Character Design Challenges

Hi everybody! I’ve been really busy this summer, but I managed to find time to work on some personal projects. I wanted to try creating some different types of characters that I wouldn’t normally draw, so I decided to do a random character design challenge. I went to artprompts.org, which is a random art prompt generator, and selected the character generator. The first prompt I got was a necromancer. I felt like this left me with a lot of options and was not very specific to what kind of necromancer the character was or what they looked like, so I decided to try adding a second prompt. The second thing I got was “warden of the wild”, and this helped me get a better idea of  what the character should look like. I thought that a necromancer/warden of the wild would be more connected to forests and animals and should have a natural aesthetic.

Necromancer/Warden of the Wild

character concept sketches

I did some quick sketches to get an idea of what I wanted the character to look like. In order to connect the character with nature and death, I thought that the necromancer could wear animal bones, like antlers, skulls and animal teeth. I wanted the clothing that the character wore to be dirty and ragged, since I figured the necromancer would probably hide out in the forest a lot. I also tried out a lot of different designs for the head, and I briefly considered replacing the head with a skull, but that didn’t really work for me. When I knew what I wanted, I did a rough, larger-sized sketch as practice for my final draft.

  For the rough draft, I went with  a zombie-like pose, as if the character was being possessed spirits helping him re-animate the dead. Somewhere in the process I got the idea that the necromancer could bring to life the skeletons of dead animals in the forest, which would make sense since there aren’t usually a lot of  random graveyards or dead bodies lying around in the forest. I kept the antlers and animal teeth ideas, and I also showed the bones of the necromancer’s legs instead of leaving the flesh on. I thought that this would make the character more creepy and make it seem like the necromancer is part skeleton.

For the final draft, I kept the same basic pose but changed the poses of the animals. I drew the skeletons of a fox, rabbit and crow and then colored in and outline around them that mimics the animals’ outer appearance. For the necromancer’s outfit, I drew a tunic with a pattern on it mimicking the rib cage and underneath, an old, shredded robe. I used various green and red copic markers (alcohol-based) to create contrast within the piece. The red glow spilling out of the necromancer’s mouth and around his hands is the magic which he is using to re-animate the animals’ skeletons. As I was drawing, I figured out a bit of background for the character. Because he’s a warden of the wild, the necromancer protects the forest by re-animating the skeletons of dead animals and using them to scare away people, such as lumberjacks, who are trying to cut down trees or harm the forest. However, there is a price for this terrible power. Every time the necromancer uses his power, it takes away some of his life force, so bit by bit, he turns into a skeleton. I think that this would actually be a cool short story, so in the future I might write one and post it.

Overall, I really like how this piece turned out. I had a lot of fun doing this random character design challenge, so I decided to do another one.

Futuristic Riot Police

When I returned to the random character prompts generator, the first thing I got was a female body builder. Like with the necromancer prompt, I felt like that wasn’t specific enough for a unique character, so I tried a second prompt. The next one was a white-haired boy with a long black scarf.  These two prompts seemed contradictory to me, so I went for a third prompt, which was “futuristic riot police.” I realized that I could make two separate characters from the first two prompts and have them both be on a futuristic riot police squad.

riot police officers concept sketches

I looked at photos of riot police officers’ uniforms and then came up with some sketches for how I wanted my riot police to look. It was difficult for me since riot police already look pretty futuristic and are a bit reminiscent of  video game characters. I spent some time experimenting with the helmet design, since the helmet was one of the elements which would make the characters look more futuristic. I also took some time watching video tutorials and studying how to draw muscles. I don’t generally draw characters with a lot of muscles, but since I was going to draw a female bodybuilder I figured I should know how to draw her properly.

I did another, larger rough sketch before starting the final draft, just like I did with the necromancer. One of the ways I tried to convey the futuristic element was through the technology. The riot police officers have rocket boots, jet packs, tasers and ray shields which materialize when you press a button instead of the plastic shields that riot police officers have to carry today. One issue I ran into was how to convey the female officer’s muscles when she was wearing armor. I drew plates over the abdomen mimicking the shape of the abs and chest muscles. I also left some parts of the outfit around the arms and legs skin-tight so that the muscles would show. The problem I had with the male officer was how to show his white hair from under his helmet. I outlined his eyebrows and left them white. I also gave him a scar to hint at a bit of a violent backstory.

For the final draft, I used copic markers again. I picked a dark navy blue for most of the armor, with a bright yellow-orange between the cracks for contrast. I also added splotches of light blue here and there, most noticeably for the ray shield. I tried to add a blue tinge to everything covered by the ray shield, but it didn’t come out quite like I wanted it to. I added a darker hexagonal pattern to the shield. I particularly had fun drawing the fire coming from the rocket boots, and I did add the black scarf to the white-haired man’s outfit even though I don’t think it would really be practical for a police officer.  This was another really fun project and since I enjoyed both my character design challenges I might do more in the future.

Spaced Girl

This last project is not actually a character design challenge but a character drawing I did for a friend. I had the opportunity to hang out with my awesome artist friend phaedrizzle for an entire week ( you can visit her here on Instagram). She is an insanely prolific and creative artist and I loved looking at her art. Her avatar character is named Spaced girl, who is fun astronaut who likes listening to music. I decided to draw Spaced Girl just for fun. As a disclaimer, I did not design this character, I only redrew her in my own style.

Even though I don’t have the exact same copic markers that phaedrizzle uses when she draws Spaced Girl, I think I did pretty good. I also got to try a new technique with the copic markers: using a colorless blender to blend colors together for a galaxy effect, something that phaedrizzle showed me.

I hoped you enjoyed all these character design challenges. I encourage you to try your own. Hopefully I won’t be as busy for the second half of the summer as I was for the first, so I’ll have more time for drawing. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more posts!