Donovan's new fullbody sketch

Here's a sketch for Donovan's full-body design. This is a pretty rough one, I haven't had time to clean it up, it's more for the purpose of showing the construction lines than anything. Of special emphasis is the way I'm combining the Cheeks-inspired angular construction with some S-curve dynamics.

Specifically, look at the groin area, how it's the center of the body construction. Rising up are the two curves which make up the sides of the torso, from the sides of the lower abdominal muscles up to the lat muscles and curving around the top of the shoulder, where it attaches to the torso.

Then on the legs, from the same point, the standing leg is constructed with a slight outward-curving line. The inner calf muscle is created with an inward curve, and the rest of the thigh and calf muscles are recreated with simple curves, such as the S-curve that runs from the top of the hip, down the inner thigh to make that swoop of muscle that separates the inner thigh from the rest, then crosses at the knee to make the outer calf muscle, and finishes up making the other side of the heel.

I decided to make Donovan a little top-built. Some figures are leggy, with the half-point of their height being that center groin point, Donovan is not. His half-point is around the middle of his hips, closer to the waist than the groin. (Mike, on the other hand, being more of a runner, is going to have more legs.)

New Donovan Headshot

Slight tweaks on the design for Donovan. I think I'm finally satisfied with this one, it's a nice intermediate between my original intent, and the more simplified action-cartoon/Cheeks-inspired design, which was bugging me to heck because I didn't have a good mnemonic for the design. This one, I've got a much better structure underneath. Also relatively happy with the eyes, though I still prefer my (unposted) sketch version of the design, where he's got these scowling flat eyebrows. (Hard to do in this shot, tho.)

Purposefully recreating the angle and pose from the previous Donovan pic, plus neck this time, so I can replace it. He feels more solid, more grounded.

Donovan Fullbody

I've been struggling with the design for Donovan in terms of his bodytype. He's a big guy, but not excessively fat or muscular. My work with his design in animation has been tending towards to muscular side, but this helped me to figure out how to tone that down. It also set the bar for fabric folds as a guidepost, the amount of work I should really be putting into this.

Donovan revision, late 2008

A few weeks ago as of this writing, I had what I called a 'stylistic epiphany'. Basically, I found Cheeks, and his unique approach to a style I'd been playing before. (In bodies, anyway. His unique approach to faces is really what kicked off this image.)

I won't even both posting the interim image, a colored version of the previous Donovan design. This is so much better, in my opinion. Thin-line is the way to go, right now. Most of the basics of my design work don't really change, it's more aspects of the style, like fabric, dynamic posing, and a sleek design to body and musculature, which I realign myself towards.

Donovan revision, early 2008

Recent design for animation. Two separate sketches, actually, the 'after', followed by the 'before'. Was trying to figure out a good design for animated hair (which I did and have now stuck with even through a new design), as well as simplify the character's scaly features. (The eyebrows before had spikes sticking out, and the nose had more width and depth.)

With the most recent design, as seen in color in the blog title, many of these changes might be invalidated. Others might re-appear. (The focus on the three-pronged sideburns was an attempt to foreshadow the jaw spikes, for instance.)

Donovan, last year's diagnostic

A descriptive sheet for the character. Emphasis here was on his distinguishing features, such as his scaled arms and legs, the tail, and the unique spike pattern on his face. Specifics which this failed to include were the borders between his human skin and his scale patches. His skin is generally caucasian-pink, except his forearms and shins where it segues into fine, dusky grey-black scales. His face has a slight red tone at the cheekbones and following the back corner of the jaw around the spikes, but his fully-scaled nose and eyebrows emerged straight from the pink flesh.

Donovan sketch, 'early' form

Originally an attempt to just do a simple comic-style character turnaround. Intended to be 'in the past', before he got huge and muscular, or grew the wings. Later, during my animation class, I found the slimmer design better suited for what I wanted to do, although I still plan on advancing the character to the previous larger, 'later' design in the series' future.

Original sketch for Donovan

Originally drawn 2004, as a roleplaying character. (Specifically, a half-red dragon ala D&D's 3rd edition, thus the specific stripes, horns, spikes, and so forth. The tail was just a personal preference, I like spades.)