Builds character.

When you put a hundred quid for the juice but your mate is an alucín

Know your Ryan flavor. It could save your life.

And feel free to check out the tags. Hello to the newcomers! (And yes, Rory's age is a mess, but remember that older Rory provides for more PUNCHY MATERIAL, so pick your poison- there's no canon here.)

Hi! I really appreciate the enthusiasm, but I must come out in the clear and say that it's an indefinite idea. After the first illustration I felt some potential, but recently I realized how many projects I had in mind and how much it was for a single person. Eventually I burnt out, but I'm still getting there.

Long story short, I'm focusing on one thing at a time. Since this pastime is something I wish didn't become a chore, you could assume things will go slow. Regardless, I keep everyone's interest in my art at heart :)

Actually, I've kinda expanded this blog with the Boxeadoras already, so I'm beginning to wonder if I should make a blog for them too? I'm not sure if people want that content mingling together, so I'll leave a poll below.

El descenso del Duende Rojo

A part-time wrestler and a valuable pawn for the enhanced soda trafficking scheme. He's an unstoppable force as long as the job pays well, but his penchant for extreme activities has caused him to switch sides several times and change his identity while he travels the country. Rumor has it that his father used to be a kingpin in the world of altered beverages before he mysteriously lost his life.

(Details below and speedpaint here:)

I'm not an expert on character design and this "layout" is something I use amidst all my inconsistency, but here are some things I try to keep in mind. Apologies if this throws you off since I got pretty selective interests, but I still hope this answers your questions!

First I figure out who my characters are, and in this wildly specific case, they're boxers. Everyone knows boxers are muscular, but they have a special kind of muscle.

One thing you might notice is that boxers' bodies are pretty diverse, even in the same weightclass (take Andy García and Luis Ortiz together, for example), but the things that tie them together are their solid cores -another word to say that their abdomens are strong and shaped like squares- and that their pecs or legs aren't usually very muscular given the kind of sport they're in. Exceptions can happen, but it's generally for stocky/short athletes like Tyson who hold tremendous amounts of power.

Now compare one to a wrestler or a bodybuilder.

What do we see here? For one, wrestlers got very thick legs and great amounts of their strength go to their upper bodies, so it's easy to see them more as meaty triangles. Then we got the bodybuilders, whose muscles are well-defined, but not very "useful". I'm not saying that they're not strong, but these guys practically dehydrate themselves to show off, so I'd recommend not modelling athletes after them.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I personally like to take in consideration all the little nuances of the human body, so I go over this small process of research. That's just me who'd rather have a more grounded approach, but I encourage you to take creative liberties if reality is stopping you from drawing the next Baki. :)

(Side note, please check out Howard's Schatz's athlete photography. It can give you a beautiful array of examples.)

Once I figured out what kind of body I want my character to have, I do exploration sketches. It's very fun to hop straight into making an illustration, but I've found said sketches to be very useful because they make me feel familiar with whom I'm dealing with. You might also get a funny face that sticks with your design the rest of it's life (happened to me with Aran's "unibrow" and Joe's droopy face even though they already got a canon design), but beyond that, it's a way to give everyone you draw an identity.

Expressions are another thing. This is more an intuitive act in my part, but you might see that in real life, despite people sharing happiness/ sadness/anger/etc, our expressions are not going to be the same. How do you think an energetic lunatic might laugh vs a mild-mannered scaredy guy?

Exactly.

When all of that is done, for consistency's sake, I tend to have a ref sheet right next to me when I draw (this involves pulling out pinterest, old art, comics, etc. whatever I got at hand). I've done turnarounds before, but I'm honestly a bit lazy when it comes to that-- so to Joe and Don anon, don't escape from your responsabilities like some people.

⚆ _ ⚆

I think it boils down to treat each character as an individual, taking in consideration things like their profession, nationality, age, etc. You don't gotta have a super expansive biography, but what has generally worked for me is going for a gut feeling of what feels natural and what doesn't, and said feeling has developed over time the more I meet people in real life and study other artists.

(And thank you for the kind words, anon!)

(Aw don't worry anon! I am glad to hear they're similar because sometimes I think I go off tangent with the gorillaz wannabe™ look. Thank you very much!)

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He knows what's like to get made fun of for having an unisex name, so it's nice to teach your sibling some old school scuffing just to get a phonecall from school telling you that she's (successfully) pulled a flying mare on another student.