Albert WIP

demotlj

I did this jerboa some time ago and he’s a small mammal so I thought I might see what I could do with it. I threw a shirt on him and tried a couple of different expressions to start and we’ll see if I get any further than that! Character design is not my strong suit.

Asyas_illos

@demotlj very cute!

demotlj

I changed the posture of my jerboa to make it look more child-like. I also did a sketch of a possible sitting pose. Do you think having him sit in a laundry basket counts?

Ellinor

Your Albert looks really cute! I think the laundry basket idea works great. It gives off fun energy and fits the prompt really well. In my opinion it counts as a sitting pose.

demotlj

@Ellinor Thanks. I'm going to lengthen his feet a little to match the original better, but I'm thinking that because of his long feet and the way his legs bend, even if I had him sitting on a chair, all you'd see would be the bottom of his feet anyway.

Oana

What a funny little creature!! I looked up the animal and noticed he is really small. .. so maybe, even if the assignment says "kindergarten stature" .. maybe you should consider his scale and keep him at a "smaller kindergartner" size? (on the stairs sketch he looks a bit too large!)
The down the stairs action is really fun but I am not so sure it counts as sitting, especially as the pose is difficult and you can't see much of the body? Maybe they ask for a sitting posture especially to make sure the body construction is coherent in all representations. Especially because of the particular shape of his legs, makes you wonder how does he look when seated.
I think it is a very interesting and nice choice of character!

demotlj

I guess I should have read the prompt better — it does say the sitting pose should be on the ground or chair so I guess I’ll need to ditch the laundry basket scene. It may be that this character’s legs won’t really allow him to sit in a chair which could be a serious obstacle for completing the prompt!

Sbridges

I love the super long feet.

Oana

@demotlj It sounds like a bit of a challenge but as he looks adorable standing, there should be a way he could sit in a plausible manner. The real animal seems to fold his legs under him, maybe something like this could work?

Or maybe even sitting on a chair, as he seems to have a little bit of butt behind the place the legs come out, then have the long part of the legs at a slight upward angle?…..

demotlj

I went back to the drawing board and looked at the anatomy of the jerboa more closely. I then drew him sitting on a chair which might not be my final sitting pose but I wanted to get the anatomy right first. I think I can make it work better now. (Pretty horrible looking flavor of ice cream!)

demotlj

Here are some super quick thumbnails of back poses (so super quick you probably can’t tell what they are supposed to be.) I think I like #1, 2, and 13 best.

Oana

@demotlj oo I love these! And the sitting pose looks definitely better than my sitting on the floor suggestion

demotlj

Here’s my very rough drawing of a back view pose. I just saw that it says 3/4 view — do you think this counts as a 3/4 view? I could turn his face a little more. I should read the directions more carefully before I draw!

Oana

@demotlj I love the pose ! I think you could show a bit more of the face but I'm also interested in other opinions on that question, as it's a difficult angle (or at least my muskrat is having trouble with it). The assignment also says "1 neutral pose back, 3/4 view" but I've seen others using a fun pose like this instead of a "neutral" one and well... it looks more fun I wonder if there is a standard for character sheets we are meant to master here or these are just loose guidelines?

demotlj

@Oana I think that's a good question. If you google "character sheet," some examples appear to be more model sheets in which the character is shown at several angles in order to provide consistency when drawing, but others include poses that convey the personality of the character as you might do if you were in the design stage. I'm thinking that the latter is what they are looking for in this contest since they described the personality of Arthur, something that wouldn't be necessary to know if you were just trying to develop a consistent form.

Fortunately for me, I'm just an amateur doing this for fun so if I do it wrong, it won't matter

demotlj

Just adding this because I know I like to see other people’s process. Still pretty sketchy — I was just deciding poses. Now I have to improve character consistency before finalizing.

demotlj

Getting there. I thought about doing this in traditional watercolor but I have a lot going on in my schedule and don’t think I’ll have time so I’ll probably have to stay digital. I switched to pencil instead of ink because it makes it look less cartoony.