W.I.P Character Line Up

**Gholguin** · August 11th, 2012, 10:05 PM

I'm doing a dystopian future type character line up. Kids wear robot masks on their head, or they hang out with robots. The main character is a regular kid caught up in all this! This is just a rough sketch but I'd like more critique as to where to fix shapes or even cool things to add! thanks

**Gholguin** · August 12th, 2012, 01:07 AM

update

**Mr.Ebony** · August 12th, 2012, 01:48 AM

Looks good! I would probably be a 100% sure on design first before proceeding to colors, but that's just my opinion.

**Gholguin** · August 12th, 2012, 02:34 AM

thanks! what would you critique on the design?

**TinyBird** · August 12th, 2012, 06:58 AM

Originally Posted by Gholguin

The main character is a regular kid caught up in all this!

Which one of those is the regular kid and if kids wear helmets, then wouldn't the regular kid wear helmets too? or do you mean "regular" as in our world regular or...? Also this might sound weird but I really can't tell for sure which of those three are supposed to be robots and which not. They all have these really thin stick limbs and the style is so simple that I'm question whether everything is just stylized too similarly or if all of those are kids or robots.

Kids wear robot masks on their head

Why and what do those helmets signify for the characters? Are they just shop-bought or something or do the kids decorate them, are the helmets different depending on what the kids do. Is there a real reason to wear helmets (like poison gas in the air) or is it just some psychological thing?
Again, who are the characters (their personality, "thing", history, stuff that contributes to the design) and why are those three the same height?

Also if you're going to draw a front line up, draw the characters from the front so you can compare them. It doesn't help if one character looks different from profile but the same from the front.

**Gholguin** · August 12th, 2012, 11:04 PM

I redid the characters, this is just a rough of their shape and some detail

crits please

**Psychotime** · August 12th, 2012, 11:20 PM

I've got the feeling that you'd barely be able to describe these characters as characters. How much thought have you put into them before you finally went and started this lineup?

I think you're jumping ahead.

**Gholguin** · August 13th, 2012, 01:50 AM

Originally Posted by adzaxkan

Dear god kill it with fucking fire.

I dont see how that is constructive criticism or just plain being mean. I would appreciate your critique , I really would.

**Gholguin** · August 13th, 2012, 01:51 AM

Originally Posted by Psychotime

I've got the feeling that you'd barely be able to describe these characters as characters. How much thought have you put into them before you finally went and started this lineup?

I think you're jumping ahead.

You're right, I will totally have these characters together by tonight--its now a goal!

I think a lot of people are more concerned with their background than how it looks really--and Im starting to understand that. I need to give them life and personality.

**Psychotime** · August 13th, 2012, 02:10 AM

adzaxkan is a spambot. Don't worry about them, I've already reported it.

**magnut** · August 14th, 2012, 08:21 PM

Gholguin,

Not knowing the outline of the world you're trying to create, I can say that you're very smart to do your initial characters in a lineup setting, as you can play the characters' differences off of each other. This way you can prevent repetition of size and form, which is key when creating individual and unique characters for an animated show or movie.

Especially with the kid, you're being more iconic (simplified) in post #1 than it seems you are in post #6, where the kid seems to be more representational. You seem to still be looking for a place to land when it comes to the kind of design you wish to do. Meaning, it seems you don't know if you want to do something more representational (like the Young Justice cartoon), or something more iconic (like Family Guy or Jimmy Neutron or the 2D TinTin).

Comics writer/illustrator/scholar Scott McCloud, in his book Understanding Comics, talked about the accessibility of a subject (cartoon/comic book/whatever), based upon the kind of detail it has:

So you need to figure out (as you are, of course) how you wish to present your characters, and ultimately your whole connected world. I think this process you're going through is a really positive, productive way of finding out.

My critique so far is that I'm not seeing enough context yet to make any kind of determination about anything. I'm liking the shapes, but I want to see more detail. Not for detail's sake, but meaningful detail. Also, a few environments would help, so your characters interacting within them gives that much-needed context.

Good luck!