(logo pops) - Hey guys, welcome to
another episode of Ross Draws. We're still in my kitchen but today I'm going to
show you how I develop and create OC's. Character
design is my passion. There are 17 characters inside Nima's book there with that should be more,
but they couldn't fit, so... I had to delete them. Today I revealed three of my newest OC's, the color dodge princesses, all in honor of my five-year
anniversary here on YouTube. I'll be releasing new merch.
I'd leveled up my merch game. I'm so proud of this collection. Look, color, block
embroidered custom tabs. This is all dropping April 26. So Mark your calendar, April 26th later in the video, I'll be announcing a draw
of the standard style, where you can win a
whole bunch of new merch. - So let's do it. So what does OC stand for OC stands for original character, you know, in the art community. OC's have become so popular. You know, many artists have OC's. For example, Ilya has Lisa. Audrem has pepper and Lois has no girl. There are many ways to create an OC. Now, there is no one correct way. but the two most popular
methods I've seen are One, You have the story
first, you have a movie script a book script, and then
you create a visual after or number two, you start
visually like with Nima, you know you create a character that you think looks
really cool aesthetically, and then you create a story around them. For me, having an OC leads
to some of my favorite way that fans show their
support and appreciation. You know, last year, I had
a draw this in your style with Nima and Faye, and it was so awesome. Oh my gosh, I saw so
many different artists, so many different art styles. It was such an amazing experience. Whenever I create an OC. The first thing I think about is how they are an
extension of who I am. You know, whether it's a passion or a person I know for example, this is Flip. This is a character inside Nima's Book. Flip joins Nima on her journey, and flip is kind of like my self insert. Yeah. I created flip around
the time I bleached my hair. Do you guys remember that? Flip is a cook, and he wants to become
the world's greatest chef. He represents my love for food and also he's super passionate whatever goal or endeavor he has, he goes at it at 110%. Also we have Nima and Faye. Nima represents a more technical side. You know, she had the love for art and for drawing and a
bit of an overthinker. And then Faye represents
my more introverted side. You know, I'm an only
child, she's an only child. She had the hidden passion for
dancing, and I love to dance. So you guys can see how I
love to take different parts of who I am, and infuse it
into every character I create. Next thing I think about
when creating an OC, is think about their main goal in life. You know, what is their objective? These things are dictated by their past, present, and future. I also think about what
position they are in society. Does your world even have a society? For example, in Nima, this is the council. We have five Gates inside Nima, and these council representatives
each represent a gate. You can tell here that they have kind of more lighter palette in their robe, but here Ame have the kind of darker essence which can
indicate rebelliousness. And so no spoilers, but Ame
looks like the odd one out. The third thing I think
about when creating my OC is that your character should have a thing, a defining characteristic
that goes alongside your character. It can be a physical trait, a hobby or even a special ability. And a good example of this is Atlas. Yes, this is another character from a book. and you might've
seen a quick animation of him in the finder light animation. He's an Olympic swimmer, and his thing is his red nose. You know how kind of lifeguards, they are out in the sun a lot, and their nose get sunburned. I kind of wanted to play that up. I understand that these
characters are multi-faceted, but having a thing helped the audience remember who they are. And once you've identified
that thing, then you can build up the other layer of
what makes them, them. For example, I know my name is Ross Draws, but I do more than just draw. Ross bakes, Ross dances, Ross codes. Just kidding, I don't code. And we can also play with
that one characteristic and develop a story,
play with the audience expectations and emotions. I think it's super powerful, if they even lost their one thing. A really fun exercise for creating OC is to
design them in a team. You know, every team has a leader, and some supporting castmates, and every character is flawed. So, they have strengths and weaknesses, but it's really fun to
think about that dynamic and how they work together as a whole. In popular culture, teams of three and fives are very common. For example, you know,
we have PowerPuff Girls Totally Spy, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura. Avatar, you know, team of
three, it was originally Ang, Soka, and Katara and it grew to five with Toph and Zuko. We have Teen Titans, we have Power Rangers and we have Sailor Moon,
all teams of fives. Also on my Twitch channel we've just designed a team ourselves. Look at this Teadore,
the cute battle maid. Yes, this is what you guys wanted. Yeah, it was super fun
to design them as a team. This was to celebrate
my digital art bootcamp. Also a quick, thank you to everyone that joined the digital art bootcamp. The first class dropped
this week, you know over 4,500 students. That's insane, but make
sure you do your homework. If you want to learn
more about the bootcamp, head to Patreon.com/rossdraws and introducing the newest team of three, the color dodge princesses. I'm sure you guys know miracle, I debuted her on my channel in 2019, she was the original color dodge princess. She represents the energy we have here positivity, inspiration, and happiness. She loves creating miracles for people. And as time goes on, story and
character change and develop my logo has a three color sparkle. And each of the sparkle
represent a princess Miracle represents the blue one, Wish represents the pink one, and Dream represents the yellow one. I really enjoyed designing
them as a complete set. I had to think about how
to keep them cohesive, but unique at the same time. Each princess has a
different crown, you know Miracle has the sparkle
crown and a sparkle earring. And then I made Wish to compliment. You know, I gave her star earrings and a star crown because
we wish upon a star. Dream, yes, the third
color dodge princess, she had a moon crown, It can depict the phase of the moon whether it's a crescent or full moon, she had dream cloud-like hair. Moon and star earring
because we dream at night. I just wanted her to embody
the essence of a dream. So when I created Dream,
my work still isn't done. You know, I have to then design them as a cohesive unit as a team. And so over the course of this phase Wish originally had shorter hair but it changed into a
pixie cut to push more of that spunky fun personality and then Dream's original eye
color was actually purple a little more kind of dark,
mysterious, a touch of evil but I changed it to more
of an icy white to push the ethereal essence I'm going for. And miracle just stayed the same. Visually designing a team of characters and a really
fun exercise for anyone. You can keep a similar
silhouette between all of them or really push
the different archetypes and exaggerate shape language. The most important thing is cohesion. Whether they have a
matching visual component or a matching art style. So now, draw this in your style. Yes. Pick one of the
princesses or even all of them and draw them in your own style and use the hashtag Ross draws this in your style so I can find your work. And the deadline is April 24th. I'll pick three winners to
give a $250 shopping spree to my new collection. For more details, head to my Instagram. Guys, April 26th is when my
color dodge collection drops. Don't forget to subscribe. Remember every day is a color dodge day.
