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Jun 2015

While working on the next page of Legend of John the Parakeet12, I've had to make a concept design of a new character that shows up. This is a character I've actually had for a while, but haven't drawn her in this outfit before:


Even though the style in my comics is supposed to be simplistic, I'd say that this is the most complex design I've made so far.
So, what's the most complex design of/for a character you've drawn?

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    Jun '15
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    Jul '15
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Ooooh, I don't know! I have so many characters! D: And I also have a tendency to put a lot of details into them - and then swear at myself afterwards when I have to draw them over and over again in comics.

This one is a pretty good example;


I kinda went all out on the frills and the skirts and the armour there. She hasn't got a comic of her own (... yet), but you can see how that outfit would be kind of a pain to draw repeatedly. D:

My main characters from Grassblades6 kind of fall on both sides of the fence, though - Masahiro has a LOT of fiddly little details and lots and lots of clothing layers, while Akane is fairly simple.

complex (outfit) designs I've no issue with, so it's a little hard to define what would be the most complex, but keeping the facial structures of my characters consistent is. So in that case, I suppose just the main Machucan's facial structures in Hacheeachkee have been my most complex challenge yet.


Especially when 3 of them are related.

I always try to remind myself, if you removed their hair, color, and any accessories from their character, would you be able to tell them apart from each other simply by the structure of their face?

My most complex ? Hmm, good question. I might say it's when I design a character for someone.


Those are my two most recents, and the patterns on the samurai took a long time, but the young boy took a quite longer time because of his tattoo and his pants with patterns.

For Echo2, I tend to not put a lot of patterns and great skirts or a lot of decorations on armors. Because it would take me too much time to do it ! Some of the characters have patterns, but they aren't the biggest things.
The only one that can be "complex" for now is a character to come.


But I don't think she's really complex !

@AnnaLandin Wow. Her outfit would definitely give quite a struggle to draw repeatedly. That being said, I like how much detail was put into it.

@Marchen Cool wings.

@MylCreates Yeah, I know what you mean. Keeping the horns proportional and in the right shape certainly sounds like a challenge.
And now looking back at the fan art I made of Sketaldaz a while back, I think I drew his horns kinda off. Oh well, it was fun when I did that, anyway.

@getsuart She may not seem complex to you, but you certainly put a lot of detail on her armor.

@ImSoEmzie Very interesting. I like his scythe.

My designs used to be pretty complex when I first started out comics. Stuff that looked like this.


But as arthritis got worse I had to start putting less details into my drawings, so complex turned into this

Now my arthritis is very bad, I should not be drawing but I still like drawing and telling stories through comics, so I've had to tone down my complexity in character designs significantly to be able to continue, now complex for me looks more like this.


Well, I have two characters that are very complex. One is in design, the other is in concept.

This is the one that's pretty complex in design. Swords and weapons everywhere. Let's just say, this is a character who appears MUCH later in Time Gate, and you do NOT want to mess with this fucker.

There is only ONE OTHER PERSON in the ENTIRE universe in Time Gate who can actually put up a fight with this guy and have a chance at beating him, and it's the one character, while not having the most complex design of all, who has the most complex BACKSTORY in all of Time Gate, and is the only character that spans EVERY SINGLE BOOK, through the course of HUNDREDS of years (yeah, the story in Time Gate goes on for ages) and it's THIS MOTHERFUCKER:

Fun part is he's appeared in Time Gate several times already, just in the backgrounds of some pages >w> (and he's going to be elaborated on a bit more in the next volume, at least enough to give him a bit more ground of explanation). This one guy carries such a huge part of Time Gate on his shoulders and so far, he's mostly just hiding in the background, waiting to be discovered, huehuehuehue ~

Yup, she's the only one who has that complexity for now, but at least she's a mage, so she won't move a lot compared to the other soldiers ! stuck_out_tongue

@kurapikasuki Your drawings are still really cool, I like all the designs ! smiley

I'm torn between two of my characters CX
First is my main character, Kestrel:

Drawing this coat once or twice is quite calming. Drawing it on every picture... well, not so calming CX and I still have no idea how am I going to draw this dress of her in black and white:


Another one is Rikka, and while her outfit design is really simple, drawing her hairstyle is slowly killing me CX

Oh, I mentioned that her outfit is really simple, right? Well, that's until she wears her rituals' cloak.

That's going to be fun to draw ; v;

@Caelestie ...yeah, that looks fun to draw in several frames... kill me if I had to do that.
@igneriss I like that purple dress a lot!


I really like this thread! I have a penchant for collecting complex character designs, because I am VERY BAD at designing characters. Most of my characters are very plain.

Most of my complex designs go to armour... this guy and his similarly-armoured coworkers are probably the most complex so far. And unfortunately I have to draw a lot of them. ļ¼ˆĀ“Š“ļ½€ļ¼‰

In my story those are called royal paladins (that guy is a glaieul paladin in particular) and they're very distinct-looking from the rest of the military branch they're a part of.

heheehehe well I get fine with it, it just a lot of patience. though I have yet to draw the second design in my comic since this character does not wear armor often. Also I like your armor design!

10 days later

I guess the most complex of designs I've done would be this pair, from my comic "Was bleibt, ist Feuer"

The Mk.3 Firefox tankbuster was supposed to look as though it was built with existing and newer tech, so I dumped in overlapping plates, hydraulics, steel-hosed cables, etc. etc.

The pilot's suit- what Kayla is wearing -was drawn to look sleek, yet tough. So I ended up with a partial armor design, looks sleek, light, yet tough. Reaction control thrusters were also another thing that had to be integrated, which then led to the bulky looking boots.

The markings were also quite difficult. I find myself looking back at this whenever I draw the suit again hahah.
Geometric designs with a lot of details are always tedious, yet fun to draw.

12 days later

This is the first iteration of a character I'll be introducing next update of Heroes for Ghosts 1. Admiral Ket is from an alien race with translucent skin, muscles and internal organs. I've still got some work to nail it perfectly and I imagine I'll regret this design every time she make an appearance! (My wife thinks I'm crazy!)

My characters wear kind of normal clothes for the moment, so there's nothing to complicated there. I have drawn some detailed stuff for other characters though. My He-man didn't have much in way of armour, but all his veins and lumps and bumps took AGES:

2

Then there's my turtles design. Although I can't take credit for coming up with all the armour and patterns, they're referenced from old ukiyo-e woodblocks.

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