Growing as an Artist - The Beauty of Creating Original Characters

Happy Monday!

It's been a week since I've had a chance to sit down with my computer, so I'm feeling very much behind on things... but visiting with my mama was priority, especially since I really only get to see her maybe twice/year. We're hoping to make that a bigger number from now on, but distance and the ridiculous expense of Canadian travel makes it difficult. In any case, it was really nice to spend some time together, without added distractions. But, I am happy to get settled back into our usual routine, and spend some time playing catch up on some of the things I've missed over the last 7 days.

One of the things I've been working on, artistically, is the refurb of my old graphic novel, and the characters that were created to go with it. They've been great inspiration over the years, and serve as the perfect canvas to try out new styles from time to time. So, today I wanted to share a few of the different incarnations they've had over the years. I'm still playing around with them, even with having roughed out a couple of panels. 😅

This is the first panel, redrawn just over a week ago. I'm still not 100% convinced this is the style I'm sticking with, but it's progress.

And this is a panel from the first couple pages of the original:

I have mentioned a couple times in the past that these characters, and the beginning of the work on the comic book, were thought up a long while ago. lol

This is one of the very first character concept pages:

After a while I decided that the style I had started with was way too basic, and limited, and I decided to challenge myself with drawing them in a much more realistic, still "cartoony" style.

I also love to draw in a cutesy anime style from time to time, and gave them a whirl in that style a couple of times.

These sketches were inspired by Ranma 1/2

And this one was just me having fun trying to come up with some super exaggerated expressions... helpful when you're drawing comics, and the images sometimes need to speak for themselves. (If any of you have seen my work before, you'll know how much I love drawing expressive faces.)

Fast forward a few years, after taking a long hiatus from drawing, I finally decided it was time to pick up a pencil again, and one of the first things that came to mind was my old comic characters. So, I decided to do a quick revisit, and see what came out.

And this is one of the newest drawings, which I shared last week in my SKETCHY SUNDAY post, and is currently in the midst of being colored.

The newest drawings seem to fit somewhere in the middle of the slightly more realistic cartoon style I had been doing, and the more cutesy, big-eyed style. Things are definitely still in progress, and I'll probably do a few more character study pages before I settle on what I'm going to continue with. Plus, I'm going to sit down and rough out a story board, which I never did with the original... which is probably a good indication as to why I stopped working on it. (It's generally difficult to continue when you don't know where you're going.)

Do you have original characters that you like to work with? Or another type of creative muse?

Do you like to change your drawing style from time to time, or even piece to piece?

Who or what are your biggest inspirations? Or how do you fuel your creativity?

That's all for now, hopefully I'll have something finished before the week is through. Also, stay tuned tomorrow for a new TASTY TREAT TUESDAY post. Trust me, you don't want to miss it! 😉

See you then!

Megan