Character Creator: Superheroines

This lesson I’ll take you through the preliminary phase for designing a compelling female comic book character.

Whenever I’m trying to brainstorm new ideas and get them down onto the page fast, this is the process I go through, and it’s a necessary process especially when it comes to designing female comic book characters. This is a rapid fire approach, designed to get your imagination fired up from the moment you begin drawing.

The key to sketching up a rough concept for a potential character design is to keep your drawing light and loose. 

This way you’re not tying yourself to the first idea you come up with, nor are you investing so much time into it that you end up committing too early on. Every preliminary sketch is changeable and if need be disposable as you explore and experiment with numerous design options.

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Keeping things loose also takes the pressure off, and allows your mind to transition from a state of overanalyses, into one of creativity. That allows this whole process to flow a whole lot smoother, and for you as the comic artist, to immerse yourself in the task at hand and lose yourself in the pure act of drawing. 

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This is the ideal mindset to be in at the early stages of development, when your character is first being conceived. And it also helps to alleviate the pressure many of us feel when faced with a blank canvas.

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I talk about the importance of allowing you to make mistakes and mess up during the preliminary phase of your character sketches. 

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Perfectionism can catch us off guard, and one of the big takeaways from this lesson in particular is how much better the outcome of your designs can be if you’re able to avoid it. 

Perfectionism has always been something I’ve struggled with myself, and the sketches you’re about to see me draw up in this video have been incredibly therapeutic in allowing me to let go of it.

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Since we’re designing female comic book character’s here, we’ll be discussing what it takes to come up with a striking Superheroine concept, that’s relatable, memorable and makes sense as a design with consideration to their backstory and abilities. I’ll also cover the idealized proportions, anatomy and body type one might expect to see when presented with a character falling inside the Superheroine archetype and why exactly that is. 

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Thanks for watching, and I hope you take away a ton of insight from this lesson.

Enjoy,

-Clayton

 

Software Used: Manga Studio

 

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