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Character design 1
JazzBlack
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I used to draw at high school and have just recently taken it up again, im curently jus trying to produce characters to possibly work into a web comic. any constructive cryticism is welcome. Jus looking for opinions so please let me know wot u think 
JazzBlack on
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you obviously tried to do something with your linework (in the neck-area), which is something you you should really explore more.
It's also nice to see that you tried to put in a bit of character with the smile and the hand motion (holding the edge of his coat?). But his legs kinda town his expression down. If you're in a room and there are people standing around you, look around and try to spot how many people actually stand still with their feet at that weird 90° angle. (no offence to you or your drawing, me and everyone else uses that uninspired foot pose from time to time).
i'm not trying to push your art in any direction, but i think it'd be greatly improved if you added a bit of overal character and dramatic poses to the character. i'd drop the symmetry, and try to get more of a dominating line into the design.
I think that Steven Silver's blog ordeviantart should offer you some great examples of lively character design that could very well be within your artistic abilities. (meaning that he doesn't dazzle us with colours or textures, and generally the strenghts in his designs can be recreated using only a pencil)
Oh, and i presume you're using microsoft paint at the moment?
switch to GIMP, a free alternative to photoshop. It isn't perfect, but it's very, very free... It may seem complicated in the beginning, but just stick to the paintbrush and explore the program as you grow.
oh yeah, and i should've mentioned this first: if you want to get back into drawing, don't focus all of your effort on digital work. Use a pencil and draw draw draw. Try bigger pieces of paper every once in a while (i find that working on A3 removes quite some barriers for me).
Vary your methods and practice practice practice.
try to draw a person (from life or a pic) in 10 seconds. See the broad fast and strong lines you use? try to incorporate those into your designs.
Look around in the other threads here. Some people really give some great advice.
http://www.posemaniacs.com/
Draw in the musculature as well.
iv done about 3 so far. ye i can see why u said to do this now... this is helping, think i jus need to keep practicing these for a while until i get good at drawing somthing that resembles a person. Thank you Mustang
Seconded.
After you get decent at those, you might want to keep going and pick up some drawing books like, an anatomy book and Drawing on the right side of the brain. I say an anatomy book because, while posemaniacs is a great site, they only have 3d models so the muscles don't really act like they would in real life.