STEP FOUR: COLORSOnce you have your silhouette it is time to start blocking in the other colors. At this stage you
should not be focusing on lighting or little details, your only focus should be creating a
general visual description of the character's costume. Try to look at it more like you are
arranging a pattern of colors rather than actually creating a costume. Patterns that are
pleasing to the eye equal costumes that are pleasing to the eye. The colors and arrangements
can really help describe what a character is all about and you'll find at this stage you'll start
to get a feel for what the character's theme and behavior might be like.
STEP FIVE: ACTIONSOnce you have a general feel for what kind of character you are creating it is time to put them
into action. Again, the goal here is
describing the character
not creating detailed art. In this
step you really need to relax and just let the ideas flow. Keep the drawings small and quick.
A character's actions say a lot about who they are. A character that fights dirty will feel
very different from a character that fights honorably. Agile characters will jump very differently
than a character who is massive and heavy. The character's actions need to describe the
character.
STEP SIX: POWERS (OPTIONAL)This step is optional. If your character has some "super power" or other special effect you
should be using it to further describe the character. A hero would use the power to throw
lightning bolts much differently than a villain would, for example. Of the whole process, this is
probably my most favorite step. I usually have a lot of fun with it.
STEP SEVEN: ELABORATIONThe last step before actually doing any "real" drawings of the character is to start elaborating
on some of the character's costume details and other important bits of visual information
that describe the character. Even at this stage of development you still don't want to be
focusing on any more details than necessary to describe the idea. Don't worry about perfection,
keep any shading or small details down to a minimum. You want to leave yourself room for
making quick easy changes and you should be rapidly drawing out as many descriptive ideas
you can about the character. Quantity over quality. I can fill up pages of hundreds of little
doodles of different characters in the span of an hour or two.