Design Character Accessories And Props Easily!

1. Intro: Hi, and welcome. It's time to bring your characters to the spotlight. Think about your favorite characters. What truly makes them memorable? Maybe a wizard's wend, a superhero ca, or even a specific emblem. In this class, we'll cover all these essential character design elements. We'll brainstorm and sketch a bunch of props and accessories, as well as refine the designs and add some color. By the end of this class, you'll have the skills to create props that compliment your characters and improve their narratives. We'll kick off things with a quick fun assignment. Then move on to finding the perfect references. And finally, dive right into sketching your props. Throughout the course, I'll be doing live demos to show you each step of the process, and you'll get templates as well as helpful resources to make you improve faster. Plus, I'll be here every step of the way to guide you. Are you ready to give your characters an extra layer of theft, Join now, and I'll see you in the next video. 2. Assignment 1 Don't Skip This!: Hello and welcome. Before we start learning, let's do a quick assignment first. It's very simple and you don't need to draw anything yet. For now, all I want you to do is to write a small list of accessories and props for your character. It doesn't need to be a lot. We don't want to overdo it. We want our character to be unique. But also easy to draw over and over. Write a list of five props. This might sound like a lot right now, but we'll shorten this list as we go through the videos. We want to have a few options available so that if even some options end up not working as we hoped, there are other solutions available. Think about your character, their personality, and their story. Then think about accessories that you think fit them. Write them down and keep that list nearby because we'll be using it in the following videos. Don't worry about references yet, since we'll be working on that later as well. This is it for now, take your time, listing some props and accessories, and I'll do the same in the next video. I'll see you there and we can work together. 3. DEMO: Brainstorming Accessories And Props: Well, hello again. Welcome back. I'm going to do the first assignment that we saw previously, which is brainstorming and listing a few accessories and props for our characters. I'm going to I have my character, Johnna here, who's a child, he lives in a fishing village and likes to fish. It's kind of his job, let's say, he fishes because he likes it, but also to help b at home. He also has this gang of friends, and they consider themselves adventurers. So I'm going to list a few accessories based on those information. For example, the first thing I thought about related to the adventurous side of him was that he would probably like to have and carry around wooden sword. He's ready for adventures at any time. Next, of course, a fishing pole right. He fishes. He probably goes out every day to fish for a bit in the mornings and then go play. Still related to fishing, maybe a fishing net could also work. Something that he could just get into the river and swoop something up from time to time. That could also be fun, a fun accessory. Maybe a at a fishing at if that exists. L et's say a fishing head. H have been in the sun for a long time, so a head could be useful. For my last item, I would say a pouch. A pouch so you can keep valuables that he finds outside like a really cool stone or something like that. I'm going to say a leather pouch. I'm going to be a bit more specific here. We are in the fantasy setting here, something like middle ages, medieval. A leather pouch could work. This is it. These are my items for Jona. If you have more ideas, you can also annotate more accessories or probs. Just be careful so you don't feel too overwhelmed by having too many accessories. Then there's more things to choose from. Once you have that list, you can go to the next sudo with me where we're going to talk about references for those items. I will see you right there. 4. Finding References For Our Props: And welcome back. When never planning a new character, it's good to first gather good references of what we have in mind. This is true for every aspect of our character. There looks, outfits, possible color schemes, and of course, props and accessories. In the previous videos, we talked about making a small list of accessories or props that will make sense for our character to wear. The next step is to look for references for each item on our list. You can find these references from many places. You can go online to websites such as Pinters, right on a search bar, what you're looking for, and then you can save whatever you're interested in into a board. You can also go to free stock photo websites such as Splash and Pixabay, and do the same. Whenever you find something you like, just unload the photo to your computer or phone. Another good option is to go to your favorite clothing stores, websites and see what you can find there. But you don't need to limit yourself to whatever you find online. You can add an extra personal touch to your character by using your own stuff as reference. I'm sure you could find a special item or accessory at home that would perfectly fit your character. If you do, be sure to take a few photos of it so you can draw it later. Finally, if you find anything interesting while out on a stroll, take photos of it. Everything counts for inspiration, so try together as many references as you can. Even if you're not using them for this character, in particular, they might be useful in other projects. Now, once you find a few references for each item, it's time together everything together in a small moodboard. I have a template right here for you to download and use. Just fill it out with all your references and then keep it so you can use it throughout the class. This is what mine looks like. As you can see, there's nothing too complicated about it, just a few references dedicated to each accessory or prop. I think my character could use. This is it for this video. Take your time, gathering your references and feeling your moodboard. I'll see you in the next video. 5. How To Sketch Props And Accessories: Hello, and welcome back. We got everything we need to start drawing. That's our next step, sketching out our props and brainstorming a bits, trying to figure out what works best and what doesn't. We made a list of possible accessories and props that might have made sense at first. But when drawing them and trying to fit them in your character, It's possible they don't work as well. So Let's go through our list and references and sketch a few options. It's good to have your character nearby, so you can draw everything in the same style and can test right away if what you're drawing fits the character or not. Also, when sketching your props, you don't need to draw exactly what you see in the reference. You can take some liberties to make the item more unique and personal. Sketch different things and also multiple options for one object. Let's try to go for two sketches for each item on your list. You can do more if you want and then choose your favorite sketches, so you don't have so many options at the end. This is it for now, follow me to the next video where I'll show you how I'd go about sketching and brainstorming the props for my character. 6. DEMO: Sketching Our Props & Accessories: Hello and welcome back. We talked about references and making a moodboard for the props and accessories that we talked about. Now it's time to draw those props to draw. Now to sketch out some of those props and explore them a bit more. I have here my moodboard. I gave you this template, so you can download it and use it if you want. Just gather a few references for your items for the items you have on your list, and then we're going to draw them. I'm going to create here a new layer on top. Grab my pencil brush right here and I'm going to start sketching. The first item on our list is the wooden sword I have here this image that I really like because it's quite simple, but it's not just a piece of wood, so I like it. I think Jonah would like something like this as well. The thing I'm not sure about yet is if Jonah would Jonah's father, for example, or someone else make this word for him, or would this be something that he made himself? If he made he made it himself, I would say that he would just have a piece of wood he found. And just gather it just a few pieces of wood and there a sword. These are both my ideas, a very simple some pieces of wood put together and there's a sword, or if someone would make a wooden sword for him. These are my two options. We're going to be doing two sketches a list for each item. Next on the list, we have the fishing pole, And I found this image. I think these are miniatures, but I really like the simplicity of the fishing pole. It does the job, right. It has the reeling wheel right there. I mean, it's fun but simple at the same time and something I think Jona could wear. He doesn't need something very detailed and professional right. It also fits the fantasy setting, I think. As you can see I'm being very loose with the sketches. We don't need to add too many details now. We're just exploring our options here, there we go. This is something similar to this one. And I also thought about doing just a stick. Just a stick with a line attached with and the hook. Really simple. This one could even be made by him. Again, I'm always going back and forth with would this item be done by Jona or an adult so he could use it. Those are my options for now. The fishing pole is done, let's see what's next, the phishing net. Let me just check check fishing net. I found this reference here. I only have one reference for the fishing net. I like this one because it has a small handle. Something that you would use on your hand and nearby yourself, so you could get inside the river and swop something up. It could be used in Jone's case for more than catching some fishes. He could try and find some kind of treasure in the river. I think I can imagine that. So very simple, just this big round handle. The handle, I forgot how you call it this hoop for the net and a net, and that's it. Then I thought about that he could also use one of those big ones. He could bring it on his back. You would have then this big stick coming out of it. I don't know. I'm not sure what would be more practical for him, but I do like both options. Something very simple. The nets can be really simple. We don't really need to add too many details to them. Fishing net, the check. Next, we have the phishing head, and I do have here two options. I think this one, I really like this one, and I think it would work best for the setting. But I also find the other one quite interesting with those. It would protect him from the sum a bit more. But I would have to adapt it to a more fantasy setting. Nevertheless, let's catch them out very quickly. This is one of them. Now the other head. Pieces of fabric going to the sides. I think we can even make a mix of both of these together. We have the head right, we have those buttons to the side, and it could be attached to those, something like this, or maybe we just have the front one. I don't know. I think we could work with something like that. Mixing both of the heads. I think that could work. This is the good thing about having the references and brainstorming your ideas is that then you can explore those ideas together. You're looking at the references, but thinking about your character as well and trying to fit everything together. As you can see, I had these two options, and then had this idea of mixing them together, and that could work. This phase of sketching is very important because you're exploring every single option you have. It's really cool. I think it's fun. Now the last item is the pouch. Again, I have two options. I really like this idea of the leather pouch, those medieval leather pouches right. I do like this kind of design. However, I do have a problem because this kind of pouch would be attached to a belt or something like that. However, if we do that in Joasge case, we couldn't see the pouch, right. It would be beneath the poncho, which is, well, it wouldn't work. Why would I be making an accessory that you couldn't see to be useless. Nevertheless, I do like the kind of design. I'm just not sure. It could work. Also, it's a bit smaller. He's a child, and I'm sure he will find a bunch of treasure around. Let's see something like this. This is closed, but it's bigger than the other one. Then we have strap. That would mean that Jona could wear it like this. In that case, we could see it. I think this design works best, but I can probably pick something from here, like have this big button in here. Maybe I don't know. We'll see. It's an option, but I'm definitely leaning into the one with the strap and bigger one. As you can see, these are my sketches. They are very, very loose. They do not have a whole lot of detail. Of course, they're not in the right sizes. That is fine. We're just exploring our options and getting familiar with objects as well. That's also important. You're going to be drawing these objects a lot. This is also a good opportunity for you to see if it's something that takes too long for you to draw. If it's something that you like to draw, that's also important obviously. Those might be factors when choosing the final items, which we'll be talking about in the next video. Just follow me to the next video and I will see you right there. 7. Choosing The Right Accessories: Hi, and welcome back. We have our sketches, and now it's time to choose a final sketch. We're going to check and see which sketches go better with our character. We're not going to add all five props to the character. That will make our character way too busy, but also we to take too much work to draw those every or almost every time. Yes, some props might not be needed every time you draw your character. Can be situational. But most of the time, when it comes to accessories, they'll be almost always present. First, pick your two favorite props or accessories. If it's too difficult to pick just two, you can choose a maximum of three. Now grab your character if you haven't yet and have fun placing your sketches on them. Try different placements and positions. Take this way and that and see what are the sketches that work better. Remember that we drew two sketches for each item. Test in both and then choose the one you think works the best on your character. Take your time and try different options. You can also follow me to the next video where I'll be choosing and testing my props and accessories on my own character. I'll see you right there. 8. DEMO: Testing Props & Accessories: Hello again artist and welcome back. As I said before, now it's time to test our props and accessories. We chose five, at least five props, but we're not going to use all of them because it will be a bit too much. Your character will be a bit too busy. What I'm going to be doing now is test the ones that I have, the sketches, and then choose what I want my character to use. I have here my character in different views. And I'm just going to select the items, try them out in my character. First, let's see the sword, and we can, of course, test each option. This might be a bit too big for him right. Something like this would be better I would say he would wear this on his belt. That's what makes the most sense, or something like this, which can work. Now, if we would go with the actual wooden sword or something handmade, I'm not too sure. I like this look better than this one. For example. So I'm going to just so I don't have too much stuff here, I'm going to eliminate this one already, Woop, and we choose this wooden sword. Let's see the next one, the fishing pole. This is all just picking stuff, moving to one side and the other and trying to decide where I would want those things. I would imagine the wooden pole the fishing pole to be on his back. Now it's a matter of deciding if I would want something very dimentary, something a bit more professional, let's say, But I'm leaning this time, I'm leaning into this one, something simple, because I also prefer to have stuff with less detail. According to my style, I rather use having stuff with not a lot of detail, something simple, but that you can recognize what it is. I'm leaning forward this one. It combines better with the character itself, I think. Let's go for the pouch. First of all, it will be smaller right and once again, it would be on his belt. If it's here, can see it right. You will only see a bit of it, which isn't terrible, but I think it will be more fun if we had something like this. Of course, this is very rough but let's just this one is behind. Okay, something like this. That's fine. It could work, I think. Now the head right, we have two different heads. Let's choose this one first. It will be something like this, but I do have a bit of a problem with this. Because he has this very distinct hairstyle. If I do this, if I add a hat destroys the hairstyle. You wouldn't see the hairstyle as much, and I think that one of his most unique details is the hair. I really like the hair. I'm not too sure I want to keep a hat. Going to use this one, which is the mix of both that I really like. This one hides even more the hair. No hat for John. Situation here might be a bit weird. Maybe you wouldn't imagine him carrying the sword all the time, so I might keep it and I don't need to draw it every single time. Now for the fishing net, I'm also a bit divided because we already have a fishing accessory, fishing prop, and I'm not sure if I want to add that many stuff. This could be an option. We have the one to the smaller one, which is again a problem. If I want to keep both of these, a third thing here would be a bit too much, I think. I'm also not too sure about it either. I think I'm going to go with the fishing pole, the sword and the pouch. I think those really relate to the character. He fishes. Of course, he walks around with a fishing pole, having a pouch to keep weird or curious things that he finds when he's out is also a good idea, since he's a very adventurous. He's looking for stuff around some treasure and the sword related to the part where he wants to be an adventurer and the night, he plays with his friends. Yeah, I think I'm moving the net, and I managed to reduce those five items to three, just as some stuff, choose your accessories, and then you can follow me to the next video. 9. Finishing Touches & Coloring: Hello, and welcome back. We have our props and accessories chosen. The sketches are also done. All we have to do now is finish the drawings and add colors. The first part is quite simple. Just go over your sketch lines with a new brush, drawing cleaner lines this time around, so it looks similar to our character. This is now the time to fix anything that needs fixing in your accessories and props. Add or remove anything you find important. Once that's done, all we have to do is add colors. This part can be trickier. However, we already have our character. So we can follow their color scheme. A good way to do this is by picking one of our characters colors and maybe changing their tone or saturation a bit, so it stands out from the rest. If your accessories have more than one color, you can look up at the main color of your character. Then go to the color wheel and look for its complimentary colors. Will certainly work with your character colors. Another color harmony you can use is the analogous. Again, pick one of your characters colors and then go to the color wheel and check which colors are adjacent to it. Use those for your accessories. There are many different color harmonies to use. But these are the easiest to use and combine. Of course, if you're drawing a very specific prop with a very specific color scheme, then use those colors. Take your time and if you want, test different colors for your accessories. In the next video, I'll be finishing and coloring my drawings as well, so you can draw along with 10. DEMO: Finishing Touches & Coloring: Hello, and welcome back. We are here and ready for the final stage or almost the final stage. But when it comes to drawing, it is the final stage now. I have the accessories that shows. What we're going to do now is clean up everything and do a final drawing of each of our accessories, and then color them. Let's do this. I'm going to start by making another bit more detailed and cleaner sketch. Choosing a darker color, trying to not forget None of the elements, something like this. I want to draw them in a way where I can see most of it, some perspective, so I can understand the object I have here. No. Something like this. That's good for now. I don't need to have a whole lot of titil here. Jona has a very simple design, so I don't really need it for the accessories to have a lot of detail either. Maybe there's a wire thing that keeps the line close to the fishing pole, and then the hook. Something like this. Now for the sword, I'm not changing much in the sword, I think. I like how it looks. I think it looks very childish, let's say, but polished, like someone made some with some skill made it, but left it very simple for a child to play with. My sketches are the, and now I'm going to hide the first one. Lower the opacity here, and now create a new layer on top. Grab black color and then grab my pan brush, and I'm going to draw the final line of these accessories. I'm going to finish my drawing. Just going over my lines, take your time, do not rush this part. It's very important. Poch the new layer. Each item is in one layer. I don't want it to be perfect because if this is a fishing pole made from a stick, sticks are not perfect. They are not very regular shape most of the time. I'm happy to have something a bit band and weird fishing pole. Now finally, the sword. For the sword to make things a bit quicker. I'm going to draw half of the sword like this. This. Then first, I'm going to move it to another layer. There we go. I'm going to copy this layer. Copy this layer and then apply a free transform and then flip horizontally. Now, press shift and move it and there we go. I have my sword and now all I have to do is whatever needs fixing. I'm first going to merge these two layers together. Now let's um in and erase the things we don't need and then connect whatever needs connecting and I think they're pretty much done. There we go, very simple designs. All I'm missing is colors. For the colors in my case, these two are wood, so it's going to be a lot of brown here. The pouch, if it's a little pouch, it's mostly the same as well. I can add a bit of color, perhaps a bit of the yellow or the orange or maybe the blue so it contrasts, we'll see we'll start with the brown. I'm going to add here. I'm going to start with the sword this time. I'm going to crab first, as we talked about before. The method I'm using is I'm going to pick colors from my character and then change their tone a bit. I think I'm going to go to the yellows a bit. Let's see. If I like this. Something like this. I think it can work. Let me grab that brown again and then go perhaps for something. A bit darker, my paint pocket, something like this, perhaps. I'm not sure about this color here. There's things around. Yes, this is it. This is what I'm looking for. Maybe just a bit darker. Yes. Yeah, I think this is it. I think this can work. Now for the fishing pole, I think I'm going to do the same. I'm going to add a layer below the lines for the fishing pole. And add the colors. I don't want to have a whole lot of colors right. It's not too much a gray for the hook and this little bit here. I think I'm going to grab the orange perhaps for this part here. Maybe even the green to add the splash of color here. I think this is nice. Now for the pouch, add a new layer for the colors, something like this. Keeping those art toones, but a bit more polar. The button can be this color, the orange here and the same thing. Go for something less saturated and I like this color, but I'll have to check if it's a it's too unsaturated. We need a bit more color here. That's too much. That might work better. I do like this. I think this is going to be our color scheme for the pouch. I really like this. This is it. They all have a very similar color. Yeah, I think this is it. My drawings are finished, my accessories are finished. Follow me to the next video. 11. Adding The Props To The Character Sheet: Hi, and welcome back. We are done without drawings. Now it's time to add these accessories and props to the character sheet. This way, you'll always have a place to look at whenever you need to check what your character uses. The character sheet is the place where you put all your characters visual information, a turnaround, the color scheme, some tra information, and notes, and now they're accessories. I'll give you a template so you can download it with places for each of these themes. All you have to do is add them to the templates. I like to keep a space for all my characters accessories, but not only the drawings. I like to add their colors as well with respective codes. I never get the colors wrong. As a bonus, you can also draw the props in different perspectives. So you can have even more references. But in short, All we're doing now is moving our drawings into the character sheet along with colors and their codes. This part is a bit less creative, but not less important. Try to add as many details and information as you can into your character sheet, so you don't ever miss anything about your character when drawing them. This is it for this video. Follow me to the next one where you can see me organizing or reorganizing my character sheet with this new information and props. I will see you there. 12. DEMO: Adding The Props To The Character Sheet: Hello, and welcome Back. So this is it. This is the final step of our character accessories and props creation, which is adding everything to the character sheet. This is a template that I showed in the previous video and don't forget to download it if you want to use this one. Of course, you can do your own. You're free to do that. Otherwise, you can use the one that I made for you. I already have here my turnaround, the one I've been using so far, the color palette all organized here for my character. Then a bit of details about John. Now I have here the free space for the accessories and the color palette. What I'm going to do now is grab each of these and move them to the other side. I'm also going to merge these two layers and move it here. Then I'm going to grab the fishing pole and do the same thing. Move it here. Going to make it a bit bigger perhaps, looks a bit too small there we go. My also do the same for the pole. It's a bit too small, right. Don't you think, make it a bit bigger. Now finally, this four. Just organizing things and moving things around. Nothing too complicated right now. These are done. Find my circles, there we go and copy them. I'm even going to grab this one specifically since I do have this color on my accessories or props in this case. There we go. One here. Now let's copy it. We have one, two, three colors for the pouch. I'm going to make three colors right here. Let's go right ahead and copy the colors. There we go and now want this one. This one, right here. This one is done, we have the colors. First, I'm going to lay out the colors and then and the cos. We actually we have three colors as well. We have this one here. We do have the green again, and then I have to zoom in here. To grab the gray. Let's not forget about the gray. We can barely see it, but it is there. Now let's grab two colors, copy paste, and then move it here. The sword only has two colors. One is this, and then a darker brown. This is it. Now all I have to do is add the codes. I'm going to grab the color here and then double click the color. Now I'm going to copy the hex code. We can close it, grab the text tool, and then paste it. Again, copy paste, grab the code, copy paste, grab the code, and on and on. As I said, this part here is not very creative, but it will be helpful in the future. My character sheet is complete. We have our character with a turnaround. We have the character color palette with each code, we never forget and never get the color wrong. A few information. We remember our character, I guess, and the main points of our character. The accessories we drew throughout this class. Finally, the color palette for each prop and accessory along with respective codes. You have all information about your character that you can use as reference whenever you draw them. I hope you have fun. Don't go yet. Follow me to the next video, where are we going to be talking about your last assignment. I will see you right there. 13. Final Assignment Time!: Hello again and welcome back. We've gone through everything you need to know to create andro accessories and props for your character. Now it's time for your final assignment. If you've been doing everything until now, that is great and amazing of you. If not, that's okay. And this assignment will be especially helpful and maybe less overwhelming. Your final assignments, I want you to draw one prop or accessory for your character. Draw it from start to finish, including the columns. Then add it to the character sheet just like we did throughout the class. Once you're done, post your work. I can't wait to see your characters and your drawings. Before you go, follow me to the next video for a few final words on this class, so I will see you soon. 14. Before You Go! Conclusion: Hi again, artist. Congratulations on finishing this class. I hope you had fun and learned a lot. Also, thank you for joining. It's been a pleasure guiding you through each step, and I'm excited to see how your character designs have evolved. If you've enjoyed this class and found it valuable, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave a review. Your feedback helps me improve and helps other students find the right courses for their needs. Keep practicing, stay creative, and remember, keep on drawing.