Forums » Smalltalk » AMA: Aspiring character designer

I aspire to be a professional artist in the gaming industry one day, along with self publishing my own comics. One of the things I enjoy when creating my characters is - designing their appearance! I currently work as an artist for a friend's virtual pet site as well! The things I work on would be art for cosmetic items for users' avatars, bosses and/or pet items.

Feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer!

What does your process for character creation look like? Do you have a sort of formula that you follow?

I create my characters using things such as music, videogames, horror genre or real life animals as inspiration. For instance, I've tried to use this one character's design from a controversial game as an inspiration for a character's appearance, but their looks eventually became their own. I drew a bunch of versions of this character and experimented with things like making a different beard style and hairstyles of a certain theme. Another character I've made for the very same project is a dragon whom I've struggled to figure out looks for. I also drew a couple of versions of their looks until I figured out what their anatomy could be like - it's based of off deer and also have included deer hooves. Just in the dragon's case I've also used kirin, the mythical creature, to get some ideas for their looks.

Or, for instance, when it comes to creating a boss for the upcoming event on my friend's pet site, I discussed the design with my friend. They gave information for what they had in mind for the boss, then I told them how I pictured the boss based on the information they gave me. They said it's how they pictured the alien. Just, I didn't get the boss's looks right 100% but my friend is overall satisfied with the alien's look. When I worked on the said boss I experimented with colors after sketching and finishing lineart. So yeah, I experiment with things to see what I could go with as a final look for characters.

What are you doing to prep yourself for your future as a professional character designer? In terms of courses, skill building, etc?

I'm currently taking two lessons with two different professors from Arts Academy. I am unable to go to college so this is my alternative way of learning art. With my first professor I learn about fine arts. Some of the things I've been learning would be - painting using acrylic paint or watercolors, drawing with a pencil or charcoal. I have also been learning to draw still life and also to draw self-portraits.
With my second professor I learn to use a drawing tablet and this programme for digital drawing/painting called Krita. He's showing me the ropes with tools that come in handy in making digital art and even shortcuts for functions in said programme. Currently he's teaching me perspective (and also taught me shapes that can be used for drawing characters as well). In addition, my second professor gives me homework that I do at home.