Hi everyone, Has anyone please drawn or painted their main characters? If so I would love absolutely to see your artworks and if you would share a tiny snippet of info about them. During lockdown, I really fancied having a go at painting my character and I wondered if anyone else had done the same. Here's my character, named Tobias Frost: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AjAQZdoGFZeGguU1h5iMYvw1RpxMZg Tobias doesn't go anywhere without his e-cig. He used to smoke as a human but vampires and fire don't mix so he took up vaping shortly after being turned. He enjoys all the different flavours vaping offers, without them causing him to gag like normal food would. Vaping distracts him when he's hungry, it also calms him down when he's riled or anxious. If you don't have a picture to share, you can still join in with a fun fact about your character if you wish.
I don't draw, yet. I trace/sketch models that are close to my characters, in the hope of training myself to free-hand the changes I need. The thing about tracing is that it ain't easy! It takes time and judgment to trace what should be there vs what should not be there. Good mental exercise. Shadows and tones are tough to turn into lines, and lines can be drawn too dark and too light. Faces, especially smiles, are entirely unforgiving. It is a challenge, but a worthy one.
I'm not terribly good at drawing organic subjects. I might try again one of these days. In the interim I usually stick to stuff like maps, houseplans, planview drawings of hardware...tangential stuff like that.
MAJOR EDIT - From sketches to the final product! The five main characters from my story. Milan Kalakov Milan is a Major in the Russian Space Force, serving aboard an outpost on the largest moon of Mars. Namazu and Raz Kadir Co-owners of "Namaraz Solutions" their Private and Cyber-Investigations company. Zarina Verma Commander of the TKR Corporation's spaceship ERV Enceladus Liv Rademaker 3D Printing Engineer and one of the five members of Mars' Colony Council.
Leave the boobs. As long as all the boobs don't look like hers, it's a character trait. Go wild, go moderate, go crazy, as long as you don't go boring. Good start!
I sure wish I had something to show, but even my stick men look weird. I would really love to see any of my characters drawn, though (especially my couples). Just don't know where to turn or how much money I'd be willing to spend, so I'll guess for now it is just a dream.
You're right Some Guy, tracing isn't easy. There's definitely a knack to it. Have you tried drawing from reference? That's generally how I go about drawing. Shadows and lighting are my nemesis, it's so hard to get them right. Oh my goodness, thank you so much Steve for the compliment, saying that my painting has a Burtonesque feel to it. I'm so touched by that. The artworks for your characters are so badass and I agree with Some Guy on the boobs, they're fine. Drawing like writing can be a completely daunting task to undertake, we're so paralysed by fear of getting it wrong that we don't even allow ourselves to try. I say sod that fear, life's too short and just go for it. We all have to start somewhere. I kept putting off painting Tobias for weeks until one day I decided to give it ago, 70 hours (Yes really, it took THAT long) I managed to produce a picture.
I -think- it means by using another image to use as a reference. For instance, with my images, I googled models/actors/people that looked like my characters. I then sent the artist a "concept character study" with the photo and any images of the types of clothes I wanted and specific facial features. So he had something to go on. I think it really comes down to that last bit, how much you're willing to spend. For my main splash screen for my website, I specifically looked for artists on artstation, deviantart and Instagram, and hired a full time professional. For the individual character images, I used fiverr.com and put up a request. You put in how much you're willing to spend, what you want done, and then people bid to try and win the contract to do your image. There's others, like freelancer, but I chose fiverr because it looked the most secure and had a lot of reviews. I was only expecting about 4-5 requests to do my images when I posted it. Within the first hour I got 20 requests. After 24 hours I had 38. It meant I could sift through their portfolios, find the person(s) who had previous work in the style I was hoping for, and then decided between the last 2-3 which one was the cheapest/had the best reviews and weighed it all up. As long as you know the ballpark of what people are expecting cash wise (if you look at Reddit hungry artists, you'll get a wave of price guides, some cheaper, some expensive.) you can find a real bargain when you then put that to a freelance platform like fiverr.com
I can draw, but it's been a while since I drew anything "realistic". I'm pretty good at cel shaded art (as long as I can do it on a computer) - i.e. anime. I mostly did pencil drawings when I did more realistic stuff, I utterly fail at using colour on paper. Nowadays though, I mostly do pixel art. So as long as I don't mind my characters looking like Pacman or Donkey Kong, I'm good. Maybe I should just write a story where the main character is an Italian-American plumber.
@Steve Rivers Thanks for the tips! I'll look into it eventually. However, there are matters more important than getting images of your characters. Such as getting their story written. Still, I'm saving the address for future study into the matter of getting those pictures.
I'm using layers to trace. A blessing. It allows a fading of the original to see your progress in-situ. They're all nudes, so some things are simplified and some are shading to imply shape. The story is actually an artist sketching nudes and looking through a sketchbook. Amature and porn have awful lighting and terrible context for drawing, but it doesn't eliminate the slog one has to endure to find the perfect expression. True especially if you're looking for honest, natural models. In good lighting, they have the most complicated shading, so I've already set an intimidating task for myself, in most respects. I doubt I would engage another service, so it's all on me.
"Some Guy, why is your bedroom door locked? Are you doing what I think you're doing in there?" *Rattles the door* "LEAVE ME ALONE, MOM! I'M.... DRAWING! I SWEAR!"
I'm in the process of deciding if i want to poster my chapter pages but I'm leaning towards no due to a lack of funds. Loving the art on this thread.
Given that I'm a home nudist for twenty years and I hate clothing, I think the issue is moot. At 17, uhm, yeah. I do put on clothes when my mom visits and my wifey and son know exactly what I'm writing and what my reference material is. I'm usually working on the 60in TV (my spine bone confines me to my zero-G chair), so no secrets. I don't torture them with my slog through the valley of the shadow of the interwebs or drawing, though. It is what it is.
The idea of having artwork for your characters is a really interesting one - my approach at the outset of my current piece of writing was to search (and search, and search) for an image of a person who I felt fitted the mould I wanted in terms of appearance or style. Looking back at my characters now that I'm further down the line with the writing process, it's interesting to see how I've let them evolve and breathe
Here's Gabriel Weatherstone: the main character from the memoirs I'm currently writing. I can draw, but I prefer to make my art in 3D.
I don't have any artwork of my main characters just yet. I'm writing a children's book and since I can't draw the style I want the characters to look, I've been browsing through artists on fiverr.com to see if any of them draw in the style I want. I did bookmark a few artists for that project when it's ready for that stage.
I did draw my three main characters (as portraits) many years ago, but I did it with pencil on paper. I just wanted to visualise them for myself. (This was after I'd written the first draft of the novel.) It was fun. But it's just for me.
I wish I had the artistic talent I would love to see my characters brought to life it might make writing easier because for me knowing what they look like would give me more of a connection to them
When it comes to writing, personality is generally more important than looks. As a result, I don't usually have my characters fully visualized. Usually I have their race and hair color/style picked out, but in my head they're usually either sort of amorphous beings or clones of people I know in real life. Lol, the only character I ever drew was from fanfiction I did many years ago. Since it was Mega Man fanfiction, she ended up being a female version of Crystal Man.