For this exercise, I had to invent a character based on these prompts:
Young Detective
Space Kid
Animal Character
I needed to sketch up rough ideas, then draw a finished colour character design at A3 size.
I started with mind maps to explore the different prompts.
After the exploration I had, at first, wanted to try an animal character: but I didn't feel confident in creating expressions in anthropomorphic animal characters. So instead I went back to the Young Detective prompt and decided to explore an idea I had for a paranormal detective. I tried to get into the character more before I started drawing.
My first steps were to explore thumbnails - I was really just trying to explore different shape language and silhouettes .
I came close to a few ideas which I progressed by sketching away without much planning (letting my imagination do the driving), but the more I went down this route (and started using references to work out poses) the more the character seemed to age. So my next step was to consciously try and de-age the character, and I tried to explore some portrait sketches to experiment and adjust proportions. But still, after all of this, my character didn't seem to have any life.
I remembered the exercises I did in Illustration Sketchbooks, and tried to think about how I could use techniques like SCAMPER to look at the problem from different angles.
I ended up asking myself the question, instead of investigating paranormal things, could the detective themselves be paranormal?
So I rand with the idea, sketching out some ideas, and letting myself just have some fun with it. When I got to my third sketch, I felt like I had something. I decided to run with that idea more, and developed the doodle into a couple of rough portrait sketches.
Moving to a digital format, I started to lay down pencil drawings for the new character.
I decided to lay the A3 sheet out a bit like a model sheet, showing the character from different positions but also showing some contextual sketches to show different emotions and actions. I had come up with a name for my character and wanted to lean into parts of her character design that spoke to a 20's gumshoe. That made me think about the term Private Investigator, except that I decided to re-use that as 'Paranomal Investigator' as a play on words. I also gave her a ghostly dachshund side-kick. Well... because I thought it was fun.
When it came to the colouring, I really wanted to make the character glow with spectral light. But I was not sure how I could do this. So I had the idea that could use a dark background instead. I inverted the pencil colour and placed it on a black background.
Rather than start with the line work, I actually started by adding in the blocked flat colours, experimenting with a limited gamut of colours.
I mostly went for variations around blue-greens, but also added some yellow-greens for details. The dog was primarily yellow-green so as to balance and contrast to the main character. Next, I added in the linework, opting for a bright, light colour in the gamut to give the character an ethereal tone.
Once I was happy with this basic rendition, I decided to add more to it to give it some life. First, I added in some selective shading. This was quite subtle, and I only really wanted to add in shading to add definition to the planes.
After that, I used a separate layer to add in some effects. I used a semi-opaque white layer to add the glass to the magnifying glass, and a separate white layer that had a strong gaussian blur applied. I used this to give the like linework a glow - particularly areas like skin to get a sense that the glow was coming from her, not her clothes.
Finally, I decided to give myself a go at doing some hand lettering, which I ended up being really happy with. And my character was complete! My wife really wants me to develop some stories for Sally Spectre, and I think that might be a fun project!
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