Drawing Characters

[anruca]

Hello I am quite new and excuse me for posting, but I am in need of a good tutorial in character drawing.
What I want to know is how do you guys "the flash artists here" do the characters?
I am aware that one should use a sketch at first yes but thats not whats bugging me, what I want to know is when starting the character
I use a rectangle for the basic shape and adjust it and then start adding in points with the add tool, but it takes a long time.
Basicly I make the basic shape lets say black, then I do another shape? the preferred skin tone (darker one) then add another shape for
the highlights and a last one for the black lines defining the body structure, as in lines for ribcage and hips.
Is that the common progress of doing it because it gets very sloppy, and with the black shape underneath all stays wierd.
Is it better do make the darker skin tone first and add in lines with pen brush? later for the black outlines? If that be the case hot do I make
real nice and curvy/smooth so that there aren't any bumps or the like.
There are tutorials on the net yes, but most don't really explain them far too well, and if any there are just for very basic design, and not
the kind of style seen in flash games.
I guess pointing you "guys" to the style I am interested in would help so I am kind of wondering how to do the characters like angel/shinobi
girl and in gorepete's dusty's castle game, now thats some really Awesome shading.
(Alot of un-needed text i'm sure), hope someone spends some minutes of their life to explain these steps to me, Thank you in advance!
Wonder If I made any sence to you any of you with my statement

[BlueLight]

Well i don't use flash but i made a animation or two and i here is what i can tell you.

The artist by the looks of it aren't using a square shape at all but for stuff like boot heels.
So for your main body you want to use a circle like shape and change it from there.

That's about as much help as i can be with out talk out my ass.

[KaTsuO_O]

First when I started to draw characters (couple of months ago), I drew the outlines of the character and then fixed it as I was going further but that just took too long and the result was often pretty bad. Later I started with drawing skeletons (like stick figures with circles as joints) and after that I drew the outlines and It did okay, just that I still had to adjust it a lot to get it right.

Untitled 1178.png (11.7 KiB) Viewed 3008 times

Now I draw each body parts with shapes that is shaped as the body parts and circles as joints and I also make those joints big so that I then can use the lines from them in the outlines. It gives me a better 3d look of it so it is easier to add shading to it as well.

Untitled 1179.png (11.36 KiB) Viewed 3008 times

First I didn't really want to sit down and first do a sketch like that because I thought it would take a lot of time but it really is a lot faster to do that and get stuff fairly right than going with lines and joints only. I really recommend you take some extra time with the sketches. Just that you need to research anatomy first but once you got a hmm on that it is easier than you think to get things (somewhat) correct.

I hope that helps.

[anruca]

Well i don't use flash but i made a animation or two and i here is what i can tell you.

The artist by the looks of it aren't using a square shape at all but for stuff like boot heels.
So for your main body you want to use a circle like shape and change it from there.

That's about as much help as i can be with out talk out my ass.

I will try at using a circle, although that will drive/make me mad, simply for the time I would need to spend adjusting it.
Didn't really see it from that perspective, Thanks BlueLight!

First when I started to draw characters (couple of months ago), I drew the outlines of the character and then fixed it as I was going further but that just took too long and the result was often pretty bad. Later I started with drawing skeletons (like stick figures with circles as joints) and after that I drew the outlines and It did okay, just that I still had to adjust it a lot to get it right.

Second body test

girlbody.png (24.95 KiB) Viewed 2943 times

Now I draw each body parts with shapes that is shaped as the body parts and circles as joints and I also make those joints big so that I then can use the lines from them in the outlines. It gives me a better 3d look of it so it is easier to add shading to it as well.

Up close test

girlbodyClose.png (40.22 KiB) Viewed 2943 times

First I didn't really want to sit down and first do a sketch like that because I thought it would take a lot of time but it really is a lot faster to do that and get stuff fairly right than going with lines and joints only. I really recommend you take some extra time with the sketches. Just that you need to research anatomy first but once you got a hmm on that it is easier than you think to get things (somewhat) correct.

I hope that helps.

Hey KaTsu0_0!
I guess you can say that I am at the second stage in the sketches, the skeletal thing really dint work for me so I start at definning
a shape by directly drawing it using the little knowledge of anatomy I have, I've been looking on information on anatomy of the
female body and this is to the best of my results for now, but I'm still far away.

Second body test

girlbody.png (24.95 KiB) Viewed 2943 times

Yeah I know second sketch of a female body in flash using a tablet ><, I'm much better to draw by hand and not digitally but I'll
give it some time to adjust. Anyway the first layer I have here in my flash doc. is the torso using one graphic for it and it's compromised
of two shapes made from rectangles, the black and the colored dark skin on top. The upper part bothers me because it doesn't look
very promising connecting a neck to it , mainly for the second skin overlaying the dark shape, they merge up and it becomes a real mess.

Up close test

girlbodyClose.png (40.22 KiB) Viewed 2943 times

Here is for a better look, kind of turned out alright for the most part. Perhaps sharing some light on the matter from your point of view?
Also I get the feeling that I may be coming at this from a bad start using shapes rather than using a pen/mouse?
How do you go about making the different parts of the model? Using shapes or drawing them manually?

[KaTsuO_O]

"I guess you can say that I am at the second stage in the sketches" Well, that is actually my very first stage. Take a look at the second image, I use 3d shapes, even though it just is flat really.

This is example of the shapes I am using, the first two is especially good and they show how just a simple thing like them can make it so easy to shape a body. I want you to scrap that and start again by using shapes like above. Sorry but you won't improve your art if you don't get some base.

[anruca]

Yeah, this is going to take some time... seriously I don't exactly picture this thing to get any better withing a week or so.

Worse...

worse.png (23.85 KiB) Viewed 2709 times

I've seen some other artists doing it this way but, well perhaps looking into a book from Andrew Loomis on figurative drawing.
Alas he uses a lot better designs, and a lot more complicated ones... At the moment the simple shapes against the outline
before... The first one looks better. But I really haven't drawn anything from simple shapes up to a sketch or more.

[KaTsuO_O]

The problem is that your character is about to fall backwards now... What I try to say is that you need to keep it straight when doing a standing pose like that.

Untitled 1182.png (52.61 KiB) Viewed 2699 times

I just made this quick to show how I think when I draw characters in a normal standing pose.

First off you decide how many heads tall you want your character to be (6-9 heads works well) and then you line them up like in image 1. Image 2 and 3 should give some good information how long you should make the parts and with this information I hope you can improve.

[anruca]

Okay so lets say that basic shapes don't really work for a person, should that person skip that step and go on to drawing the outline then?
I've tried some references with basic shapes but they all look really messed up, either the circles are too big or the oval shapes that connect to them are to small.
Currently tried it on 6 heads(circles) but that kind of feels like mashing up all the details, normally the drawings I do are really small on paper, yet when someone
tells me to make them bigger, it ends up with bad proportions. Well besides that you give me an image of something and I will copy it 90% the same and it will look "ok".
But starting from scratch with the basic shapes at first gets, messy to say the least.
Going to post an image of it soon, but until then I will keep drawing these shapes, maybe I will get lucky and get it right.

[KaTsuO_O]

"Okay so lets say that basic shapes don't really work for a person, should that person skip that step and go on to drawing the outline then?"

It isn't really a step, just one way to make drawing faster, better and easier in my opinion. If you can't make guide lines like shapes then you can't draw only outlines properly (pretty sure at least).

"I've tried some references with basic shapes but they all look really messed up, either the circles are too big or the oval shapes that connect to them are to small."

It is not supposed to be perfect at first, you need to look at everything that doesn't look right and change the way you draw it in the next art.

"Currently tried it on 6 heads(circles) but that kind of feels like mashing up all the details, normally the drawings I do are really small on paper"

You can draw the heads small as well, as long as they are the same size.

"it ends up with bad proportions."

Therefore you need to look up anatomy and take notes, check out http://www.posemaniacs.com/.

"until then I will keep drawing these shapes, maybe I will get lucky and get it right."

Art is not about luck, it is about knowledge (when it comes to this at least). As said, take notes from your previous work and look at other images.