How do you push yourself in your character design and art?

aqua03 2021-05-06 16:41:27 UTC #21

Yeah, that's something I've been learning lately as well. Breaks are important. Especially for something that is more or less just a hobby like webcomics. I know I've been feeling pretty good actually getting off of a house sitting job where I didn't have my usual equipment to work on my main projects and it was just fun to sit down, relax, play video games, and doodle. (And hang with a really fun dog.) Breaks are important.

Scarlet_Cryptid 2021-05-06 16:46:02 UTC #22

Along with breaks, I like to set myself small, achievable goals per day. Like, my pages are hand-drawn, take a LOT of work to color, and there's no undo button (yay traditional art...), so I really have to pay attention and be careful. So I'll set myself a reasonable goal per day, like 'ink that page', or 'color two panels'. If I'm not trying to do too much in a given day, I can concentrate on doing my best with the limited goals, instead of stressing about getting an impossible amount done.

And if I finish doing my goal, and want to keep going cuz I'm in the groove? Awesome. Bonus points. I just have to be careful to listen to my brain and body when it tells me it's done for the day, and that continuing will result in... shall we say, 'declining quality'.

aqua03 2021-05-06 19:11:25 UTC #23

Yeah, more reasonable goals would be good as well. Because I've found out that my current path of "Sketch 4 pages every other day within two hours" and then progress beyond that in a similar "Gotta go fast" way has been pretty tiring if I'm to be honest. (It's good if you have a tight deadline like a manga contest, not so much for just a fun hobby...)

I'll try to aim for more reasonable goals in the future as well. That sounds like it could really be good also. thank you.

FafasMcMelt 2021-05-06 19:57:50 UTC #24

think about each facial feature separately, when I'm designing a new character I make a deliberate choice on how each of their facial features look. Angelo and Calliope are prime examples of this, Angelo's got long and thin eyebrows, eyes, nose, and a very "square" face, while calliope's got a short, but thick pair of eyebrows, big eyes, a tiny nose and a round face. It's not exactly realistic, but it looks fun.