Design A Character contest entry for adorbs Steemkitten

Voilà my @steemkitten design entry for the #designacharacter challenge by @W0olf for @fraenk s adorable cuddlebot. Hope you enjoy. :)

Materials

This was done on my trusty Ipad pro with apple pencil & the app procreate.

The Process

My process when I try to come up with a character differs somewhat depending what I'm asked to do.

Reference & Initial Sketching

In this case I just went straight ahead and started sketching some kitties because I am fairly confident in drawing cats. If it was a more complex character or an animal I don't draw often, the first thing I would do is do some research and look up some reference.
With animals a simple google image search is usually enough. I try to find pictures from different angles and poses and get a grip of the anatomy and anything that is important for the character.

I had to do this for the Doggo I drew for @zerooc s #imaginarycreatures #yearofthedog sketch off challenge because I'm not used to drawing dogs and they differ quite a lot from cats anatomically.

And if, for example, I were to draw a Pirate, I would also look up apparel and props, depending on what I'm looking for in the Character.

But back to the Kitty.

Narrowing it down

I basically just sketched different kitties, trying out different shapes and proportions. I do this for a while and then choose the one I think has the most potential (or that I like best).

In this case it was one of the very first I drew.

Finding the personality & poses

Then I sketch out different poses and angles to try and define the shapes more and what the personality is like.

Colour studies

The last thing I did were the fur patterns and eye colours to choose from.
In this case I already decided I would like to keep it in steemit green, with maybe a different eye colour to set it all off, so I didn't do more elaborate colour variations as I would usually do.

Client Discussion and Rendered Illustration

The next stage would be a more detailed illustration, fully rendered with the chosen colours, but that usually happens after you show the "client" the initial sketches, since you don't want to put a lot of hours into a fully rendered version when you're not sure if where you're going is the right direction for the client.

But there should be enough information in your sketches for your client to decide whether or not he likes where you're going. :)

So that's it in a nutshell!

Hope you like my steemkitty ♡

toodeloo,
And till the next time.

rock on,
Jill