Character Images

[ThirstingHeart]

OK, so when it comes to drawing my characters I always worry that I'm going to draw them differently.

"But Characters are supposed to look different..."

I understand this, but what I mean by "different" is the style. Like one will have a rounded face whereas another will have the pointed anime chin. So I was thinking, "What if I just draw two body types, older and younger, and then just make the hair, eyes, an clothes different?" Would this type of template be OK or would it look very odd to have characters sharing the same body shape? What do you guys do?

[LVUER]

For me, I draw them all from scratch (no base). Since using base like that will make my character looks the same, which is bad. It's ok to trace them, but don't use it directly and just change the face and hair... but then again, it's all up to you if you want to use base/doll.

[ThirstingHeart]

So don't use any base at all? You must have a lot of experience with drawing then! Do you have any pointers for drawing with out a base?

[LVUER]

Ah... I don't think I'm that good to give tip yet, I mean there are lots person that far better than me in LSF (like Deji). But here's mine anyway (just don't complain if it's not good) :
1. Practice a lot. This is not a tip, but very essential and important in art
2. Make new layer often. So if you make mistake, it won't affect your work that already done. Body, face, hair, skirt, shoes, pants. Each of those usually have their own layer.
3. Keep the POV consistent. Use one person/character with normal/average height as your guidelines.
4. Like I said, it's ok to trace (but not copying it). It's to keep the proportion consistent.

That's all I guess. If I remember anything else, I will post it here again.

[Ren]

You should also remember to try and proceed by levels: try not to complete every sprite at once. Draw all the character sketches at first and try to compare them all with each other, and since the drawings are just rough sketches, correcting any inconsistency will be easier (this may be obvious for some, but it's the first error I made myself, when trying to draw characters for a VN years ago).
This way you can fix the proportions and style first, so that everything is coherent. Then, you can think of inking and colouring everything.


Having a general base is actually a good idea, but if I was you I'd use it as a reference for style and proportions, rather than a template to apply your features on. Having your base next to your sprite in progress on your desk (or in another window on your monitor) can help you quite a bit in keeping things from looking like they've been drawn by two different people.

4. Like I said, it's ok to trace (but not copying it). It's to keep the proportion consistent.

I'm a bit confused by this; surely, if you trace something you put less effort in than if you had copied it? And the result is the same image anyway. . .

[LVUER]

Perhaps trace perhaps not a good word, my mistake.

Don't completely copy the line. Just having the outline barely visible so you could look at it when drawing at new layer.

[Starling]

I personally have this same exact problem. What I have done myself and it seems to have worked is this:

First I decided on an exact style by sketching out one of the characters (try one that is more average and not an extreme in personality) and then play around and practice sketching all of your characters in this style. Once you get a good feeling for it then I would go on to make the sprites. It helps to have all these practices/designs out while you work as well. The hardest part is translating a style from male to female and female to male.

Good luck