the weapon of one incarnation and the body type of another. In which case you are on the right track. Instead of silhouettes, you should draw a handful of "sketches". This step should focus on mixing and matching what worked in the silhouettes and further refining some concepts you discovered. And once again should not take more than an hour, and each new idea should be considerably different from the previous one while sticking to the core idea.
Boggart Variants by Taylor Fischer, Master Queen of the Universe. Aka BeastySakura on Deviantart
Note that each variant runs off consistent visual cues involving hay and traditional black magic they also come off as impish. I may not know the backstory behind these sketches but I can guess where they came from.
Finding the best version of your piece will be up to you, but community feedback, the setting you are drawing for and the kind of narrative you want to convey should be factors that weigh your decision. A perfect idea in your head will face the complications of execution and will suck twice as hard if it was allowed to run free. And if a resident voider isn't super convinced of your idea the last thing you should do is argue and explain it but instead listen and communicate through the art. You are always free to disregard everyone. But if you've read this far I don't see a reason why you should.
3. Warming Up
Magically finishing one drawing isn't the end. In fact it is really only parts of a beginning. Once your design is set in your head, take time to do studies, cut loose. Get excited, because you'll be drawing this character or this style 40,000 times anyway.
And when people come up with a style, they not only draw the character but the set pieces and the NPCS too. ANd no I'm not expecting you to fill up 12 pages of paper. But if you do I'd really be interested in seeing them.
5. RenderingAfter you've EXPERIENCED your character to be, and has exposed it to your peers, you can now get your paintbrushes and your photoshops and your painter Sais and your
strippers paid models together and just /flesh it out/ And I mean EVERYTHING out. You got all your style details down but now it's time for turn arounds, technical specs. It's all extremely dry so I'll just pull up picture examples to best explain it.
Again, Credits to Taylor Fischer for being a badass.
Note the material call outs and the turnaround angles. And the choices in details that are telling of what setting and what concept the character is playing at.
Consciously crafting every small piece towards a greater whole should also reflect in coloring a piece. Note the common color themes, the metallic and cold blue of the second image and the earthy and vibrant plant tones of the Botanist. Don't get lost in piddly details that add nothing to the character and especially don't put in anything that you're not even going to draw yourself in virtually every comic.
Somethings should be left open for other artists to interpret but physiological and matter-of-fact details can't ever be detailed enough !
Now I'm sure you noticed, but no two styles here are the same. Everyone renders their concepts differently depending on the medium. So whether its naturalistic or stylistic is vastly determined by the needs of the medium and the preferences of the artist. In this case, Taylor Fischer and Kazuma Kaneko normally has in mind that their assets will be going in as assets in videogame companies.
For us, it's comics. So perhaps gearing your characters towards being drawn consistently and moving in still frames would be much more helpful than picking out steel textures or 600 dpi rockfaces. Color palettes and period references would help those that put that kind of bang in their work, and silhouettes and technical details will help those who dabble in intensive linework.
After this it's all about putting your character to life in comic strips. And well, we talked about that and there's the whole rest of this site that is willing to help on that subject.
And don't worry about feeling like you'll end up in the background. Anyone who's worked hard will always get noticed and the people you've fought will always remember how you tackled their character, or made their storyline go sideways with your battle.
Insert really edgy and unique title here
Sirloin Steak vs. Buffy Blueberry
@ 4:24 AM Mar 29th