Conceptual Fighter Character Designs

[Werewolf]

Cool stuff FuryFox, you certainly are a talented artist

Zabel is my favorite one

FuryFox how about a wolf/werewolf character... I would pay if you could do a cool werewolf style character drawing for me

[Josh]

There are big girls with firm skin you know. They don't all jiggle when waving goodbye.

[Blaine]

Your detail is spot on. Excellent concepts and a really clean presentation.

Your porportions are, frankly, awful. Which is a shame because it hurts an otherwise good set of drawings.

Vessa is alright in general, she could use a little work but it doesn't really detract from the character. I probably woudn't have even paused to consider "is that right?" if it weren't for the other drawings making me double back to look for anything.

Katherine is really out of porportion. Negitoro pointed it out well, she has a child/dwarf stature. Also her head doesn't look like it belongs on her body. If she is muscular, she needs more of a neck and neck muscles.

The rest of them all need to be balanced out, both with thier porportion (man is that word getting played out) as well as thier overall physique. Like Kale, his calfs are twice the size of his quads. Looks like he could kick a paint can through a brick wall but couldn't squat press a popsicle.

That could be somethign as well, don't be afraid to let your characters get 'thin' in some areas. There's really no muscle in the ankle area (no matter what Marvel tells you). So even a super beefy dude's legs will still taper to the ankle and flare back out to the feet. Dolomus' legs are just like one solid cylander.

Romzi and Styxx are going in a much better direction, more realistic at least. I'd suggest using Romzi as your boilerplate for the rest of the characters. He's a good height, porportion, realistic physique structure.

But like I said, great concepts, the detail is wonderful.
It's just with things out of whack like that, it makes it look like you spent hours at the end of the drawing cycle (the fine touches) but only a few seconds at the beginning (the dreaded 'porportioning' of your character, lining up and specificing where the joints will be, making sure they line up in a physiologically correct way).

Take your time with the blank sheet. Sketch your head, then make sure the rest of the body is in sync with it's size. Then break out a ruler if you have to. Use a photograph. Stare at an action figure, whatever. Just avoid:

1) Comic Books.
2) Using nothing.

EVERY artist uses some type of reference material. A lot of people seem to think this is cheap or beneth them. It's not, few people can draw perfectly from memory and if you're not one don't try...no shame in it.

Now, if you do take good preparations then, sorry for the lecture (but it doesn't look like you do, and that's the whole point of preparations).

But these are really minor problems. Just things you have to be mindful of during the drawing process. Every so often, stop and check everything out. Measure twice, cut once. Good advice.

Otherwise you wind up with a very well produced piece that doesn't look good. Defeats the purpose.

[FuryFox]

First off, thanks for the input, there's alot of things I didn't catch before posting the images that was pointed out here. One of the main problems without having people to view your work is that your perspective of it gets a bit warped. So, this has been very helpful.

That being said, I'm actually quite knowledgeable about human anatomy and proportion (having taking quite a few anatomy classes in college, and drawing from life models)...however, proportionally standard characters are pretty boring. It's tricky to play with that though, since if some things are "out of whack", people will call foul without taking in the overall effect. Sometimes it works, and many times it doesn't, but it's a risk to take when you're trying to establish a particular style.

Large calfs are something I was going for, since many of the characters are powerful jumpers/runners, and it was just a stylistic choice. Their quads are still very developed, just not proportionately to how their calfs are.

I'll admit that Katherine is pretty messed up proportionally, but it honestly looked good in sketchy form (especially when blocking out the characters geometry before adding the details). I didn't really notice it until afterword. Some of the other characters I think are okay, but their heads are a bit big. Part of my problem was drawing on a relatively small piece of paper, and you unconsciously scale things to fit within the edges, rather than just find yourself going over the edge.

I was trying more for compact and powerful, rather than lanky and quick, but it seems to make the characters look to squatty, at which point, giving them the proper head-to-height ration makes their heads disproportionately small...making their head the right size makes them look short. When trying to give an effect by tweaking proportions a bit, it's hard to decide how it's going to affect all the other proportions, and what acceptable or stylistic inaccuracies contribute to the character (and those which detract).

I'll keep playing with it, though.

[Roufuss]

FuryFox: I don't mean to be a downer, but isn't Lord Raptor's japanese name Zabel, from Darkstalkers fame?

I'm about 90% sure, so that might need to see a name change, unless it dosen't matter since the name is in japan, but not america.

[FuryFox]

Why, yes it is...I don't actually think I referenced that when I thought of it, and it's not like names don't ever overlap, but I may want to change that (not that anyone I would be showing it too would know that reference, except you guys). Still, it's not like that name in particular was so perfect for the character that it couldn't be changed.