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november q+a
🕑 Added 2020-11-02 07:40:56 +0000 UTCEDIT: hi everybody, i'm starting to answer questions now. i woke up about 4 hours ago, so, it is what it is.
hello again, everyone. i finished up answering the questions for october's q&a, so now i'm going to post this one.
i'm going to test the waters a bit and try a more meta question instead of another one that focuses on lore or canon.
this month's theme will be questions about character design.
they can be about how to design a character, what kind of thoughts dictate general choices about characters, why i made a specific design choice for an already existing character, or anything like that.
i will hopefully remember this time to answer them on sunday, the 22nd.
i'm just gonna copy and paste the parts that are still relevant from the last one -- this is just fluff in case you don't understand how the q&a's can work.
this is going to be the post where i answer questions. you can post them here early and i will answer them on the 22nd, or you can wait.
you can also send them to me privately or like, send an ask or e-mail with a throwaway account if you want it anonymous, i can post it here as a comment.
you can ask friends for questions and post them for them if you think they'd be interested or whatever, i'm not gonna be super strict about it.
i will be editing this post on the 22nd, so you will get an extra notification when the answering is actually happening.
chances are the majority of these will be text answers, but i might respond with drawings.
i will be labeling the nature of answers in brackets in any response with some simple tags to test it out:
-"soft canon" means it may or may not be canon. it can be listed as canon, but if anything in the hard canon contradicts it, it's not canon. it's like, recessive gene canon.
-"hard canon" means it's definitely always established canon unless retconned.
-"personal" will mean it's my opinion/interpretation rather than actual canon (usually meant to facilitate thought about the text without changing it, if that makes sense).
-"soft pass" will mean i don't want to answer the question but will explain why.
-"hard pass" will mean i don't want to answer the question, period!
-and "idiot sandwich" is going to mean i'm saying something that is very likely to cause a contradiction in canon because of an internal disagreement.
these tags don't have to mean anything to you, but i don't want to confuse people.
you can also suggest future themes for Q+A sessions or ask for clarification in the comments here and i will answer those before the 22nd.
as a final note, december will have no Q+A. see you on the 22nd.
Comments
gray Folie
haha it's usually just when i need them to start working in the canon. sometimes i will retroactively redesign characters after that point, though, because sometimes i don't know what's going to be too stressful to tolerate until they're actually put into practice. it's a boring answer, but experience definitely helps to get it right the first time. many of the characters i've redesigned or tweaked after the fact, i had designed within maybe my first year or two of drawing comic characters. obviously, i can't predict how i will feel about my designs now in a few years, but, i can hope... still, most of the flaws that get fixed in redesigns, i was aware of even while making them, and simply didn't know how to fix. these designs have "flaws" even now, they are just less overt and i am more able to work around or through them. i used to stress test designs (mostly in the face) by drawing them emoting to an extreme and posing, but i don't do it anymore... now that they're built on shape language, it's less of a concern. i DID stress test charlotte's palette and tweak it within like a simple comic test panel next to felix, but it feels like a lot of work. anyway, to not drag on too long here, it's "good enough" when it doesn't have flaws i consider obvious and constant, such as palette issues, or being unable to draw their face easily because of how it's structured, and i need to kick it into a story because it's Time. everything past that is just dressing.
gray Folie
i base color schemes off of natural coats OR based off of the cast/setting i know the character will be in. i actually have to tweak the palettes for rain, yale, and ash, just because they are Close, but just slightly too far apart to simplify, and duncan and max have yellows that are just slightly too far apart to harmonize easily... it is a bad habit. anyway, i usually pick one color i want if i'm not going for a literal natural color translation of their species, then fill it in based on color theory stuff, knowing which colors on the spectrum are naturally darker, etc. couple examples: i wanted this snake guy to be greenish so he was easier to color, and so that he would come off as, you know, a reptile. https://i.gyazo.com/d43c7b4a66a7dee99bcf43c3292dee36.png the newt before him, i wanted a hot orange kind of palette, something fiery. https://i.gyazo.com/9cef72f1604b7a214a5901559cd55228.png that is the easy way out, but also, breaking the rules too much in one design is just... not visually appealing. so, taking the easy way out is easy. frequently even if i'm not using an animal's natural colors, i will still reference them for the contrast levels of a design, too.
SharkSnek
Do you have a kind of test for when you know a character is "done" enough to start being canonized into things? Like, when you're finished drafting ideas and their character is strong enough to be able to stand up on their own, and not just perpetually being touched-up and adjusted without actually getting to interact with a plot or other characters. I think I worded that poorly. Basically, I guess how do you know when a character is "good enough" to be shipped off into a narrative, instead of trying to make it perfect?
malphym
how do you decide a color scheme for a character/do you have any tips for that? i find myself struggling with that part of the process the most and wanted to know if you had any suggestions or insight.
