To help aspiring animation artists who are designing characters for the APW Character Design Contest, we asked animation professionals – former APW students and friends of APW working in the animation biz to add their character design pointers in the Pro-Tips series. Pro-Tip #4 comes from APW grad, Hong Kong based comic artist Justice Wong. Justice illustrated the Hong Kong release of Marvel’s iconic Iron Man comic.
“Gestural Sketch”
I use these three steps when I design a character:
- Draw a loose gestural sketch using flowing curved lines.
- Continuing to draw very loosely, I develop curved forms from the gesture – allowing the shapes to grow organically. These new shapes suggest the forms that make up a rough idea for my character. The loose gestural curves give me flexibility in this stage.
- Using contours and outlines, solidify the forms of the character into a finished design.
