Developing A new story! (One I've been waiting on)

This is the initial concept page. After discussing it with one of my friends, a good German writer and story teller, I created concepts for a small pair that will initiate the story. You can see that I have idea of the body types for both characters thought out, and now I’m playing with the look of the two. During concept of the story, I had told my friend that if I create a realistic story feel, I wanted a male lead, and with the cartoonish I wanted a female lead. So he had suggested a Male backup for the female role. UPON FURTHER THINKING OF THE STORY AND CONCEPT, I decided that Cartoonish was not the right path for the story’s world, and changed to a more realistic feel for the characters and world. I mentioned earlier that depending on the style of the world, the Main character would be either male or female, and that stayed true. The Main Character is now a male and the female is a secondary MC in the story with ties to him. Here I began working on how the faces would look by borrowing feature from other characters that I could imagine playing the same roles in my story. What comes from this is seeing what I like and don’t like, so that I can move onto rough-ing out what will become the first draft of the first appearing characters in the story.This is the first body shot of the Main Character. This was created in order to confirm my drawings with my ideas. Being able to see the figure in your head running, moving, and whatever else you imagine helps out so much. You can see that he has some similar elements to the first conepted girl from above. You can also see that I shortened the girls pony tails. I didn’t like the long lenght and thought shorter would suit her character more.

The first Face portraits without reference. This takes all the elements I liked about the previous designs and really shows me what I can and cannot do with the character. From here these faces will be used to reference for the final designs. Also, the character can be given names now. I’ve developed them to a point where I can put them into a scene and can see them react to it without influence from my own personal life.

You’ll also see that two more characters have appeared. Maybe all will have strong roles in the story to come.

There is also a small Height Comparison. Just to give me a idea of how each person stands next to each other, and also shows me when beginning a character that starts next to another, where their heads will begin. You’ll see all four have circles drawn where their heads are.

Finalized Character Head Sketches! Get used to this because this is the appearance of the four character in the story, and how most other characters style will be. Now that the face are final, I can begin thinking about how other people will look, the world, and most importantly, what kind of clothes will these characters have! Exactly what is shown here. These three now have their body types and clothing drawn out for the first chapter of the story! Of course I will draw them again when props have been decided, but for now I can take these characters and fully diverse them into the world within my head without any roadblocks!

This is my design process that takes from a week to maybe months depending on the characters and style. Take a look and let me know what you think.