20 Tips for Character Drawing and Design.
Most of these are taken directly from The Character Drawing Course.
1. Thumbnail sketches help you nail down the pose and proportions early.
2. Learning how to construct a figure will save you a lot of erasing and time.
3. Understanding the “line of action” (the spine) is one of the most useful tools for character drawing.
4. Learn to construct a mannequin before drawing any details or features.
5. Lots of life drawing will contribute greatly to your character work.
6. Think of how the character will express with their body, face, and hands.
7. It’s okay to try multiple outfits, hairstyles, and poses to get a feel for a new character, or one you want to redesign.
8. Writing a character backstory (1000 words or less) will help the character design process tremendously.
9. Drawing each individual body part alone can be helpful for understanding the whole body.
10. Challenge yourself by doing new poses and angles, no one wants to see a character just standing around every single time.
11. It’s important for character design that you are able to draw front, side, back, and 3/4 views of a character.
12. Get creative with body types. Tall, short, thin, thicc, etc...
13. Study other character designs, and break down why they appeal to you are a core level.
14. If your drawing fundamentals are weak, your characters will be weak.
15. Don’t spend 5 hours polishing up a character without rooting out the errors in pose, perspective, and proportions first.
16. One approach is to draw as realistically as possible. It’s basically Learning the more disciplined approach before picking up handicaps via style.
17. If you keep redrawing something (like the legs) and things don’t seem to be getting any better, stop and study.
18. Pinterest is an easy way to save a lot of inspiration and reference.
19. If you’re bored drawing the character, people will be bored with the character (except for hentai.)
20. Establishing a ground plane can make it way easier to draw and distribute the weight of a character believably.
For Visual Learners:
Here’s the 1st lesson from the Character Drawing Course to aid you on your learning journey.