For this exercise, I was tasked with creating a superhero (it didn't need to be a serious mainstream hero). The end result needed to be a model sheet as well as supporting sketches of the world they inhabit.
I started with a notepad, trying to think about my hero. I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of choice I had. My ADHD really kicked in and I found it impossible to move forward with anything. My brain just couldn't handle so many potential directions.
I tried getting a point of inspiration by focusing on the name first, constantly cross-referencing to see if a name that I had written down had been used in one of the many panoplies of superheroes already out there.
I thought about the kind of character I wanted to make, and I started to get a sense of direction that at least gave me a bit more focus. I wanted the character to be British (or at least with the sense of humour you find in British comics) as an antidote for the very American dominion of superheroes. I also wanted them to have a sense of normality about them, I really dislike the over-sexualisation of female characters and the unrealistic body images that superheroes project onto both sexes.
The idea of being British-centric made me think about a Marvel comic I saw advertised last year called The Union which was designed to create a UK-based superhero team. One of their members was called Kelpie. This reminded me of the comic I made for Illustration Sketchbooks, with the mythical water-horse as the antagonist. This inspired me to think about making my character inspired by British folklore. A few random names also popped into my head! I came up with the following list:
Time-Travelling Space Cowboy
Pug
The Bovinator
Redcap - wicked gnomes that wear caps soaked in blood, who have to kill every few days or disappear
Spriggan - a woodland imp/sprite
Spring-heeled Jack - a character reported in Victorian times with a mask and bat-like wings who could jump from lamp-posts to rooves, and whose eyes glowed with blue flames. Basically think of a Victorian Steampunk Batman/Daredevil.
Moor-beast - a riff off of the beasts of Bodmin and Dartmoor
Grindylow
The problem I had was that many of these folklore characters are designed to scare people, so I wasn't sure if they would be suitable as heroes. But that didn't mean that I couldn't subvert that notion, and perhaps create an anti-hero. I left the list for a bit, and let my subconscious work the problem. And thankfully a new name popped into my head the next day - Leyline.
I thought about a character whose powers come from the mythical energy lines that connect key points on the Earth's surface and as such the character can use, manipulate and transmute that energy to use it directly or to control aspects of the elements. This was good enough for me. A focus. I hit the sketchbook.
It felt like I had forgotten how to draw. I obsessively poured over reference photos of superhero poses and anatomy textbooks. You see I even laid out a pretty good outline of a male figure. But I hated that it looked so stiff. I felt myself being pulled again into the space where I needed everything to be anatomically perfect. I started locking up again.
I did another sketch which I quite liked, but as I was colouring it in I realised that I had subconsciously just extended the character design for my children's character in the last exercise.
There were a few things that I liked from the image that I thought I could take forward. I liked making the character female, with normal proportions. I also liked the glowing hands as a way that her powers manifest. The tac-vest ended up being too militaristic for me, and the staff, while cool, when combined with her powers felt too much like a Gambit (X-Men) derivative.
So, again, I was stuck. The drawing was much better and felt like mine, but it was missing the humour I love. I walked away from my drawing board pretty despondent. Sitting on the sofa, my phone sent me a notification. Not long ago, one of my favourite comic creators Brett Parson (who currently does the artwork for Tank Girl) started a Patreon, where members get to see roughs, inking videos and sketchbook artwork.
My phone had pinged to let me know that Brett had uploaded a new post.
I remembered that when I had joined as one of the first members Brett had sent me a message to thank me, and had encouraged me to message him if there were any specific topics that I wanted to see. At the time I thought this just to be a templated message going out to all new members. I mean, it probably was, right? But I thought about it more - what if I took him up on it? So I wrote him a message explaining my discomfort.
"...I find that every time I sit down to draw, I get obsessed with my images being 'correct' - it's almost like everything becomes some kind of fine art challenge that has to be life-drawing accurate. Do you have any advice on how I can 'let go', practice exaggeration and have more fun with my character drawing?"
To my amazement, he replied!
Hey Dan! I have the same problem some times... I get sucked into these little rabbit holes of worrying about what people are going to nit pick when things aren't anatomically correct or out of perspective. I'll burn tons of time trying to work things out perfectly and in the end I'm left with a much more stiff and uninteresting final product. I find the more I draw from reference the more this happens so I try to work out of my head as much as I can. Even if I use a reference, look it over and then try to step away and work out of my memory if I can. Other than that I also to soak up as much cartoony work as I can... Alex Toth's more cartoonish side, Jack Davis, Tex Avery the list goes on. At this point I'm drawing I think I keep kind of an arsenal of cartoony shortcuts and tricks in my head that I use without thinking. Things I've borrowed from other artists or figured out by playing around. I used to try really hard to have a more traditional comic book style, it wasn't until I stopped fighting my urge to draw things cartoony that things felt right and I quickly found my own style and voice. I think just try to be yourself and draw however it feels comfortable is the best advice anyone can give. That and to have fun with it, play and get weird you know? Hope that helps! :) - Brett Parson
I was bowled over, and so seen. This was exactly how my brain felt. So I decided to take Brett's advice to heart. I started by thinking of all the things that really influenced my visual language. I found a handy template online and I put the influences into the template. I printed it out and stuck it in front of my desk to remind me of my visual DNA.
One of the things that I did was acknowledge the visual influences of my childhood. Growing up as a British kid in Saudi Arabia, my influences were a curious mix of British and American. I have been so preoccupied with my work being taken seriously or worrying about how I might use it in my day job (and justify doing the degree) that I have felt very real shame every time I want to do things in a cartoony way.
The fact is that The Dandy, Beano and Beezer were staple reading for me. I recovered a number of my old Dandy annuals, and so I thought I should look at them again with a student's eye, and see how they constructed their images so that I could learn my own tips and tricks. As much as Brett's work is a huge influence on me, I don't want to copy him. The thing I admire most about his work is the way that he embraces a cartoony and humourous sensibility, but his work is still realistic enough to not infantilise the subjects.
So I spent some time drawing Desperate Dan and characters from his strips from one of my old annuals.
I loved how expressive these characters could be with just a few lines. The eyes, in particular, worked particularly well and I feel a lot of commonalities from Sydney's Padua's drawings of Babbage in the Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (Padua, 2016).
At this point, inspired and determined, I decided to think less and do more. I took to my PC and decided to construct the character digitally. I first laid out some construction skeletons - drawing completely out of my head was a little outside of my skill range right now!
The next layer on top of this I built my character. I did this pretty organically, using what I was drawing to inspire me and come up with new aspects to her personality and background.
I decided to make her a bit of a rock-chick. The outstretched arm begged to have something out into the hand, and so I subverted the idea of her powers being seemingly Arthurian, almost medieval, and someone asking her to bring a weapon - so she brings her "axe". Next, I added in pencils but did these with a normal brush (something I had learned from Brett Parson).
This allowed me to flesh out details, and the digital aspect allowed me to experiment without getting the page messy. You can see in the middle image that I laid in how I thought the head would sit - it seemed squashed to me. The proportions look technically correct, but the final result still doesn't look 100% right to me - something I'd address if doing more with this character. Next, I added digital inks.
I'm pretty happy with the inks, I didn't try and emulate the eye construction from my sketchbook this time, as I didn't feel comfortable with it yet, but I want to do more in that style to see how I can blend my approaches. I'm generally happy with the work, but there are a few niggles that I would improve if re-drawing. Especially the bass guitar, where I forgot to narrow the neck towards the nut!.
Taking a fairly conventional approach to colouring (for time's sake more than anything) I added in reference flats, then coloured them into a palette that looked appealing.
I wanted to experiment with different colour schemes, but time was against me and I needed to finish the exercise. My next approach was to add in shades and highlights using adjustment layers, that way I could change the colours non-destructively in the future.
I was almost there. For some of the shading on the boots I wanted it to be a lot darker, so used some halftones to get the effect I wanted. I also used halftones to add stripes to her shirt - a little nod to all the naughty characters in The Beano and Dandy, whilst still being in keeping with the rock-chick style. The inking lines felt a little bit too dominant, so the next thing I did was to experiment with colour holds, changing some of the black lines to be coloured instead.
Happy with where the character had got to, I added a background to the page and a title. I also added notations in the first-person tense of the character, to give it a flavour of humour and characterisation.
The last part of the exercise was to give things a sense of the world they inhabited. I went back to my sketchbook and started to think of other characters she interacts with. I then had an idea to convert my original list into some characters. I envisaged some of them would be part of her team, whilst others would end up be antagonists.
I really liked the idea of the cat and imps being her teammates. I also played around with a very rough cover sketch.
Whilst this exercise has been really tough for me, I think that reaching out for help from someone who inspires me has been a significant breakthrough for me. I feel empowered to 'get weird' as Brett puts it!
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