plant people character designs

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  1. #1
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    plant people character designs

    I want to make a gay erotic manga starring some color-coded races of plant-people. (I won't put anything particularly gay or erotic in this thread though.) This is surreal not realistic, so whether the plant people are functional or could have evolved that way is not a concern - instead the priorities are making them look sexy, dream-like, and their race instantly-identifiable by their appearance (after they are colored).

    plant people character designs
    I did a pretty large batch of brainstorming - the silhouettes here are only the ones I liked for the 4 main characters (combining the two on the top right and the two on the bottom). The lionish guy is the main character, Zephyr. The deer guy is Tine, the flowery one is Venom, and the tentacle/tusk one is Thorn.

    plant people character designsplant people character designs
    plant people character designs
    These are some character sketches I did of Tine, Venom, and Thorn, trying to get a feel for the style I wanted.

    What I would like feedback on: I need them to look sexy and surreal, and I want to leave the skin white rather than coloring it to put more emphasis on the colored tribal tattoos which indicate race. Please see my home page for examples of this partial coloring:
    http://home.comcast.net/~wickeddelight/

    In general I am a fan of egyptian murals (their flat iconicness), shoujo manga (for example that in Utena and Sorcerer Hunters), art nouveau (again very iconic, usually skinny and curvy). On the other hand I hate realism and don't like western comic style. So taking all that into account, what sort of stylistic direction should I be trying to go for this project?

    Specific suggestions for the design of the particular characters are also welcome.

    Last edited by sunandshadow; July 20th, 2006 at 08:15 PM.
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  3. #2
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    Do posts in the critique forum get comments but posts in the sketches forum don't for some reason?

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    I like your silhouettes - but when you get to the last sketckes the faces look too long and skinny.

    What do you mean by not colouring the skin? Do you mean they are going to stay as line drwaings or are they going to be shaded but with white skin? I think they would look sexier if they were more in human proportions - simply because that is what people are attracted to.

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    plant people character designs
    This is an example of how coloring a character but leaving the skin white looks when finished.

    I think I agree that Venom's face at least came out a bit long and skinny; Thorn's the eye and mouth are both kind wierd, I should get a reference image and try again. Except for the small problem that I need to know what style I want so I know what sort of reference images to look for.

    I'm not sure whether it's actually true that people are the most attracted to realistic proportions - it's traditional in both western and japanese comic style, and also art nouveau that characters should be drawn taller, thinner, more muscular in the case of men or more curvaceous in the case of women than they could realistically be. Also consider barbie dolls with their absurd proportions, yet in a psychology experiment children preferred to play with them rather than a realistically proportioned doll.

    Thank you for commenting - I feel more cheerful now that I know I'm not being completely ignored.

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    Don't worry about being ignored, threads always take time to get replies.

    I'm not so sure about the proportions myself. Unrealistic proportions generally attract more readers from the 'secluded, creepy people' category... Some exaggeration is alright of course, but don't go overboard like most erotic manga does. In any case, you should brush up on your anatomy before you go for illustrating the comic. As I hear so much around here, you've got to learn the human form before you can mess with it. Check out Burne Hogarth's Dynamic Anatomy or Eliot Goldfinger's Atlas of Human Anatomy for Artists.

    Your colors are a little lacking as well. Take a look at some stuff by Hyung-taekim. Amazing art, good to learn from.

    Good luck

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    *sigh* It's not that I haven't studied anatomy - I own 3 anatomy books and I studied them a lot when I got them and still regularly pull them out and stare at them for a while. The problem seems to be that I can't tell by looking at a drawing, my own or someone else's, what other people are seeing as being wrong with the anatomy. How the heck do I 'brush up' on that?

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    Try going to a life drawing class maybe? Unless you study up on realism, your stylized work will suffer.

    I understand you're trying to make these characters look surreal, but they won't look sexy unless they're reasonably close to human proportions. As they are, my mind is just reading they look anatomically 'wrong' rather than skinny and waifish.

    EDIT: Colours are not solid, as well. Keep highlights and shadows in mind. Even the fairest of skin will not be 'pure' white.

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    Are you drawing studies of the anatomy books? Just looking at the pictures won't help you. Copy down the pictures the best you can, and experiment with drawing muscles at different angles. You can't tell what's wrong with your anatomy because you don't know enough about the structure of the human body to see your mistakes. Just crank out the studies one after another and you'll see improvement after awhile.

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    The siloettes are really well done, especialy the female one, maybe try making them larger and adding detail to them like faces and clothes but just keeping the origonal figure would look good

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    Quote Originally Posted by berf
    The siloettes are really well done, especialy the female one, maybe try making them larger and adding detail to them like faces and clothes but just keeping the origonal figure would look good
    Thank you - although, they're all male. *sweatdrop* I assume you mean Venom, the one with the flowers and long hair? He is supposed to be a bishounen, a delicate pretty guy, and they're fairly often mistaken for women even in professional anime. But if you check the sideways-facing silhouette you can see there are no boobs. Um and they aren't going to be wearing any clothes really, just vines and flowers and branches. But I'm glad you like the silhouettes. I was quite happy with them myself, then was alarmed when the sketches didn't turn out as well.

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    Much like all the others, I find the silhouettes the most pleasing. I also know what you mean regarding having difficulty seeing the flaws in one's own work. It's so critical to get the proportions correct while you're learning, that you should feel free to use such devices as construction lines, references, grids, and anything else that will help you train your eye to identify good anatomy. It's a tough road, but it is all important if you want to represent believable figures. Once you have a good handle on the basics, you can start to distort the proportions and still maintain that believability.

    One key is to compare and notice relative sizes (how wide the hips are in comparison to the shoulders, to the thighs, different lenghts, etc.).

    Please keep it up. The ideas are interesting and I think you've got something cool started.

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    While I'm pretty profoundly disinterested in doing anything with realistic proportions, I do want to improve my anatomy. So I thought I'd open up my anatomy book and draw a skeleton in anime proportions (specifically, the proportions I want Venom, the flowery character, to have). Does anyone see anything specific which is wrong with this skeleton? What changes should I make before I move on to the next stage of the study and draw muscles on him?
    plant people character designs

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    Yeah, but here's the thing: with very limited exceptions, you cannot consistantly break the rules with any success until you know the rules.

    For this one (as with many others), the widths aren't suitable for supporting a full load of internal organs.

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    Quote Originally Posted by dogfood
    Yeah, but here's the thing: with very limited exceptions, you cannot consistantly break the rules with any success until you know the rules.

    For this one (as with many others), the widths aren't suitable for supporting a full load of internal organs.
    Erm... does anyone care about internal organs in anime? I want to be able to draw sexy anime characters which people will enjoy looking at and pay for a book of. That's my only, humble goal. I want to be able to make my own version of this:
    plant people character designs

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    Ah, I think we have discovered one of the fallacies you may be operating under:

    The vast majority of successful artists who operate in this style can do real, as well. They know how the body looks and moves and they make stylistic choices that convey an ideal, but still retain those things that allow us to easily identify with the figures (not just say, "yes, those are people", but say, "wow, cool people!"; there's a difference).

    So, while you may certainly disregard life, it will most likely be at your art's expense. While there are those who can go directly to "style", they are few, few.

    Here's what seems to happen a lot: person is inspired by some style; person emulates the style; person, without the basis to grow beyond and add to the style, soon grows bored; person stops drawing.

    And another scenerio: person wants to get better; online idiots tell person to only draw a certain way; drawing becomes tedious; person stops drawing.

    So, like almost everything else in life, there is a balance. You have stated your goal and we have given you one path to reach it (there may certainly be more than one, but you might have to go farther afield to get them). Though I almost hate to say this: as you get better, your goal will change, move farther out, and you will never reach it (if you're very lucky).

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    Drawing people has been difficult and tedious for me from the beginning, I have never particularly enjoyed it. I have stories I want to tell and I want to tell them with pictures, I want to be finished learning how to draw so I can just do it as easily as talking or writing, instead of agonizing over it and never getting the results I want. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys learning for its own sake, I'm the kind of person who likes knowledge because it is a tool which can be used to accomplish cool projects.

    I do understand that studying real people and anatomy would provide a sound basis of technique for drawing anime style, but I also know that personally I find real people painfully awkward and unattractive, and I don't have the motivation to force myself to look at and draw them. On the other hand I find anime style people attractive so even though I don't enjoy trying to draw them I'm at least motivated by the faint hope that the result will be pretty. I guess I view anime not as a style of representing the human form, but as an improvement on the human form. The word improvement implies change, that the anime form is different from the realistic human form, which is why I question the usefulness of studying realism to creaitng anime. Also, here's an out-there thought. What if real people looked like anime people, what if we lived in an anime world? Then anime would _be_ realism, and it would be the only thing there was to study. Do you think there would still be only a few people who could learn to draw anatomy well without any realistic anatomy to study? That seems kind of silly to me. I think the real problem is that there is a lack of good anime anatomy to study, so people who try to follow that path to knowledge are hobbled compared to people who pursue realism and have access to zillions of good references.

    Last edited by sunandshadow; July 24th, 2006 at 06:04 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by sunandshadow
    What if real people looked like anime people, what if we lived in an anime world? Then anime would _be_ realism, and it would be the only thing there was to study. Do you think there would still be only a few people who could learn to draw anatomy well without any realistic anatomy to study? That seems kind of silly to me. I think the real problem is that there is a lack of good anime anatomy to study, so people who try to follow that path to knowledge are hobbled compared to people who pursue realism and have access to zillions of good references.
    That doesn't make sense. If the world looked like anime, then that would be realistic anatomy, and people would have lots to study.

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    Just to add my two cents... I'd say dogfood is speaking with the most accuracy about your work. The idea is very creative but if your not willing to continue to push yourself creatively you'll begin to bore even yourself. Draw real people whenever possible. Go to a park look out the window, whatever.

    Also if your that uninterested in drawing figures, yet eager to bring this concept to a finished product, then stick to the writing chores and share the burden with someone who does enjoy figure drawing. DON'T GIVE UP if your passionate about it.

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    Draw real people with real anatomy first, understand that and you can draw all the anime/manga/disney/cartoon style you want, because if you didnt know all this are an exaggerated form of realism. If you can't understand the fundemental of real anatomy.. hell you gonna get worse and worse.

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    i was like you once...(i wanted to create) but i couldnt put my thoughts on paper..cause i lacked the knowledge to do so..
    you keep on saying anime this..and anime that....

    how do you think those anime artists started out... i do think the started out
    just by drawing anime...

    anime..or any comic.. is stylized.. but there is one thing that is standard..and never changes..
    its the foundations (skeletal, anatomy,muscles,colors,perspective and etc)
    everything u do...is started with the foundations..and if you cant get over that hump...
    your a lost cause....and you've wasted your time..and everyone elses.

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  22. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by Number_6
    That doesn't make sense. If the world looked like anime, then that would be realistic anatomy, and people would have lots to study.
    I meant they wouldn't have our kind of complex realistic anatomy to study.

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    Quote Originally Posted by woodbert
    Also if your that uninterested in drawing figures, yet eager to bring this concept to a finished product, then stick to the writing chores and share the burden with someone who does enjoy figure drawing.
    I would really love to do that. I've looked and looked, but I can't find a professional-quality manga artist willing to illustrate my stories on the speculation of splitting the profits; not that many artists want to draw homosexual erotica and they all want money up front and I don't have any.

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  24. #23
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    This is the worst concept I've ever heard of, I can't imagine anyone wanting to read about the gay erotic adventures of anthropomorphic plant people.

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    Quote Originally Posted by sunandshadow
    Drawing people has been difficult and tedious for me from the beginning, I have never particularly enjoyed it. I have stories I want to tell and I want to tell them with pictures, I want to be finished learning how to draw so I can just do it as easily as talking or writing, instead of agonizing over it and never getting the results I want. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys learning for its own sake, I'm the kind of person who likes knowledge because it is a tool which can be used to accomplish cool projects.
    This is the kind of impatient, give me everything on a silver platter attitude that plagues our society today and that i hate. Everyone wants to take the fast road to everything without the hard work. Well you cant do that. In the long run trying it will only hurt you. So knock off the shit and work hard. You think people like working for pennies at McDonalds? No, but they do it so they can live and hopefully do what they want to someday. Hard work was what society was based on, but now stupid young spoiled people who think they deserve everything (even knowledge) just handed to them are gonna destroy everything those hard working people fought for.

    sorry for the rant.


    I do understand that studying real people and anatomy would provide a sound basis of technique for drawing anime style, but I also know that personally I find real people painfully awkward and unattractive, and I don't have the motivation to force myself to look at and draw them. On the other hand I find anime style people attractive so even though I don't enjoy trying to draw them I'm at least motivated by the faint hope that the result will be pretty. I guess I view anime not as a style of representing the human form, but as an improvement on the human form. The word improvement implies change, that the anime form is different from the realistic human form, which is why I question the usefulness of studying realism to creaitng anime. Also, here's an out-there thought. What if real people looked like anime people, what if we lived in an anime world? Then anime would _be_ realism, and it would be the only thing there was to study. Do you think there would still be only a few people who could learn to draw anatomy well without any realistic anatomy to study? That seems kind of silly to me. I think the real problem is that there is a lack of good anime anatomy to study, so people who try to follow that path to knowledge are hobbled compared to people who pursue realism and have access to zillions of good references.
    Ok. If we lived in a world where everyone looks like Anime people (henceforth refered to as AR, anime reality). There would then be a new exagerated anime reality, EAR. This EAR would be based on the complex anatomical properties of the AR. People would then study AR in order to learn how they can exagerate certain properties in certain ways so that they would achieve believable EAR. They would then continue to experiment in EAR using the the basis of AR so they could push the envelope further but still retain believability.

    This is no different then reality and anime. You want to exagerate reality in a specific way and you cant do that well unless you understand what you can and cant exagerate believably and why people exagerate certain things by studying real anatomy. Copying a style wont get you anywhere and will just trap you, like dogfood said. But to extend from that you basicaly become a hack copier. And at any time in the furture if they wanted to draw something fresh they wouldnt be able to.

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