Some people may also know, that I have HEAPS of characters that I use often and less often in the roleplays. And because of that, there are plenty of characters that barely get drawn anymore, which is a shame because their designs are nice.
I always strive to keep their designs simple but recognisable. A simple character design is usually the best, in my opinion. Isn't it ANNOYING when you have to look up a reference sheet for a character you yourself created, simply because you made the design so intricate you can't remember every detail? This process of having to look up markings, special attributes, and so on and so forth, tends to take the liveliness out of drawings, as it halts the drawing process and takes the spontanity out of it all. A simpler character design helps prevent this from happening.
IMPORTANT: I'm not saying this is the absolute truth, it's just what works for me. If you have an intricate design that you know by heart and have no trouble drawing straight out of your head, good for you! I know I can't do it, but if you can, I'm impressed and keep it up :)
SO! There are quite a few characters who are so old, that they'd never gotten character sheets/proper designs to begin with. Since some of these characters originated when I was sixteen, and I wasn't known for being consistent with my drawing style back then. Seriously, my drawings were butt-ugly, in my opinion, and I don't want to look at them because it physically hurts :D
First up, Grimm Mortis! He's the 'youngest' of the characters pictured here today, as he was created when I was in my second-to-last year of highschool. He still looked awful then, but what will you do?
Old design:
Grimm
And new:
Here he is, my newest sketch-design for Grimm. Pictured are his adult self and when he was an ickle 16-year-old. He's a silly mixed breed of demonic critters (papa was half vampire, half ava - birdpeople; momma was a succubus). He got attacked by humans when he was about sixteen-seventeen, which gave him his scars and damaged one eye severely, hence the eyepatch. I used to draw him very ...oddly, while I wanted him to have an air of sophistication while still remaining lanky and awkward.
Next up is Gustav!
Oh Gustav, how terribly I've ignored you, poor chap. The last two drawings I have of him online are from 2009 and 2008! That's like, forever ago! Doesn't help much that my drawings were absolutely terrible back then *shudder* Chins aren't pointy bits, past me!
2008: Gustav 1
2009: Gustav 2
And in 2008 I still had the nerve to start drawing tidbits next to my drawings with silly character info that shouldn't be part of a serious drawing. But I was a 17-year-old idiot, don't judge me. And in the 2009 one he's in his shorts even, with his boyfriend! Tsk tsk. Only drawing of him that year and he's in his underwear, for shame.
So, time to give the poor bastard an upgrade. *zzap*
That's better already. I'm still not entirely pleased, but it's an upgrade. It's still only a rough sketch, so I'll be improving his design more over time, but it's a start.
Second to last due for an update in this post, Hoshi!
Japanofiles, please lower the 'that's a girl's name!' signs! I KNOW. The name stays. He's always been called that from when I first started drawing him in 2006, and it won't change anytime soon. There are weirder names in the world. Such as Ashley. It's apparantly unisex...
Oh boy, this character has been through a lot of crappy drawing from me. Poor dear. But that's what you get when you get designed when your creator is only fifteen years old.... You get lousy drawings! Oh all the lousy drawings! Don't worry, I won't pester you with all of them. One terrible example is bad enough.
Horror of 2008: Hoshi
Drawing girly fellows so girly they were practically flat girls with male genitals downstairs was a ...thing at that age. *shudder* I've still got lots of improving to do, but I'm getting there. At least Hoshi now looks SOMEWHAT like a boy, rather than a girl with a penis somewhere.
I screwed up the part between nose and mouth. *kicks self* Ah well, I'll live. I really need to practise thing called 'digital painting' more. Whatever I did, I couldn't change that weird green hue that sits now between his nose and his mouth...
Last one, Hisoka De Winter. He's dutch, ahyuk. Well, partially. His momma's french, his papa is Dutch. But grew up in the Netherlands. Whatevz. He's basically my Gary Stu character, but I forgive him for it for I was sixteen when I created him. At least he's a -pretty- Gary Stu. I won't be explaining his backstory, it's so garbled and stuffy and packed with drrrrama, I'd be flooding this wordheavy blogpost with even more words. And this blogpost has far too many of them anyway. Too much wordin' going on here..
Old: Hisoka
Isn't even one with his lovely long hair. That's how old this character is. So old, I don't even have digitalised drawings of him of that period!
I always felt I drew Hisoka too young looking, and too immature/boyish, while he's supposed to be an elegant demon lord in his twenties. I'm still bad at aging my characters, but practice makes perfect so I'll just keep on trying.
Now I'm going to end this wordbarf. The pictures-words ratio in this post is way off! Bad me, bad!
No comments:
Post a Comment