Hello! It's finally time for me to start with term 5!
For this first week I had to start a reference folder. Honestly, I had already created a Pinterest board to save my references quite a few years ago, but because I saved too many images I felt that it was no longer useful, so I created new folders to keep everything more organized.
I'm actually curious to know where everyone has their reference folder, is there another website where you can organize your images better? or does everyone just have it as a normal folder on their device? I really want to know!
But all week I focused on one thing, and that was designing 3 of my original characters!
I really put a lot of effort into designing them, I looked at a lot of clothing references as it's something I'm not so good at, but I'm quite proud of how they turned out! ദ്ദി(ᵔᗜᵔ)
Starting with my first character!
His name is Solé! I've had his concept in my head for like two years now, and I had never been able to do justice to his design, at least until now.
He's supposed to be a powerful and eccentric wizard, I've always imagined him with an extravagant and shiny design, but I didn't want to add so many jewels since I still don't know how I would balance all that.
My main reference were the colors and feathers of the peacock, but I didn't put much detail into his cape because I might faint if I tried, and they're really hard to draw O.O
I tried using the grayscale technique and it was honestly a lot of fun, I still don't know how to use the gradient map so the colors are not exactly what I wanted, but they are close.
My second character is called Odel, and he was the hardest of the three to draw.
Her backstory is complicated and involves a lot of time travel, but he's primarily a spirit. I've thought of a ton of designs for him depending on where he is in the story, but I decided to draw the first design I had in mind for him. In fact, at the bottom right I put a drawing from two years ago when I had initially created him, but that design never convinced me and I spent all this time thinking about how to improve it.
When I was little, my family had a doll that we used as a decoration for Christmas, and when I asked my mom what it was, she told me it was a harlequin. I always thought it was quite pretty, it was a completely white doll, and when I thought about the design for this character the first thing I remembered was that doll, so I wanted him to look like one.
Although in the end I decided to go more towards a design similar to that of a pierrot clown, it just suits him better.
The ghost character that I used as a reference also inspired me a lot to create him, since it was part of one of my favorite games as a child. I also used other references like the clown costumes and capes that you can find in the game Sky.
My third character is called Olivia! I was going to draw a different character, but in the end I forgot and chose her because she had similar vibes lol
I actually created her last year, I was trying to make a lot of characters for a project so I didn't really have much time and ended up not putting much effort into their drawing which you can see on the bottom right. But I really liked the idea so I wanted to actually try this time.
She doesn't have a backstory yet, but I imagined she might work in a haunted house, or maybe be a demon or vampire who owns a big haunted mansion. I think I wanted her to be like a dark angel in my first drawing, but the demon wings looked amazing so I'm not going back to that idea.
Her umbrella is pretty much the same, but I wanted to try making a new dress for her. I'm still a little troubled about her puffy sleeves, I like the idea but I think I need more practice to make it look better. The skirt is really not the best, I was overwhelmed by the variety of dresses I kept looking at, but it's something that I might be able to redesign later. But I don't think she'll change her hair, it's definitely my favorite part.
Honestly, drawing these three characters gave me a huge confidence boost and now I feel like I can draw anything I set my mind to, maybe I'll finally be able to draw the thousand characters that I haven't taken out of the basement ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ
I'll be back next week with the next assignments!
