How would I go about drawing my character as a reference.

Bombshell

To make a long story short, working with a reference int he background is easier than going by a posed image alone.
People have said I need to fix up my references, well until now when modelling my own characters my reference have been posed and angled images.
I find it very difficult to draw appropriate references for 3D modelling.

I am intending to make this character, as designed and drawn out for a friend.

I would be more than grateful if someone could give me tips and tricks to drawing head on and side on vies of a character appropriate for 3D work. So this topic is more about my 2D art to help my 3D.

I will edit this post if I make any progress.

Thanks in advanced,
Bombshell

Dan!

draw front and side of your character, back if needed. make sure all elements line up like head shoulders feet etc. google image search for "character orthographic" -good luck.

Wrath

I think what you're looking for is commonly referred to as a "character turnaround". A google search for that term will give you hundreds of examples.

Bombshell

With this you can see my problem,
When drawing head on I tend to draw angled, it results in the picture not being aligned right and I end up getting messed up models.
However I see some references that are flawless, head on, side view, top-down, references, all lining up and fitting to the original design.
This is what I need help with.

skankerzero

photosop is your friend.

edit your ortho there to make it straight.

bounchfx

throw down some guidelines to work with. if you're using paper, grab a ruler and do a line for center of balance so you don't draw them on an angle, then when your front view is done, make a bunch of horizontal lines lining up with key features of your character, and build the side view off of that.

and if you're using photoshop, the same thing applies, only photoshop has 'Guides' that you can drag down from the ruler to help you align things (just click and drag from your ruler down to your canvas).

WillMac

You need to draw all of it on a horizontal, i have a layer for guides... line up the main parts and draw the ruff outline in both views, then build each ortho view up at same time. Hope it helps.

Massive black have some examples...


This shows I sketched the perpective shot and drew lines, then worked out the othos... was easier after them pink lines.


Then i guess you need to centre them on a square canvas for the 3D app as ref.

almighty_gir

i dunno... as i modeled more and more over time. i moved farther and farther from orthographic references when it came to character models. i just found that drawing a character in as many different poses or angles as possible helped me understand how it should look in 3d, better than any ortho could.