Character Designs 2 - Daimon Roughs

Posing Roughs
Posing roughs
Costume Roughs

Updating while I sip tea and watch a snowstorm outside, and be damn glad I don't have to go anywhere today. So this is the second batch of character designs, this time featuring our other main character. His name is Daimon, and he's a demon, and rather easy to get along with.

Designing costumes for Daimon is much easier than for Ashley. For one thing, Daimon never wears colour, so I don't have to worry about matching anything or using the right ones. There isn't really an in-story reason for this... I guess it's just because it looks cool. The only colour Daimon has on him at all is his eyes, which are blue, so if I ever use colour I use a shade of that. When I colour him I usually use blues to shade his hair so it's different than his skin. There IS an in-story reason for all of this but I'm not explaining it now.

He also has a sort of uniform he has to wear. Well, I guess it's not really a uniform, just that his clothes need to be suitable for you know, fighting monsters. So I started with some of the things you usually see him wearing, like a good pair of boots. In these rough sketches and in some past drawings you'll see his boots with these big buckles on the front - I always had them just because I liked the way they looked. But over the years I found that these boots sadly do not exist, at least not in a sensible, monster fighting fashion. So I got rid of them in favour of more realistic strappy ones, and added in buckles on those so they stand out.

I don't usually get fancy with pants on male characters, just because guys tend not to get fancy with pants period. Girls have all kinds of options for what to put on the lower regions but guys pretty much just have pants or shorts. I once again tried to decide on whether to put his pants in his boots or outside, and went with inside for pretty much the exact same reason I did with Ashley: it looked better and made more sense. The belt was a necessity - Daimon always wears this belt on the job. It's like Batman's belt, it's got all kinds of useful crap in it.

The sweater, oddly enough, was where I had some problems. I knew he had to wear a sweater of course, because he's a sweater type of guy and because it was going to be cold on the Lake. I envisioned a kind of millitary sweater - you know, those grey ones with the patchy things on the shoulders? That's what I wanted. But when I drew it, I just didn't like the way it looked. Just goes to show you with costume designing, like with actual clothes, sometimes things look cool on the rack and look terrible on the body. So I went with just a plain grey turtleneck.

Overall, Daimon's costume is rather plain, but has kind of a sleek and sensible feel to it, which suits him. I don't know if I mentioned this when designing Ashley, but I always try to design the two of them to compliment each other - Ashley wears a lot of colour while Daimon has none, Ashley goes for cushy and bulky while Daimon is form fitting. I did some action sketches to see how he looked. Action sketches for Daimon are pretty easy as well, since he fights, so it's easy to pick poses for him.

Next week I'll have the turn sheet, expression sheet, head turn, and colour final for Daimon.

Character Designs - Ashley - Part Two

Ashley in Colour
Ashley's Expression Sheet
Ashley's Head Turn

Ashley's Turn Sheet

Here's the last of the character designs for Ashley. This is all finalized work from the rough - The turn sheet, the head turn, the expression sheet, and the colour. I did these on slightly bigger sketchbook paper - 9X12, save for the colour which I did in my regular sketchbook because the paper was better for colours. They're in non-photo blue with mechanical pencil for the lines, and the colour was done with gel pens, prismacolour markers, and prismacolour pencil crayons.

We'll start with the turn sheet. I do a different turn sheet for every outfit, depending on the variation. This one needed a full turn because it was completely different from the basic outfit I usually draw her in, but if the outfit changed by, say, she took off her hoodie and the only thing I needed to change was her shirt, same pants, I wouldn't do a full turn, just a half one of her waist up. Actually, this outfit does change a bit in the comic, with addition of a life-jacket, which I did just a rough sketchbook turn for. But I'll show that with the other extras. Most animation turns require a three quarter front and back as well, or in place of the full front and back. I prefer to do the fulls because I think they cover more, without any unecessary extras. Plus, drawing the full back is hard, and practice makes perfect. I start with a basic front sketch, then add in my horizontal lines when I'm sure it's the size and placement I want. I do the rest based on those lines, and make changes along the way until it's perfect. This is probably not a good system, as it involves a lot of eyeballing, but it works for me.

Next I do the head turn, which is pretty much the same. I start with my basic sketch, then do the horizontal lines, then follow them for the rest and make changes. With the head turn I do a three quarter shot instead of a full back or a three quarter back. I do this because I think three quarters for the face is especially important, since it's what you see so much, and because for a character like Ashley, the back of the head is very simple and doesn't really need a close-up. I got it pretty much down with the full body turn. If a character has something important or complicated on the back of their head, then I'd show it. I always have rougher sketches of stuff like that if I need them. I also have roughs of her right profile as well, because there's some difference with her bangs and earrings on that side - she has only two pieces to her bangs and two earrings - if the character was the same on both sides I wouldn't bother.

I must confess - this expression sheet is actually old. I did this about a year ago, for a portfolio, and used it because my style hasn't changed much and I was happy enough with what I'd done. Everything else is new. My only gripe is that the drawings are small. Anyways, for most expression sheets in animation they require at minimum five basic expressions - neutral, happy, angry, sad, and surprised. I've of course done millions of expressions for Ashley, but these basic ones for a finalized sheet are good for me. I like to do expressions as warm ups or when I can't think of anything else to draw, starting with these five and variating from there. I'll probably end up doing another sheet for Ashley in the future, I'm never happy with these for long.

And finally the colour. I'm not sure how necessary this was, but I like to have coloured models around just in case. She'll most likely appear in colour in the cover so it'll be usefull then. I just do a basic neutral standing pose and expression. This also helps to give me a solid idea of the texture and details of her outfit, things that might get missed in turn sheets, since they're mostly about shapes. This wonderfully highlights my constant struggle to find the perfect colours for jeans. I wanted these jeans to look old and faded, I think I did a solid job. I'm happy with them.

So that's it for Ashley. Next, the same things except for Daimon, the other main character. Thanks!