Sister Claire

So, now you have your concept!  Time to start sketching!  There are already some really great sketching tutorials out there, so I’m not going to get too in-depth as far as how I construct a character- I think that is a pretty huge topic that deserves its own long tutorial.  For now, here are some screencaps I took of my progress, with some annotations! (I do most of my art in  Photoshop CS5, although a lot of the basic techniques here can be applied to other programs or drawing on paper.)

First off, make a new file, and make sure you create it at 300dpi! Not only will this ensure that the file is large/high quality enough to print, it will also make it a lot easier to color.

Here are some brush settings I tend to use when sketching.   It really depends on what I feel like at the time, but there are two settings I usually use for a sketch.

Hard Brush:

And Soft Brush:

I tend to use the soft brush more for painterly/realistic style artwork (see my Nightingale gallery for examples) although I sometimes use it for Sister Claire, too.  Because the soft brush requires more pressure overall to get any visible lines, I don’t use it much  because it aggravates my tendonitis. In this case, I decided to go with the hard brush.  =P

1. I start off with a really rough sketch.   Tip- arms should be the last thing you put on a fullbody sketch. The main focus should be on the distribution of weight on the feet and balance of the body.  It’s best if you catch all the proportional and balance errors as early as possible.

2. I made some small adjustments to the right foot, and added some more details/limbs.  At this stage, the character’s personality starts to shine through!  Again, try to make sure you are totally satisfied with the proportions and pose before getting any further. Something that helps me a lot is to flip the image horizontally (or if I am working on paper, flip the drawing over and hold it up to a light to see through it.)  I find this helps me notice some errors I may have overlooked after looking at the picture for so long.

As you can see,  I always use a cross to place features evenly on the face and chest.

3.  It’s a good idea to leaving the details till last, such as hair, clothes, etc.  Now that the basic figure is all sketched up, try experimenting with a few different ideas. (One of the many reasons I love working digitally- I can save as many different versions of a drawing as I want!)  You’d be surprised what a huge different some small details can make!

4. Now we get to the really fun part! I make a new layer and start drawing finalized lineart over the sketch. When working on Sister Claire, I would do this step in Illustrator, to get smooth vector outlines. But since this was just a sample illustration, I took the faster route and simply used the brush tool in Photoshop.

5. Finished lineart!  I deleted the layer underneath, since I won’t need to use it anymore.  When I want to color a picture in Sister Claire style (as opposed to my looser more painterly style) I need the lineart to be non-rasterized. What is rasterization, you ask?

(Why is this important? Check my previous tutorial here.) Since my lineart is anti-aliased, I need to change it to aliased for easier coloring. First, you have to make sure the lineart layer has no transparency on it, and the best way to do this is to merge it with a new white layer:

Now I use the “Threshold” adjustment tool, which is basically an extreme version of “brightness/contrast.” It forces all the pixels to either pure black or pure white.

You can adjust the slider back and forth to make the lines thicker or thinner.  Keep in mind that the preview always looks more jagged than the final image will be when you hit “ok.”

Now you can use the fill tool to lay out all the basic colors, with no worries about ugly halos! Woo!

6. I fill in the basic colors on the whole figure:

I am very finicky about my color palettes, so this step tends to take me a while.  I think about what color symbolism I want to use, what sort of associations the colors have, and if they have good contrast with each other on the character.  It’s a lot to keep in mind, and easy to get overwhelmed if you overthink it too much!  The good thing is that there’s always the “undo” option. =P

See more details on my coloring method on my previous tutorial!

Tada! Finished character design! =)

Now, as an extra bonus, here is an alternate color scheme I had been considering.  I still like it a lot, and might use it for another character:

Hope this was helpful! I have some ideas for more Character Design tips in the future, so stay tuned. =)

<– Part 2 : Referencing!