Style for Sketchy Illustrations for Juggler Book

[thegiffman]

Here's an age lineup of naked cartoon kids, based on the above Loomis one. It's remarkable how much better my anatomy is when I'm copying Loomis...

[Velocity Kendall]

veering back into Disturbo Land again... pants?

[thegiffman]

veering back into Disturbo Land again... pants?

You know, I did have this strange feeling they were missing something...

[thegiffman]

Ok, here's an attempt at the character.

[Ayem]

I feel like there are two things working against you here...

Lack of appealing proportions, and things been just a tad too realistic.

I know you're not, but it looks like you're *trying* to draw things realistically, and failing. And that makes it look kind of weird.

Perhaps, as an exercise, (if you're really into it), try to make appealing character designs using only basic shapes. No details.

[thegiffman]

I feel like there are two things working against you here...

Lack of appealing proportions, and things been just a tad too realistic.

I know you're not, but it looks like you're *trying* to draw things realistically, and failing. And that makes it look kind of weird.

Perhaps, as an exercise, (if you're really into it), try to make appealing character designs using only basic shapes. No details.

Hmmm - I feel like I've made some pretty serious progress on the face here, but it sounds like I still have a good ways to go on the rest of the body? Could anyone suggest some images that seem to be striving for something similar, but are succeeding where I'm falling short?

[EagleGrove]

Here's my attempt to help you

First: Stop it with the cleft chin, it's a sign of masculinity.

The most important things to consider when drawing something cute:
-The nose and mouth are small. You tend to draw the nose too big.
-Eyes are large with large irises and pupils. If too much of the white shows you have Jafar instead of Jasmine.
-Don't forget eyelashes!!
-Position the features lower in the face.
-The cheeks are round and there should be little to no chin showing. Right now you often put a Schwarzenegger chin on many of them, and if this happens it's better to simply dismiss it. http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/201...eping-baby.jpg this picture hopefully shows what I mean.
-The eyebrows should be thin. Again, thick eyebrows are masculine.
-Body proportions: Smaller hands and feet are childlike. Large hands and feet - again - are masculine.
-Avoid drawing wrinkles in the face, even if the child is smiling, since it's really, really hard to do it right, and in stylizations they mostly look out of place. Have a look at the smiling disney princesses, they don't show any wrinkles at all. The face should appear smooth.

These are points I think you should consider. If anyone disagrees, feel free to say so.

I don't really have any artists or pictures to show you, but maybe look at Disney's older movies, the traditional ones.

[thegiffman]

Here's a study of my youngest son

[thegiffman]

study of all 3 boys

[_Devilry_]

In your first sketch, the eyebrows are too marked, needs to be thinner/lighter. The eyes look wide-open, yet there's a lot of eye lids showing. Your son is slightly squinting in the photo so you see a lot of eyelid there.

In general, kids tend to have upturned noses with underside of the nose showing, as in your photos. As suggested earlier, look at old Disney stuff to see how they draw simplified cute button noses.

[thegiffman]

Hmmm - is the nose an improvement? Simplifying noses is tricky business...

[Velocity Kendall]

so much better, finally he doesnt look scary and evil, but a cheerful young chap. the eyes are a bit Gollumy but overall way better.

[Hunin]

The eyes look too big, unless you're aiming for something stylized

[DinaCardillo]

study of all 3 boys

This one looks so much better than the first drawing you posted. You're improving a lot, and you have three very lovely children!

[thegiffman]

More completed study - are the eyes a little better?

[Artimatum]

I think you need to step away from the tablet and practice the basics with a pencil and some paper.

[IntoTheVoid]

The latest studies are tons better. I'd say you're definitely on the right track now.
I think one thing that may be harming the "cuteness" right now is your colors. They're a tad dull and sickly. Something warmer to make the kids look more healthy and less creepy would bring it up a lot IMO.

[_Devilry_]

I second Artimatum's suggestion - go and do some sketches with pen and paper. The biggest kid look quite scary. And again, the eyebrows are too thick! You are stuck in the wrong place between cartoon style and realistic style. I see you're trying to shape the eyes as real eyes while having a cartoon pupil. It doesn't quite work. Again, look at Disney for example.

[EagleGrove]

A suggestion: Maybe doing a "real" study? Like, without stylizing and just "copying" the picture one-to-one. The whole "draw what you see, not what you think you see" jazz. That's what I'm doing right now, I'm taking pictures, turning them grayscale in PSE (Gimp works too) and then drawing them with pencils. It's quite challenging, but it helps me a lot.

[thegiffman]

A new study on the oldest. I know I'm aging him a bit, but the character is supposed to be six years older anyway. Hopefully the more saturated color scheme appeals.

[EagleGrove]

Hm, usually eyebrows grow in the other direction. It's definitely an improvement though! How about making a thicker line on the eyelid instead of making individual lashes to make him less feminine? Like in Aladdin (here you can compare aladdin and jasmine): http://images2.fanpop.com/images/pho...37-720-480.jpg

[thegiffman]

He has some odd eyebrows to be sure. Better?

[LordLouis]

Can't you just trace him? He looks so much cuter in real life.
I think what I find cute (photo) is the rounded cheeks and the sticky-out ears.
If you would draw a line on the sides of the head you could distinguish the ears from the front plane, which they are clearly not on.

[Kiera]

This is one lovley thread, the improvement goes from uncanny-ugly characters to cute children . I also like it that some people speak up against ugly design .


One thing about the eyes:
It's all about what parts you need to emphasize for cuteness.
EagleGrove already mentioned the thick Disney eyelashes - that's the direction!

Look at the lines of the upper lid and the lower lid on the newest photo:
The eyelashes of the upper eyelid form this big, strong black line.
The eyelashes on the lower lid are barley visible.
There's a shadow from the upper eyelid that makes the pupils of the child darker at the top.
So, put a bit more line weight on the upper eyelid.. because of some strange reasons it makes people cuter. Women also know that:
http://saintjosephslilies.files.word...ey_hepburn.jpg
Careful, don't draw every single eyelashes, it could end up looking like one of those flesh-eating plants. or Twiggy's eyes. You don't want those on children.

One of the side effects of a stronger line is that the eyes are pushed behind the lids, so that you get rid of the bulging Gollum eyes.

Then you can leave a lot of details away:
Sometimes children and smiling people have those big fleshy folds under their eyes - you don't need to draw them, they can easily end up making the person look old or sick.
You also don't need to draw the corneas, those little things where tears come out in the corner of the eye.
If you just put a tiny bit too much lineweight or color on them and it looks like the person has an infection.
There are a lot of artists who just don't draw corneas and still get a somewhat realistic style:
http://loish.deviantart.com/art/catw...0catwoman&qo=1
And you can get really simple, cute eyes with just a line for the upper eyelid and a circle for the pupil:
http://i2.listal.com/image/919022/93...screenshot.jpg

Edit: Thanks for noticing EagleGrove

[EagleGrove]

Great post kiera! The first link's broken though.

[Revidescent]

Here's a quick drawover on that earlier one, showing some of the things people have been pointing out about the eyes, but also a bit of a tweak on the lips.

With lighting from above like that, and especially in this highly simplified style, having the lower lip as the only visible shadow looks kind of strange. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but generally in this sort of style, shading the upper lip and then maybe barely defining the bottom of the lower, is going to give you more what you need.

[JavierP]

Hi Giffman,
Your latest studies definitely show improvement. I think that one area that may require further refinement is your line quality. When you have a drawing like this, that relies so heavily on the contour (outline) for the definition of forms, it is important to use your lines as effectively as possible. Line weight can be used to show depth, areas in light and shadow, as well as to show empasis of one feature over another. Your current drawing has lines of about equal weight. Contrasting heavier line-weights against lighter ones can help soften the features of your character considerably. If you have not done so already, I would strongly suggest picking up a copy of Walt Stanchfield's book drawn to life. He very clearly explains methods of conveying form, overlap, weight,etc. with line only. His explanations are somewhat animation-centric, but still very much applicable to your images.
I also noticed that some of your outlines are 'wobbly'. In the past, this happened to me because my tablet was not set to the proper proportion of my monitor. If you have a widescreen montitor, you will have to give up a bit of tablet realestate to maintain the right proportions, but it makes all the difference in the world as far as control is concerened. I included a pic:



As a side note, I would also suggest playing up the unique features of your son to add more 'character' to your hero. There are subtleties in your reference photo that you have missed that would add a lot to the 'humanity' and believability of the character. I made a little sketch to show you an idea of what I mean. Hope this helps and keep up the great work.

[thegiffman]

Javier, I'm sorry to reply to this helpful note so late. The critique on the quality of my lines is certainly spot on, though the technical issues related to a tablet don't, I think, apply - at least not directly - because I use a tablet PC. I know there is less precision regarding pressure levels compared to a pure WACOM tablet, but really I think I'd be kidding myself to blame my line quality issues on only having 256 levels of pressure. I do feel like I struggle with a tradeoff between resolution and physical size - the smaller the area, the more confident my lines. But I suppose the moral of the story is that I simply could use some work here.

I absolutely love your rendition of my character. It points out to me so many areas where I am simplifying too much on the one hand, and not simplifying enough on the other. Fantastic! I wonder if you, or others, might be able to refer me to some artists who employ a similar style. I'd love to study them further.

By the way, what sort of brush settings do you use for a sketch like that?

[Velocity Kendall]

Have you seen the movie The Iron Giant?
Its a superb film and features some really good character art:

[thegiffman]

OK, here we go. Been working through Tom Bancroft's "Character Mentor" book, which I really enjoy because the style is pretty close to what I am going for. I'm doing some of the exercises and studying some of the author's "solutions".

Here's another shot at my son.