Hello everyone! This week I would like to share a character design I made. It’s been a long while since I have been able to sit down are really design a new character (and this one isn’t fully fleshed-out)! Seeing how well this turned out, I am really excited to illustrate more original character designs and possibly even write some backstories for them too. Who knows, maybe I could even get around to making a comic.

Anyways, onto the process that I followed while creating Dove. I knew I wanted to create a character more on the cutesy side. I tend to lean towards pastel, fun designs when I’m doodling. (Side note: one of these days, I should really go back through my sketchbook and turn some of my doodles into full character designs). A resource that I use all the time is Pinterest. I found that taking inspiration from outfits on Pinterest helped me to create a more interesting design for Dove.

Something I wanted to mention that I have been doing is skipping the line art stage. Instead of starting fresh on a new layer, I simply go back and refine my sketch. I’ve found that this process preserves the quality that many of us tend to love in our sketch, yet we unfortunately lose in the line art. This technique allows for much more variation that you may have to be more intentional with if you were to start over. I highly recommend trying this out with your next illustration, you may find that it’s something you’d like to incorporate more often (and it also saves on time)!