Character Design Mistakes [How to Fix Them]

1. About the class: Hello guys and welcome to my class on character design mistakes. In this class, you will learn the most common mistakes that beginners will do in their character design, as well as a few tips and tricks of how to get over them. During this tips and tricks, you will see how I take an old drawing of mine and improve it using the tips I teach you. But before jumping into the tips, I will show you my free previous versions of the same character, what went wrong every time. This will help you analyze your own artwork and see what you didn't do back then, but you could do. Now. You can watch this tutorial and draw along with me or you can watch it first, understand what I'm doing and then applied for yourself. Whichever way you choose, I definitely recommend you try it yourself so that you will actually experience what I'm showing you. The more you try doing it on your own, the better you will get every day. Now, make sure you stay until the end because that's where most of the gems will be at. Now for your assignment, I would like you to show us right now in the project section which old drawing of yours you want to improve and then submit a different project with the new drawing. It's important that before you move on to the next lesson, you stop and look for an old artwork that you want to improve, submitted, and commit yourself to trying to bring an improvement to it. I would also really appreciate if you follow me on Skillshare as I am posting monthly extensive tutorials on digital art and procreate. So if you don't want to miss anything, click the follow button. I would also like to be more active with my followers and show you some progress shots to the next tutorials. Discuss with you what the next one will be about and so on. Right now, I am only doing that on my Instagram. So if you'd like to follow me, this is my handle. I will see you guys on the first lesson, but only after you post your drawing in the project section. See you guys. 2. Common mistakes: Hey guys and welcome to the first part of this class where I will give you some context on how I got to learn from my mistakes every year by redrawing the same character. For those of you who don't know me. I got my first graphic tablet with a screen, namely the iPad Pro with the 10.5 in screen back in 2018. I also have this Greenland's tablet years before, but I never really felt digital art, true it. So investing in an iPad Pro was a huge step for me and I was cared that my money would go to waste. Long story short, however, that iPad Pro was the best investments that I could make in my art journey. I resolved to keep drawing and tried to improve with every new drawing I made. And in order to do that fast, I used one of the sketches I had in a notebook, took a photo of it, and used it as a base for my very first drawing on my iPad. You can see that very first drawing in the upper right side of the canvas. Now let's see what's wrong with my first digital illustration attempt. You can see that the fire I made in Procreate is extremely blurry and hardly feels like actual fire. It's kind of flax intensity and the solution is to go for sharper lines and more dynamic shape. Now, since my character holds fire in her hand, that means that this is the main light source of the illustration, which means that all my shadows should be on the right side of the illustration. But in this case my shadows can hardly be seen. And although I had an intuition to make the light of subtle orange on her clothes and skin. Since my shadows are hardly visible, the lights are not popping up either. This is a big beginner sign because it shows I had no confidence in my shadows. So without realizing I made them as subtle as possible. But then experienced artist knows that if you want something to catch the attention of the viewer, you need the contrast which this illustration is seriously lacking. Now let's take another look at the light source. Since the hand is so close to the fire, it should be the one where the reflected light of the fire should be the most visible. But my orange is hardly visible on the skin since both the skin and the orange light are really light colors and there is no darker color to help them be noticeable. Now in terms of anatomy mistakes, the one that pops the most, for me, at least, is the face, which is way too small compared to her head. There are other mistakes as well, such as the torso, the chest area D over old body proportions. If you'll keep drawing year after year, the same illustration, you will start seeing more mistakes and act on them. Again. This is another example of no contrast. The hair that falls on her back hardly has any way to build it. So it should be a lot darker than it is over here. There are a lot of similar areas like the back of her skirt as well. Speaking of the back of the skirt, this is a sample of way too much blending and no texture used. Something gills that I should focus on in the future. Now let's move on to my depiction of the character another year later. The 2019 version made me really proud as it had a more mature character, a more dynamic photos, and the more dynamic flame. By then, I also learned to use more colors in my shadows and add some more contrast to them. So let's see where the mistakes are. The first mistake here is that I did not understand how to use temperatures in an illustration and everything was way too saturated. Saturated means that the colors are too bright and there is no contrast in the temperature with more desaturated or muted colors. When you do something like this, the viewer's eyes will start hurting. Now I also said that I have more contrast, but still not enough in some areas, as you can see here. Anatomy also isn't on-point in every aspect and the nose looks really weird. Like what was I thinking here? The eyebrows are also way too thin. They are like a line. This one is not necessarily a mistake, it depends on your style. But having lines in only one color was going against what I was trying to accomplish. Now for the last illustration, the 2020 version was made when I open my binomial Kofi account. And I wanted to celebrate that, true or draw this in your style challenge on Instagram. So I dropped the fire and chose some more casual clothes. Once again, my character has one shirt. The face is looking better, the anatomy is overall better. Let's see where the mistakes are. I wanted to mention that I took the headspace to change the way I was drawing eyebrows. And I will probably change them again by next year because I'm not entirely happy with them. Now we still don't have shadows everywhere, like on the top of the head where the roots are supposed to be. I also keep lacking texture in clothing and I will have to focus on that. Again on the rail without enough shadows underneath the chin. And the shadow is actually wrong on the shoulder is it doesn't respect the light source. The hand on the cup doesn't cast any shadows either, which is translated as not having enough weight. And that's about it for the mistakes of the past. I will see you in the next part of the class where we will start to discussing tips. See you guys. 3. Plan ahead: Welcome back to the character design mistake glass. So we went over some common mistakes and character illustration. Now it's time for the first day book, this glass and that is to plan ahead. Planning will save you a lot of time and effort. If you have no idea what boast to draw, save some references on Pinterest. If you don't know how to draw hands, take a picture of your hand in the position you desire in draw it. And that's exactly what they did for this one. You should have a clear concept in mind when you start growing. Like who is the character? Whether it be Beeline, what stapled mine, they ever again, what is their story? What are you trying to show and so on. These are all things that you need to think about. First, don't forget to think about the colors you want to use and make a rough sketch of that and see what it looks like. Sun, we will talk more about shape and structure and how to use them in a character design. 4. Shape and structure: Welcome back to the character design mistakes class. In this lesson, we will talk more about shape and structure, and I will show you the progress of my illustration. So let's talk about shape and structure. What do these terms even mean anyway? When it comes to shape, we all know that there are three shapes that are the base of any design. Circles, squares and triangles. And each of them means something else. For instance, using round shapes suggests they suggest a playful nature and maybe infant innocence. If you use them to draw babies or fits, squares are more masculine and they can be used to draw really bulky torsos for men, for instance, triangles reflect danger. You can use them to draw clause, spike, spears, and so on. But whenever you create characters, you don't use only one shape. You use a complexion of this tree. What is important, however, is to have a main shape that you want to be visible. In my case, my character's hair is all fire. And that should look imposing and dangerous. Hence, I tried to use as many shapes derived from triangles as possible. A secondary shape in my design is the circle, as my character is actually very feminine and her body is curvy. Depending on what your illustration is supposed to show, you can use different shapes to emphasize one specific part of the illustration. For instance, in my 2020 version of this character, where she had no fire, I mostly used round forms to show femininity and innocence. And now we want to show more of herd dynamic site. You can also use shapes, pose of the character in order to contribute to the personality of the character or to the composition of your illustration. And speaking opposes that, believe the last two. Another important aspect of your illustration, the readability of the posts. Tried to make your post is clear to read as possible. Nothing doing tangled or depth and confuse your audience. A good post needs a good silhouette. Easy to recognize if one without seeing any details. And for good both, you need a good line of action in your drawing. The line of action is the longest line in your post makes the one that get your attention. In my illustrations case, it starts from the top of the fire hair and it goes down to the face, chest, and continuous with the arm that's holding the fire. In case you didn't take notes. Let's recap. The first step that you need to master is your understanding of shapes and what they suggest. Exaggerate your shapes and big dominant one for your character. The second step is the pose, where you can also make use of your shapes to send the message about the character. Use clear silhouettes for your poses so that the readability your illustration comes easy for your viewer. The third and final step is having a clear line of action. It is a great narrative tool that can bring forth the story of your illustration. Not to mention that your character will look a lot more dynamic if you concentrate them giving it a line of action. I will let you watch the rest of my gray-scale process where I marked the basic shadows created by my light sources on my character. Without thinking too much about the colors, see it. I will see you guys on the next lesson. Okay. And so forth. Okay. Okay. Hello. Okay. 5. Color choice: Welcome back to my class. In this lesson, we will pick up right where we left off and we have our grayscale turned to a pinkish stone, which will help us have a natural base for our colors. What we are going to do next is to put our colors above the pink base using Multiply or overlay layers. Why do we need the pink base instead of just filling everything with color? In time, I have come to realize that having a base width soft shadows speeds up the process a lot. Instead of making different layers for each color and adjusting them until their temperatures match one another. Having a base color of a pinkish tone or reddish tone is similar to the way the Old Masters were glazing their paintings before starting to add the detail. The red tone also acts like the blog below the skin and mix your colors look muddy afterwards. That being said, this lesson is about color choices and help them make the right ones for your illustration. Choosing the right colors for your character design can make or break it entirely. There are a few things you should know about the psychology of colors so as to know how you want your character to be defined. Breath is for passionate love and anger. Oranges for energy, happiness and vitality. Yellow is for happiness. Hope to seat. Green for new beginnings of boundless nature. Blue for calm, responsible sadness. Purple for creativity world. The weld. Black is for mystery, elegance and evil. Raised for move the conservative informality. Now, when using colors for your characters, you should also keep in mind how well they go together. In order to do that, you can either use complimentary colors, so the colors that are opposite from one another on the color wheel. Or you can use the Socratic colors. So those colors that are forming the triangle on the color wheel. These are the most used color combinations when it comes to character design. But how do you know how many colors you should use so that the design doesn't become too hard on the eye. A general rule is to use free to four colors stops. Preferably, one of them should be a non-color, black or white, or something neutral. If you want to step up your game even further, you can try to balance your colors in an 80, 20 split. Meaning 80 percent of the character design should be based on one color and 20 percent on an accent color, which we'll draw the viewer's eye more to that color. Let's say it's a special jewel or other accessories that Manchester character's hair or ice. Finally, another balance that you should have in mind is using warm colors against the cold colors. Warm colors are yellow, orange, red, and cold colors are purple, blue, and green. And of course, any variations thereof. So if you have a warm light source like the sun or a flame, you can create contrast by using cold colors in your shadows. This will work amazing in your art. This is all for now. I will let you see the rest of the process and I will see you in the next lesson where we will discuss about contrast. Okay? Okay. Hello. And so on. Okay. Hi. Okay. And why? Okay. And then impact. Hello. Good morning. Okay. We're back. A okay. Okay. And why? Renewables? 6. Contrast: Welcome back to the character design and states in this lesson we will talk a bit about contrast and why it is so important for your artwork. As you can see in this video, I start by adding darker tones to my background and I'm doing that so that the fire slide will be even brighter. It's very important for your art in general to have the right amount of contrast. When you feel like your illustration is not going anywhere or death doesn't feel good enough. Try darkening your darks and brightening your lights. Always keep in mind where your light sources and only do this query. You are darks be at their darkest and your lights at their brightest. For instance, you can work on deepening the shadows in the background and some specific shadows on the face and body. You can deepen the shadow on the neck and the shadows around the hair. The one next to die on the body. You can deepen the shadows according to the Bose who are drawing in, in my case, that's underneath the arm that's holding the flame and all the lower body. Because those are departs where delight will not reach so easily. Similarly, they can do a count the quotes that your character is wearing and where there could be shadows, death need deep-learning. Aside from that, what you can do when it comes to shadows is to alternate between soft lines and hard lines. That means that not all your shadows should have a soft blend or it will have a weird airbrushed look. Instead, try using hard lines by using your round brush in various places. All these things that I mentioned so far can be applied to light as well. Keep in mind that you can always use blending modes to get the most of your shadows. And the lights. Make sure that you don't overdo the lights are your artwork will become way too saturated quite fast. Similar to one of my older versions. As you have seen in the first lesson. That is all for this lesson, I will add to finish watching the time-lapse, and I will see you on the next lesson where I will show you my favorite ways of making the artwork look better. Some finishing touches if you, We'll see you soon. Okay. Okay. We're back. Which are true. Okay. We're back. Hello. Okay. Okay. Hi. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Hello. 7. Make it pop: Hey guys and welcome to the last lesson of this class. In this lesson, I will show you some of my favorite definition tricks to make your art even more. In this lesson, I won't tell you what I'm doing is I keep adding more and more details. First, I'm adjusting the contrast to some more. So I did after the words as some magical sparkles. Okay. In order to do that, you need the brush that has multiple small dots and sparkle it in various places. I'm using the one from restaurants essential brush set, but you can use any kind of similar crush. Use a light color for this on a separate layer. That layer to add the mode to make this park close. If you want the glow effect as well, you can duplicate the layer and use a subtle Guassian blur on the layer beneath. If you use too much blur, it will hardly be seen. So just a little bit is necessary. Afterwards. If you feel like having two layers on Add mode are making gets to bribe, adjust the opacity of Bonneville layers as you see fit. Next, we will play around with gradients. We need to have everything on one layer for this, which we will duplicate because the gradients change the colors entirely on your layer. And we don't want that. We only want to have a tint that comes from the gradient layer. So after playing around with the gradient options and you choose one that you like, keep this layer above your illustration layer. And we'll keep adjusting the gradients layer opacity or blend mode. And you can erase parts of it that you don't like with an airbrush. There are so many things you can do, including having multiple gradient layer select different colors, and only keeping half of h for instance. One other thing that you can do is to blur some of your lines and that movement to your BSW. Choose with the lasso tool some lines that you don't want to be so sharp, and then go to your menu and choose blur. Then drag your slide there in the direction you want the movements to be M. You can go up and down sideways wherever you want. This effect adds a sense of depth to your illustration. Our next Crick is adding chromatic aberration in a few places for visual interests. With all the adjustment options given by Procreate, you can either choose to apply them to the whole layer. Or choose a pencil and go over to the specific areas where you want to apply that specific adjustment. I usually use a soft brush when applying this adjustments. I like to use this adjustment to create more things. Church. I use halftone on specific parts of my illustration. Manner. Q chromatic aberration. And this adjustment usually looks the best on clothes or on the background, but use it as you like most. A nice trick I learned that works wonders when you also want to bring your art is to add the subdural noise to your whole illustration. So two-year whole layer, just enough to make it look matte here, one on your screen. Now it's time to add some juice to our illustration and add some nice highlights. Every hearing there. I like to add them to the eyes, nose, and lips, as well as making a rim light on the side of the face, the shoulders in the hands. Of course, this depends a lot on the postcard drawing, but these are generally the blaze is where I put the highlights as well as the hair. But in this case the character's hair is fires, so it wouldn't make any sense. Finally, you will make some color adjustments until you build good about the result. The process is experimental, so don't be afraid to try new things. And that was it for this lesson. I hope you really enjoyed that. Don't forget to redraw one of your older drawings in the blind. What you'll learn in this class and submit it, the project step. Hopefully you already submitted your old the drawing in the project stamp. And the now you only have to redraw one of your older ones. And now you only have to redraw it. I will launch a new class next month, so please don't forget to follow me on Skillshare for more updates. Until then, have an amazing mom guys and keep practicing. See you. Hello.