How To Draw Unique Characters(napalmnacey).pdf

Napalm Nacey's

How to Draw Unique Characters!

Humans vary. We are all different and it's what makes us so interesting to look at.

Unfortunately this is also something often abandoned in sequential art in favour of

fluidity, speed and style. When something is not represented with realism and is

essentially a graphic shorthand representing in the human mind what we imagine

should be there, it's a cartoon. Think of Mickey Mouse. He looks nothing like a

mouse. But he serves as a mouse because of our imaginations. He is a stylised

mouse.

A lot of comics, cartoons and illustrations are also stylised. People write whole

graphic books like this, tell stories in animations like this. The beauty of the stylised

form is similar to the beauty of calligraphy. Line, flow, movement and expression.

Unfortunately as the art form develops, sometimes things are lost to convention.

One of those things is the individuality of character design.

Until recently In comics (which is essentially what this tutorial deals with but the

techniques here are certainly not exclusive to), characters were drawn extremely

stylised. Every man looked the same and every woman looked the same. They all

had the same face. This face varied from artist to artist, but essentially the

characters in comics were like zebras to us. All looking pretty much the same. The

only way we could tell them apart was through the cunning deployment of

costuming variations. Each superhero had their own costume and hairstyle.

The problem with this, though, is that sometimes there's more than one blonde in a

scene. And not all scenes were when the superfolk were on duty! I'm sure you've

found yourself mixed up between characters before, and you've only had the text to

guide you.

Lately things have been taking a swing towards realism. You might notice the much-

lauded (and derided) style of Greg Land, and seen that it's a style readers are

clamouring for. The main criticism of Greg Land is that his use of photo references

means that one character may have different features and hairstyles in one page.

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That is exactly what this tutorial is going to help you avoid. The techniques in this

school of drawing combine the ease and fluidity of the stylish old school short-hand

and the vivid characterisation of the modern realism. This is how I do comics. You

don't have to do your comics like this, I don't expect you to. But you might find

some useful stuff in this tutorial that you can take away and incorporate into your

own style.

So, let's begin!

1) Plan Your Features

When you pick up a Marvel or DC "How to Draw" book, they'll teach you one way

to draw faces. (I won't touch manga in this tute, but they, too, teach you one way to

draw and have the same weaknesses as that of old school Western sequential art).

Here is how they show you:

Well… something like that. I never have been able to get those Big Two faces quite

right! They're okay. They're faces and they do the job. As I said in the

introduction, though, when more than one person of the same colouring enters the

picture, we start having troubles! Even if you manage to separate them in the

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reader's mind through costume and hairstyle, the sameness of the faces tends to

add a sense of the generic to a scene. People start feeling like furniture!

The main reason why I like to vary my faces is because more than anything else, a

cleverly drawn expression and set of features can say more about a character than a

thousand speech bubbles. You have to get across a lot of information in a very small

space with comics. One cocked eyebrow, smirk or grin could change the entire

reading of a scene.

S0! You've got a character in mind! You've either already written the script or your

character is the main inspiration and everything is sort of flowing in around him or

her. Faboo! Time to plan their features!

That's right. Before you even think about anything else, you have to draw this

character. You have to carve them out of nothingness so they're an absolutely real

person in your head. You have to plan them!

Plan their eyes. Their lips. Their nose. Their cheekbones, chin, hair-line, ear

shape, nostril shape, eyebrow shape, forehead size, neck length, colouring – you

name it. Let's use my characters from Carrie and the Magnetism for example.

When I conceived of the characters, I knew there'd be three very different women in

a crime-fighting team.

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Carrie: Strong, steely, cool, calm, charismatic, yet warm and protective of the right

people. Blonde, muscular. Square

Andrea: Perceptive, sharp, sensual, alluring, charming, playful, emotional,

impulsive. Brunette, rounded. Oval/Circle

Ci-Ki: Airy, spiritual, deep, empathic, unsettling, eccentric, understanding.

Redhead, pointy (but with curves). Triangle

Now, this is just the very basic notes for the characters and it's pretty much what I

started with. Each character has a shape associated with them. This shape aids

their character design. ( Fig. iii )

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The Shortcut: Find a Source.

The next few steps in developing the character can be sidestepped by a simple step – find a

source. Find a face that suits your character and learn to appropriate its features.

Here are the people I found for my characters in Carrie:

You'll notice that the drawings don't look exactly like the actresses I picked. This is very

deliberate. I don't want to just use the actresses – I want the characters to have their own

faces. But the source lends a certain solidity and believability to that character design.

Here's what I do. I'll study that actor/actress' face until my eyes bleed. I'll close my eyes before

I got to bed and I'll see that face. (Not such a bad thing when one is studying such attractive

people!) I'll draw their features in isolated sketches; just an eye, just a nose, just a mouth, all

over the paper. I'll do some portrait sketches of my source. I'll even watch movies with the

source and take screen shots of their different expressions. I'll be able to see that source moving

in my head.

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