Here’s a five-point-turnaround I made to see if I could draw Araya from all angles.
Even though her hips got a bit wonky, I think this one turned out pretty good. It will be really valuable
I made this one when I was working on draft 2 of Spirit Bond. I made it to be a desktop background with a calendar on it. This is the picture sans calender.
When I looked at this for the first time in months, I was like, “Awww, what cute friends.” Then it suddenly struck me that Desta, the girl on the right, is no longer a character in my latest draft. Lauren, the blond girl, has become even more important in her stead. Though this is a cute picture it’s a bit like looking at a photo where one of the people in it is dead (Haha, I didn’t mean to be so morbid all of a sudden).
Oh well. All writers would agree, I’m sure, that sometimes you’ve just got to chop people out of your story.
I made this one a long time ago. I still think it looks pretty great.
I started with a detailed pencil sketch and then added color and more texture in Photoshop. I added the wing sort of as an afterthought. Haha, I think the sketch was originally an exaggerated self portrait. Funny what it turned into. It looks nothing like me now.
I didn’t really want to make this mechanics sheet, but it was required for my illustration class. After finishing it, I can really see the benefit.
Making a “character mechanics” sheet is something done most frequently for animation. It’s basically the explanation of how to draw your character and how they work. It’s used to keep the character design “on model” as the show progresses, or to make sure that the character always looks like, well, themselves.
If all webcomic artists made one of these beforehand, the world would have far less comics where the style changes drastically through out.
This is Araya after I gave her a haircut.
In class I got some comments (I don’t even know if they were complaints or compliments ^^;) that her fire spirit looks a lot like Calcifer from Howl’s Moving Castle. I’m working on changing that.
Though this is still not Araya’s current character design, I had a blast working on this character vignette, and I loved working with the texture in the background. Texture is awesome.
In my comic, Spirit Bond, the group of protagonists is made of both humans and spirits. These are the humans, also known as the spirit summoners.
Though this is a few months old now, most of these characters are almost exactly how I want them, minus a few details like hair and clothes. Making lineups like these is great because it’s important to see your cast all together, and to feel the group dynamic.
Looking back, I had a lot of things right. There are some things in this sketch that I love, and that I later moved away from. It’s just funny that I’m moving back to some of those same elements of their character design that I had in this old picture.
Though there are things in this sketch that I would change now, there’s something about their clothes, expressions, and postures that is just dead on for both Araya and Kay in this sketch. I may be lacking that in some of my more recent sketches. I ought to learn how to recapture that.
As much as you grow and change, sometimes you had things right the first time.
For my Entertainment Illustration class, my teacher challenged me to really experiment and find the best design for the main character of my comic, Spirit Bond. So I really messed around with he design, and in the process made these thumbnails. It’s funny that they look to old to me now, even though it’s only been a month since I made them.
Looking back on old art can make you feel really good about yourself as you realize all the progress you have made. You get to say, “Hey! my work really is paying off, isn’t it.” Or you might just laugh and say, “Wow, I used to draw really manly jaws on my girl characters, haha!”
Doing character design thumbnails always helps, even if you think you’ve already got the design you want. Everytime I do this, I find something better.
After making these, I decided to give her shorter hair to fit her personality a bit better, and I changed her eyes from green to blue, because I there’s going to be a lot of fire in Spirit Bond and blue/orange is a cool color scheme.
This blog will be my new journal of all my creative endeavors. I hope that you can learn as much from it as I can!
Here’s a picture of me and my giant fox plushie, Quinn! Giant plushies make valuable companions on creative adventures, so I recommend that you all get one!
A brief introduction of myself: My name is Tanya Hales. I am a junior in college, studying illustration and creative writing. I love writing stories and art is one medium through which I love to tell those stories. I am currently working on a project called Spirit Bond, which I have been working on for years. It will someday be an epic, full-color webcomic adventure for the world to see! I’m getting there, especially with the help of my art classes.
Good luck to all of you artist adventurers!
-Tanya