Name: Sandra Sørensen
Email: sandra-s@live.dk
Website: deviantArt
Team: Sci-fi

Hey, I know I'm late to the party, but I thought I'd give it a shot any way! This is my first time posting on this forum, so yeah, hi :smile:

I'm going with sci-fi. Not that fantasy isn't cool, but cyberpunk, you know?

I've made one character sketch so far, her name is Crow. Don't mind the greyscale :blush:

The idea is that she's a sniper who can scale buildings and take out enemies from afar. Basically she's very fast, does a lot of damage and is hella frail. Her design isn't final, but I like where it is going so far. I think I'm definitely going to redesign her legs, I'm thinking about making them prosthetic instead of just giving her an exoskeleton. As for the rest, well I haven't even started on her gun yet, and everything is still very sketchy. Aside from that I can see some anatomy and perspective problems as well, but you know... :wink:

She has a little cyber cockroach pet/sidekick. I imagine him to be rather dumb but lovable, kind of like a really stupid dog :smile: He can help tracking enemies by tailing them and biting them if the need arises

Let me know what you guys think! And good luck to everyone else! :smile:

Looks nice, i like the idea ! keep up the good work ! :smile:

@rgdraw Thanks! :smile: I'll try my best

I've continued refining everything a bit, hopefully for the better... Personally I like it, so there's that :sunny:
The things around her waist are bullets, and her necklace doubles as a pretty nasty bomb - but that's more of a last-resort thing.

As mentioned, I've changed up the legs and made them prosthetic. I played around with some different ideas and shapes, but I ended up settling for a hybrid, kinda. Does anyone know if the "she's wearing high heels to battle"-thing applies if you have no heels? :smiley:

Aside from that not much has changed. Her cockroach-pet is still useless, Crow tries very hard to be mature, but tbh she's kind of a spoiled brat.

Here are the other rough sketches I did for her legs:

I was tempted at first to just go with the one to the right tbh, I think it could be cool for the silhouette. Still do. Well, I could still change it later :smile:

PS: I've doodled this little guy as well. He's No One. He'd be fantasy though, so :confused:

Nice work ! :smiley:
For the legs the right one is too modern i think, look a the one from the movie "How to train your dragon" then play with the shapes and i think you'll find something really cool!
Hope it helps ! :smile:

Edit : just realized you choose sci fi not fantasy, so forget everything i said xD

I like the design so far but I think that the sci fi parts are a bit uninspired. Remember that cyberpunk is heavily inspired by modern military tech and real prosthetics (implying thats what youre going for). You should use real life references and develop a richer shape language than stacked up triangles. You can inspire yourself from already existing cyberpunk or just sci fi stuff as well. Your design actually looks more fantasy than sci fi at first glance, for instance the grappling hook looks more mechanical (steampunk style) than technological. Other than it's pretty cool, especially the haircut! It's really dynamic

@rgdraw Oh, okay, I was getting a bit confused there :smile: But at any rate, I suppose that shows that the design doesn't read as sci-fi. I'll have to have another look at that, I suppose!

@LensPitt Yeah, after sleeping on it for a night and coming back to it, I definitely see what you mean... As for cyberpunk, I always thought it referred to a dystopian future with a rebellious minority rising up against-- you know, all that stuff. So that was kind of what I was going for. I ended up looking up some references nonetheless, so hopefully it's better, less-generic now? :smiley: And I see what you're getting at with the grappling hook as well, I'll have a look at that later!

So progress. I'm still moving slow, but that's okay, I'm here to learn :smile: I ended up giving her a jacket, played around with adding some more materials, and at this point her pants just keep getting bigger and bigger, I suppose. Don't know if I liked it better before, though. I also played around with her legs some more, and surprisingly (not really) I think that less is more. I like the sleekness of them simply being black with some muscle-like details :smile:

Also did some quick coloring, just to get a better idea of the final character.

Oh yeah this is much better! Nice work !

Oh yeah this is much better! Her color scheme is pretty nice as well! I'd just make those red accents a bit brighter so they pop out more :smile: The muscles are hard to see as the grey is very close to black, It actually looked like plain black legs on the first monitor I saw it with, be careful!

Cyberpunk universes are indeed often dystopian, but I don't think that's what defines it. I think what defines cyberpunk it is that technology is omnipresent and that pretty much everything is cyberized. At least that's how I see it. I could picture myself a cyberpunk utopia though It would probably be hard to make an interesting story out of it

10 days later

Long time no see... So yeah, I forgot my tablet at home when I went to visit my mom for the past week and a half. Neat! :sweat_smile:

Glad to know it's better! I still wanna change everything and I have half a mind to just start over from scratch, but I think that's just always gonna be the case. For now I'm just gonna leave it as is and consider it practice :smile:

@LensPitt Yeah, but I thought I'd just do the accents at the very end, so they're really just placeholders at the moment. I did some level adjustments on the legs, hopefully they're a bit better now! And you're probably right about cyberpunk, tbh I never really thought about it very much... A cyberpunk utopia kind of world sounds really cool though?? Story-wise it would probably have to be more of a false-utopia kind of thing..

Progress? Well, I did some cleaning up and the back view. I did think about her grappling hook, and I think combining it with a pair of claws could be kinda cool? Like retractable claws that double as a grappling hook. I just feel like claws have been done to death already, so I'm kinda hesitant..

Okay, finally started working on guns! I'm partial towards D, F and G right now, but we'll see. I might also do more later, it's pretty fun! :smile:

I imagine the rifle is (more or less) permanently attached to her back for convenience, and that she can pull it to the front if she needs it. Basically, the rifle has a handle so she can pull it (it probably doubles as a trigger as well). The barrel itself is telescopic, but I could see how this could cause bullets to get stuck if the inside isn't completely smooth. But hey - it's the future, it probably fires plasma or laser anyway :wink:

The idea is that the red circle-looking thing on her back is both an energy source for the rifle and the thing that holds it in place (like a magnet). I'll have to still find a way to visualize that properly though!

Here's a sketch of her pulling it to the front though! :smile:

It was supposed to be a quick sketch, but I really like the attitude and pose in the first one. I'll keep it in mind for the final illustration - something on a rooftop with the city in the background?

Wow, yes! That first pose would be awesome for the illustration. Excited to see your progress :smile: