Character Designs

A couple years back, I did some cartoon characters that I thought were worth posting. I love drawing character designs, but I usually get hired to develop concepts and backgrounds instead.

There are a lot of people that draw characters really well in the industry, but good background artists are a little harder to find. Because I do both, I work a lot in Visual Development.

I think what has enabled me to do both characters and backgrounds is that I started out as a character designer for animation in 1987, then over the years I developed my skills as a background designer.

I believe it is easier to come from a character design background and do backgrounds, than it is the other way around. I'm not really sure why, but it would seem when someone starts out doing backgrounds, they have a hard time being able to draw characters.

Another reason I enjoy drawing characters is trying to discover who the characters are. More than just create the design elements that work well together, I have to figure out the character's personality.

Again, these were done old school with ink and marker on newsprint.

Figure Drawing

Here's another three minute sketch.

This woman was a lot of fun to draw, she stretched about like taffy! It was relatively easy finding the longest lines and pushing the design.

LET'S GET READY TO RRRUMBLE!

For those of you that don't know me, I'm a huge boxing fan. I did little fighting when I was a young man, and it's been in my blood ever since.

I did this sketch for a friend and mailed it to him via the Post Office. Of course I had to include the new Ray Robinson Commemorative stamp. Not that this is a drawing of Sugar Ray, but rather a just a drawing of a boxer giving it his all.

I used a little Prismapencil and watercolor.