One of the first steps in creating your designs is the silhouette. It’s a basic design scheme that should be prominent throughout the entire design process. A readable silhouette is the key foundation to achieving distinct and noticeable characters. A good silhouette will allow a character to be instantly recognizable and that will help in making your designs memorable.
To begin, just work small and fast. Focus on basic shapes, patterns and gestures. Build these up and evolve them through different attempts. By working on a smaller scale you should be able to rush through a lot of ideas quickly.
While drawing these figures I kept in mind some very basic shapes to define their volume.
From there you can build on top in any way you like. Find the poses and shapes that are working for you. Ask yourself “are their anatomy and actions readable?” This is a very conceptual stage so the sky can be the limit. Continue to play with shapes and blocking out poses. Draw over them and add details and pull out those shapes that don’t exist yet to the surface. You’ll begin to notice fresh new designs emerging that you can chase and be happy with.
Now you have all these concepts! And in this case a horde of angry barbarians. So now I’ve picked one out from the bunch that I liked to paint over. I change his pose. Play with details like anatomy, tattoos, costumes and add some environment with mood.
