Moving on… and exploring!

I like a good challenge, and I usually like to meet it head on! So, I have decided to focus on character development, since it is one of my weak areas. I really don’t know much about character development. The illustration classes I took in college were related to editorial illustration, where the goal is to communicate your message with one visual image, and you don’t have to worry about character, tension, mood, etc.

I have ordered some books, but in the mean time, I thought I’d start drawing a character from all perspectives as quickly as I could. I had about an hour and as you could see, I did not get very far. I started very loosely but then I began to worry about getting the details right, the proportions etc. I also worried about the pose. Is this arm in the right place, the leg, the foot? When I took figure drawing class and the model was there…that was it, you followed the model, but coming up with a pose from thin air? Well, not so easy for me. I thought, if she’s about to run off, what would she look like, would she pick up the skirt not to trip? etc... I think the outcome says more about my personality than anything else. I’m a perfectionist! Not that these are perfect at all, but I want them to be! In addition, I thought the character still doesn’t look like something a kid would want to read/look at.
So I had an idea, when I was in college, you had to copy the masters to get a better sensitivity for their work, and I think that’s what I will do. I am going to pick up a few children’s books and just draw what I see. I call this an exploration in illustration. I’m not sure if I will post them, since I don’t want to have any copyright issues. But I think this may help me loosen up and help me understand characters better through other’s art.