New character design WIP
so I've taken some advice, fixed my driver problem on my cintiq (finally) and did this.
I know it's not a big improvement over the last one but i'm posting it here in hopes to get some ideas on what i need to be improving on next.
(i just kind of threw in the headphones at the last minute, so those are just a line and i'm going to redraw those when I have time tomorrow. it's just 1AM and I'm really tired. 
and linework
I know it's not a big improvement over the last one but i'm posting it here in hopes to get some ideas on what i need to be improving on next.
(i just kind of threw in the headphones at the last minute, so those are just a line and i'm going to redraw those when I have time tomorrow. it's just 1AM and I'm really tired. and linework
Replies
What is this girl for? What is her personality type? Backstory? World she belongs to? Think of all these questions and maybe right a short bio on the character so we can see what you're trying to resolve here. This may be the best designed piece ever made but we honestly wouldn't be able to understand without context. Some of the great artist have built up a body of work that gives us context to their pieces. Marko Djurdjevic is a good example as sometimes he'll post solo characters like what you did but they are part of a series. If you don't know the context though people can only judge based off your illustration and rendering skills.
So, once you put a context you can do a lot of different processes. My favorite is variation. Is that the tail you absolutely want on her? What about trying to explore different animals to see how their tails work? What about clothes? Most artist will approach variation with the mindset of "But I already know what I want" and that is extremely dangerous because it either might not work out, or you might find something better.
Last bit for now that I would suggest looking at is other concept art. One of the reasons why people use characters that sit comfortably in a normal field of view with some level of contra-posture is because that is how we see people in real life. The camera angle you chose was a very zoomed in telephoto lense with the horizon line somewhere around her stomach, but the forshortening is extreme which makes it feel wobbly. With design never feel bad about tracing a pose and when starting off I would even encourage it. Find an art model or picture that you like, do a stick person in that pose and figure out what camera they are using. Tracing for solutions is a huge no no, but the human body has been solved for millions of years and no one cares (in design) if you have to bum the pose off an image.
Hope that helps man and I would start a single thread like Ayoub44 because progress is always more exciting to see than stand alone pieces.
I see, i've been sort of struggling with the idea of "what is useful" to a design team. I understand stylistically what is useful, which is why i am trying to up my skill level, but as for character design i'm a bit new. I know poses are useful, at least to portray their personality, not sure what else.
you probably just explained it too lol, but what do you mean by "solution"?
Personally I want whatever's best for the design. this actually was more of a doodle that turned into a fully rendered piece. I'll think about variation for my next project
Oh! and I forgot to answer this part.
This is actually kind of exploration at this point to create as many unique characters as possible. I'm not sure what she is for, I just wanted to portray a geeky/awkward character.
So this is the catch and this is why this lends itself towards more illustration. If I ask you to draw something from a book that has never been seen before, lets say the foundation trilogy because they are doing a tv series on that, what does it look like? What does the character Hari Seldon have on him that will make him entertaining? What hairstyle, what pants, does he have any props? These are all question that need solutions and there are a ton of good solutions.
You won't know if anything is good for the design if you're trying to design in a vacuum. You can create hundreds of thousands of unique characters, you could do 5 a day for the rest of your life if you wanted to but they may not be useful for anyone because you're not solving their problem.
As far as the posing goes, I seriously wouldn't worry about it. Your other fundementals (like perspective) are off and trying to pose while not knowing the basics is insanely difficult and time consuming cause you're just going to have to stab at the dark. If you want to try to show more character its easier with playing around with shape (compare wreck it ralph to fix it felix) or props (take undead from walock and compare warrior to warlock.)
As for perspective she's not supposed to be putting her hand forward if that's what you mean? More like this http://www.posemaniacs.com/archives/1550 but I lost the reference and just kind of went for something else. (dancing? idk lol)
So how do I make something that looks like i'm solving a problem without technically doing fan-art?
hmm.
Pixelovely has a collection of interesting stock photos that are good for practice, and the places they source stock from are pretty good for finding other poses that could be useful.
As for the designs, you just think of a context...? I'm not quite sure what you aren't getting so if I go over something you already know or do I'm sorry.
I always used to make my characters for personal IPs-- "ah, I just had this cool idea for a comic/game/movie" --but this works for "I just want to make a quick archetype design" as well.
You think about a genre, a universe, some basic rules for said universe, some super basic plot, maybe. Then you pull out a couple of tropes/an archetype and play on them to create an interesting character design. For instance.
From even this basic setting, you can still draw so many design choices. It's a first attempt at a full colony, so it's probably pretty conservative, plus the main character is military. Her hairstyle is probably cropped or out of the way in some manner. You can also pull props from this: what does she have to breathe and stay grounded? Do they do space walks, or have a gravity dome, or just always stay inside a station? Who hired her, that could give you some cool logo/design ideas for a security corp maybe. Also, all of this needs to look good from all angles at a medium distance, but especially interesting from behind, because the camera will probably be there most of the time, so a back and side ref are required.
And that's just making crap up off the top of my head. This also works in reverse, eg "I want to make an awkward but geekchic girl character, probably a creative-type". So, before you jumped right into an illustration, you'd think about her context (uni student? in an exchange program? Working at Google? Just moved out of home with her partner? What are her goals? What would she ALWAYS carry on her? If it's modern, you've got keys, phone, wallet at minimum. All these factors influence how she dresses, looks and animates, or convey overall design foundations). Additionally, you have to incorporate her awkwardness into her body, how she presents herself, her choice of items. Long and gangly limbs, a slouch, braces, always has her phone out pretending to text... there's a lot of things that say, specifically, "geek", "not confident", and so on.
So, pretend an art director or a designer just walked up to you, like *rolls dice*
"So we need a [NPC, minor character, hero character, villain, vendor, group, etc] with a [unique model, sharing a texture set for their uniforms, modular set of pieces for their bodies and armour]. They need [a prop] and need to fit into [a setting and style]." You can further prompt for story aspects if needed, but otherwise that whould be enough to give a character some sort of point of reference instead of floating in a void of "why do I exist...?".
Did I answer your question here?? or just raise more questions? Sorry if it's the latter, haha. :poly124:
That actually really did answer my question a lot!
so figure out the very basics of their world and create around that? I can do that, that description you gave gave me some ideas I might play around with.
My one question is, what if I use myself for reference? I'm always drawing, so this might be the only way to get a real model at times lol. And have you ever heard of DAZ studio? would you recommend that?
No @ DAZ studio! Use real reference until you have enough anatomy to make up your own poses and have them not be awkward (or enough money to hire a human to do it for you, or a really good friend). I'm 100% serious, 3D models aren't accurate and can do stuff that's awkward or impossible. Use things like this instead:
http://daposes.deviantart.com
http://artists.pixelovely.com/
http://www.3d.sk/ (poses option in the search categories).
It's much more convenient and accurate!
that is probably true, I'll use those then!
Thanks so much for the references.