Original subtitles

Hi and welcome to this video.

We're gonna be doing a character design demo so we're gonna do this from start to finish so you can

see that in my entire process at least that is how I design character.

Now I'm gonna to do a few of these.

And this one is gonna be more of a Disney sort of animation styled character.

So that's what we're gonna be shooting for now.

The first step in this is going to be to draw our jester.

So we want to draw our jesters figure out a pose for a character and what the gesture of that pose is.

And we also want to look for reference.

So we're looking for reference in the style of art we're doing.

We're looking for reference for poses and we're looking for reference just for kind of like overall

character design looks you know so we can be looking for things like actual photos of poses and we can

also be looking for things like other artists artwork that we can use as inspiration to create our artworks.

So I'm going to be working in Photoshop but there's no reason why you can't do this with paper and pencil

or markers or in some other digital media software.

So the first thing we want to do is look for that reference and look for those poses.

So a great place to find this type of stuff is gonna be places like Google and Pinterest.

So if we go to Google type and things like female character design

make sure we spell that right all right and we can just look through all these different images

and you can see that there are many different things that we can use as inspiration.

We're looking for things that are kind of more in the style that we're trying to create.

This is a good place to start is just maybe googling your character's gender and then also maybe the

style the genre and then you can start whittling it down but maybe you already have a few photographs

of other people's artwork that you really like that you'd like to use as inspiration.

And that's great too.

Another thing that we're looking for is we're looking for poses so you go ahead and do you know pose

reference and you can see we get all kinds of different pose reference a lot of these are drawings which

is fine we can use that as our reference but we also probably want to look for some photographs so we

can add maybe the word photograph to this right here we have photography we can select and we have all

kinds of different things we can choose from.

And so another thing we can look for is we can look for things like hairstyle see what comes up.

So we get some cool hairstyles we can look for something that we really like and we can also modify

things suits and a we like a certain hairstyle or certain aspect of it.

We can add to it take away from it maybe stylized the shape a little bit more but these are the type

of things that we're looking for.

Looking for reference of things that we might add to our character and use as some inspiration and also

use to observe.

So we have a good understanding of what it is we're drawing.

OK.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna start searching for my reference.

I might not share all my reference with you because some of it may be copy written and stuff like that

so I might not have the rights to necessarily show it to you in this video but I'm going to gather my

reference and it just know that I'm gonna be using reference throughout this whole entire video where

I'll be taking that reference and kind of applying to observing it and applying it to my drawing.

Now I might show you a piece or two so you can kind of see what I'm looking at.

OK.

So I've gathered all my reference photos so I have photos of actual people and poses I have drawn poses

I have poses from character art that I really liked that I'll use as reference so maybe I'll try a post

similar to it and I even have a bunch of artwork from artists that I really admire and I really like

their style and I'm going to kind of achieve try to achieve something similar to what they're doing

but make it my own thing so I'm not gonna be copying them I'm just going to kind of be looking for the

things that make up their style.

So the lines the shapes the line quality what the forms look like what their poses look like.

How do they simplify something like an eye for example stuff like that.

So going to be using that as inspiration and as a little bit of reference it's always good to start

off as a board full of reference so that you can kind of look to it as inspiration so that you don't

get stuck in a rut and you can just kind of keep letting the ideas flow out.

So when it comes character design if you if you're in the course right now you know that character design

starts off as rough as possible so we start off with gestures and just super sketchy looking drawings

and we slowly refine that.

So we start off with the ideas we do a bunch of gestures then we do concepts and then we start doing

our first rough which is where we start drawing the actual drawing of our character but it's really

rough and sketchy and we slowly refine that into our second rough and then eventually we do our final

drawing and from there if you want you can add shading you can add color you can actually paint your

drawing but this is how it goes it starts rough and you don't have to be super afraid of making mistakes.

The beginning process is all about making mistakes.

And we draw really rough and very quickly because that way we don't feel so bad if we make a mistake.

We can just redraw really fast.

So let's go ahead and jump right in.

I'm going to start by drawing a bunch of gestures and I might do a few squiggly concept sketches here

and there but I'll see when I'm done.

So you can see that I'm warming up right here.

It's always good to make sure that you get yourself nice and warmed up.

Part of that is just drawing some simple straight line some curved line circles but you can see right

here that actually just sketching out some drawing just some really quick rough ideas.

And really this is all about getting your bad ideas out so you can see that first drawing dead is just

absolutely terrible.

But then the next two there they're OK.

They're not gray or anything and you're not trying to draw amazing drawings you just trying to like

quickly scribble some stuff out just kind of get your bad ideas out and you get your hands and muscles

nice and loosened up as well as your mind.

All right.

So now I'm just gonna go ahead and start drawing these gestures and again just keep them as loose as

possible and just try to fill an entire page with these

but then I hold them

so there we are.

There's a bunch of gesture drawings I may use them.

I may not.

I may tweak them.

I mean change him but this is just the start getting the ideas flowing about what kind of pose I want

my character to be in.

It's the poses one of the most important parts of tell a lot about your character.

I mean all of it comes together and all becomes very important.

But this is really important is figuring out your pose.

Making it look balance and stuff like that.

So this is the first phase for that part of your character design.

So once you kind of fill a page or two or three up with gestures and try to start to figure out what

pose you want your character be and then we can move on to the next phase of designing our character

which is going to be going more in depth with their story who they are at this point I don't even really

know who my character is going to be.

I'm just kind of designing this character in real time

the next phase of my character design is going to be creating thumbnails and concept sketches trying

to figure out what my character is going to look like.

We're also going to figure out what portions and the size of our character will be.

And we also want to do character layouts and kind of figure out a little bit about the costume and just

tried everything.

So this is really just a concept phase.

So let's go ahead and begin.

So I'm just gonna start with a blank canvas and we're just gonna jump right into it and just start sketching

so we can try all kinds of different things so we wanted to I could start with drawing.

Let's say the head of my character so I'm going to go ahead and switch over to a different color right.

So I can go ahead and just start sketching out

characters head.

And this might not be what my character actually looks like in the end.

This is just an idea

and so we can play around with these ideas do a bunch different character heads a bunch of different

character bodies.

Yeah and so again you can see that I'm just warming up.

These are terrible drawings that I'm about to draw but they're just not that good.

I'm not trying super hard.

I mostly just focus on just continually moving my hand around just trying to sketch something out.

It's just a warm up but just to get you nice and loosened up so make sure that you do this

all right.

So there we go.

So really like this character she looks really cool.

I think she's gonna be like a dragon slayer.

And so she hunts Dragons down.

And so a lot of that is told through her costume through kind of her attitude or facial expression you

know she looks.

She doesn't look mean but she looks a little bit tougher.

She looks a little skeptical.

She might even be a little stubborn or something like that.

Now these are just kind of preliminary.

They're just kind of simple sketches that I started out with.

But as we go through the process of designing your character it'll become more refined.

So I actually am really kind of liking this pose right here.

Mean decided if I like her sword bear affair like her sword on her back yet I'm think I'm leaning towards

this one right here just because it's a nice sort of composition like that.

But yeah.

So I'm I'm really liking this.

I think she's looking really good.

So let's go ahead and continue developing her.

All right.

It's been a day since I worked on this character design and it's really important that you take some

time to walk away from it work and come back and look at it you probably heard this before and I just

can't stress how important that part is if you just rush through all your work and you try to get it

done as quickly as possible.

You never give yourself a break to actually step away and come back and look at your work.

It just won't ever look as good and your ideas won't develop as well as they might.

Now during this time I also and I got some feedback from some friends and other artists see what they

thought about the design.

So I'll be applying some of that feedback.

And I also thought about different poses I could put my character in.

So just some time away from your work will help you kind of come up with better and more ideas.

So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to kind of further the concept phase where to start doing character

and more character layouts more poses and trying different things.

Starting off really really rough and then kind of refining that to kind of a second rough drawing.

And so we'll go from there.

So I'll probably pick one of these or maybe a few of them and further those character design drawings

to a finished complete drawing.

But this is really what care design is all about is it's about trying out a bunch of different ideas

and continuing trying something new until you find what it is that you're looking for.

Sometimes you might have a very detailed idea of what your character is going to be like and you can

just go for it and sometimes you have to go through a bunch of development in order to figure out who

your character is what they look like what their attitude is.

So let's go ahead and let's begin.

So I had a few new ideas for some poses so I want to go ahead and try them out.

I'm going to start by sketching about as just a very simple gesture drawings.

And if I kind of like them then we'll go from there.

So the first one is gonna be kind of my character doing something a little bit different.

So it's going to look a little bit more like this.

So sitting in a good tribe pose something more like this for my character.

It's kind of standing there

body's kind of arch back like it is right now has one leg just kind of coming straight down like this.

Right.

And she's got her other leg like this.

So far it's pretty similar to the pose that I already have.

Right.

But instead I'm going to have her sword kind of like right here

right now maybe her hands are resting up on top of that

right something like that.

I could work on that gesture a little bit more build the tension a little bit more in her body.

And the other one I was thinking about was maybe you should be kind of standing there something more

like this where she's kind of resting one arm

that that's her line of action right there.

Maybe she's got her hand on her hip like that.

Right.

So maybe the pose kind of like that sort of thing and I'd kind of try those out.

So what I'll do is I'll go ahead and kind of sketch out sketches that are about as detailed as these

ones right here.

See what I like and I might take all three of them all the way through the finish complete actual character

designs and I'll be the same character but yeah someone go ahead and speed this up.

That's what I'm gonna be working on for the next little while.

All right.

So there we go.

There's three more sketches as you can see I just kind of took the one I already had here and and moved

it over and I added a sword to it cause she was kind of wordy leaning over in that pose.

If I decide to go with this one I'll probably rework it a little bit because it doesn't look exactly

right but it looks close enough and so it kind of got the concept across so I could understand whether

I liked it or not.

Then I did this one over here right.

Completely redraw her pose.

And I had to redraw her face at a different angle.

And so while your design your character it's also really good to try and draw your characters from different

angles and stuff like that because it really helps you start to understand that character and what makes

them look like them.

So if you're to draw them for a comic book for example or graphic novel or maybe you're just doing character

design where you need to show them from different angles in each design.

Well this is a good way to really gain that understanding of what that character looks like from different

angles and it might be kind of difficult for you but the more you work at it the more you're going to

understand your character.

So for example when I was drawing her face I had to look at the distance between her eyes and her nose

and how big or for a head was and all of that and the shape of arise in order to draw her face at a

different angle.

I also had to pay attention to the size of her body over here and even still it doesn't met match perfectly

but it's close enough.

She looks like the same character in both angles.