Today like many days, I'm going to be designing a character. but unlike most days, I'm not gonna be doing it on my own I'm going to be doing it with some of your help. I asked you guys some of this or that questions, to help design a character. So we're gonna be following these prompts. I've got the results right here and we're gonna make a character. Posted these questions almost a day ago. So the answers have had a lot of time to brew. So, yeah. Let's start in my sketchbook. I want the finished drawing to either be digital or on like a separate piece of paper, but I think it's a good idea start in the sketchbook. I guess
we could go ahead and start with the first question. ♪ I asked if I was drawing a creature or a human and it looks like by almost 7,000, creature won. So let me quickly just make note of that. I'm gonna draw a chicken to symbolize. I don't know why because I don't draw chickens. [Pfff] It was an idea. Okay, we'll leave it at that. I asked for a body type and it looks like we got the female body type I'm just gonna go ahead and draw this chicken with a more feminine body type. [Giggles] This isn't the character, we're just - We're just making note of the answers here. I think I'm gonna just make the executive decision and decide that the character is going to be kind of human shaped I didn't ask that but I think it'll just work well for my brain and what I like to draw and hopefully we won't end up with something that looks exactly like this! Girl bod. Oh and then next I ask for like name/gender suggestions I meant that I wanted like, you know, both of them in one, but I don't - I was just perusing the answers here, and I don't think people really understood. So we're just gonna have to live with whatever I get. Let me just load as many of these as I can and it will try to randomly pick one! Oh, nope, there it goes. Do, do, do, do, do. And then oh we can go up a little, we can go back down, we can go - Oh, which direction is it even going at this point and then, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. BOOM. Ferocious, the snail lady suggested by zoyabirch. Wait, what happened, why does it say pie? I'm an Instagram pleb, I don't know what's going on. When I click on ferocious snail lady, I get pie. So, I don't know, well we'll write down all that because I don't understand. We got pie With a little steam. look at our delicious pie! Oh, well, that's a different person's name. Now. I'm actually confused I click on this one, their user name is zoyabirch, when I click on the answer it tells me, witch.of.thunder's response was pie. So I guess the universe wants me to use both of those. So we got a snail lady. That's not what I asked for, but here we go. [Short laugh] Get a nice snail. We're gonna keep it simple here. Just trying to figure out all the answers, then once we have all of the answers, I can like take a step back and see where we're going from there, and I guess the name is Ferocious. [Laughs] I don't think that was supposed to be a name but there we go. (Sings) Ferocious Snail lady who likes pies. Oh, this is gonna drive me nuts let me just take this off [Laughs] Next time,
I'll be more clear about like what I'm looking for But for now, it's my fault. So we're just gonna - We're gonna live with this. So let's find out more about Ferocious. Let's see. Is Ferocious into neon colors or neutrals? 51% of people wanted neutrals. Now neon and neutral, I don't think. Are those even opposites? I don't know. So I'm thinking if we just use neutral colors, like blacks and grays and whites and maybe like neutral browns. Like I feel like we could even use neutral pink's. If that's even a thing. [Laughs] So neutral color palette. Okay, and then the next question I asked was, what time period did they live in? And 58% said between the years of 1901 and 2000. So, uh 20th century. I asked this question kind of meaning like when they were born. So that's definitely going to like impact their clothes, probably their hairstyles. And different things like that. All right next question. oh I asked if they were a hero or a villain. and 61%percent of people wanted her to be bad, which I guess works because Her name's Ferocious. [Laughs] Bad (drawn out) guy. It's gonna be kind of fitting well together. Born in the 20th century, so was I but you know. [Laughs] We'll probably push it a little further and then they're a bad guy. All right, we got more I think. I asked if they were talented or not and
69% said they would like Ferocious to be very talented and I asked if the characters hair was short or long and so it looks like ooh this was a really close one. I kept looking at this throughout the day and it was like 50/50 for the longest time but it looks like long hair won it out in the nick of time with 51%. So we gotta draw our snail lady with long hair. That's going to be weird. [Short laugh] Let me just symbolize it here [Giggles] Ta da alright, and then next I asked another funny little one. Are they more peanut butter or jelly and 53% said jelly. Alright. Next question. Is their outfit more for cold or warm weather? and 53 percent said cold weather. So I'm probably gonna have some more long sleeves and things like that Alright then next, I asked if this character is more earthy or celestial and we got 69% celestial. I'm kinda happy with that question. I don't know what it's gonna do for me. It's probably gonna cause trouble but there we go. Is that even how you spell that word? So maybe we can use a lot of stars. I could use planets. I love drawing stars, so I'm really excited about this one. Alright, I think there's one more question. That was are they more biological or mechanical and 70% preferred Biological. So no mech-suits here. [Laughs] Alright, that was the base. That was like the base questions that I asked. So from now on I have to come up with it but let's kind of try and stick with this groundwork for a little while before I ask for more help There's a lot to unpack here. Let's first start with like the body, because that's kind of like the base. So they want, it's a female... and a slug though. Is there a way to make a snail look like a human...? What even... [Laughs] Now we're either gonna have to go like full-on snail or I have to find a way to kind of humanize them. You know kind of like - I don't want it to be like a human with snail elements, I want it more like a snail with opposable thumbs. That's like where my brain is going, you know kind of like all the bugs in "A Bug's Life kind of thing. It might not be possible, but let's, let's try that first. So basically they need to have like a head and a body. I mean the caterpillars didn't really. I don't know, we'll see. [Laughs] Learning experience. Oh my gosh Let me just draw a character and see if we can throw on some elements even
though that kind of like goes against what I just said Let me just kind of - Oh, what if the, ooh, okay. So slugs are like kind of goopy on the bottom, you know. Like this. What if that's what the legs look like? They're just like a goop Maybe there are little antennas. I think that's what they're called. Oh, and we need long hair! That's another thing that's an easy one to like sort of- What if the hair is kind of part of that goopy stuff? I don't know, well I should find the word for that. I don't want to sound like an idiot the whole time Maybe half the time but not the whole time. You know, that, that's where I draw the line! Slug Anatomy. No snail, snail! It's a gastropod. Okay. Yeah, we're learning. Okay, so they have optical tentacles on top of their head. They have little sensory tentacles lower. Ooh, they have this thing on their back called a mantle Aw, you're gonna love this. This squishy part that I'm talking about is actually called the skirt, how perfect! All their butt and everything is actually up here That's really weird. Well,
especially when it's a human shaped character. I guess. We're just trying to figure this out. One step at a time. This is called the skirt, so I love that we actually made it a skirt. The shell should probably - How far into the shell do they go? Now from like the side I'm guessing the character - So we got like the skirt, but then we have the shell on the back. Put it up higher more like a backpack. Well for now, let's just keep it down here. Then the hair kind of comes down this way and it's maybe part of the body That's kind of how I'm visualizing it right now. She needs to be a bad guy though. So let's uh - Let's put a little more personality into this face. [Laughs] Think the natural thing to do is just make her scowl. They have a lot of texture and stuff. We have enough freedom to like make the clothes and the body almost one. I mean if I think back to like " A Bug's Life" they don't wear clothes. But I think we'll be fine if we want to like take - I mean, actually what am I worried about? Like, it's just a drawing. [Laughs] We could do whatever we want. We don't have the twentieth century yet. [Gasps] This is perfect. It kind of looks like a bustle. I was like doing that without even thinking about it. Oh, but that's perfect. What did fashion look like in like 1901? Like right at the turn of the century. Okay. There's not really a bustle there It's a little bit more slim than I thought but it is
kind of a similar silhouette to what I've got right here Let's just look at 1900s in general. Ooh, we might have to include a hat. As long as it's something that fits into the 19th century, We could go 1990s if we wanted so, I've got a lot of leeway here, but I'm thinking... This gives me like a skirt vibe of the snail. Looks like bustles were kind of out by the 1900s Like really big ones, but we're gonna have to exaggerate I think. Oh, wait, what's this? S-curve silhouette. Man, do you ever just think about all the things that you don't know and how many there are. Yeah, I don't think we can go in the 1940s to 50s. That's not the silhouette I'm thinking will work here. Yeah 1920s it's still the completely wrong silhouette. I think we're gonna have to go with like early 1900s here More Edwardian It looks like sometimes they have like a little bit of a bustle. We're just gonna have to really exaggerate Drawing her hair dark. I don't know if that'll stay that way I'm kind of trying to use the hair as part of the body just so I can get a different silhouette with the dress section It's like this is hair. This thing and then that way I can use like a different color for the dress Now slugs, when I think of like snails legs, I think of like rounded shapes So I think we should probably keep the face round. Good. Now the 1900's all had a lot of updos. So, I wonder if we could just kind of like include one in the hair. Do you want a hat? [Gasps] Ooh! I love the contrast being this huge shape, a skinny shape, a huge shape and then like a smaller shape That's just - That's just - Oh that's - That's really... Really fun. So almost like a half-up half-down do. The hat kind of like it hides her tentacles. Now
is definitely the time to kind of experiment with shapes. While we're thumbnailing and brainstorming. Has a huge hat. [Pow] She is gonna be 'El-o-gant' Ooh, What about big poofy sleeves? I don't know if they kind of get lost in there We could bring the bustle down a little and then you'll see those a little bit more. kind of like show that shape. I can have it kind of drag a little further back, that way you see these fun sleeves Give her a little walking stick. [Laughs] Oh, I think we're getting somewhere. This is kind of like a fun silhouette. There's something we're definitely missing. Okay cold weather. I just have to give her like a coat or something. Ooh, talented, we got to find her some kind of talent and I don't want it to be making pies That's just nah, she makes the evil pies she goes to the same convention as Sweeney Todd, maybe. [Laughs] Kind of fond of this silhouette back here. I want to make sure it looks like a gastropod. Can go ahead and draw a bigger two people in the 1900 excellent posture to a fault [Laughs] Probably, Then we have that skirt section, big poufy sleeves. But the hair, what do we do with the hair? I'm gonna have to try and stick to a round - A round face. Super long hair there. Maybe some coming from this side, too. And then gotta somehow fit this whole snail thing. Do I still like this idea? [Laughs] We could change it from being the hair to like a cape and then that fits into the cold-weather theme. Or we can just give her a long hair. I don't know. I guess it's up to me. She also isn't giving me that bad guy vibe yet ♪ Okay, I think I'm having this - The shell's coming up a little too high, we want to keep it separated from those sleeves Otherwise, we're gonna lose the contrast there Oh it's all about contrast. Yeah, I think I'm gonna cut out the Edwardian hairstyle and just leave it straight down. But then include the Edwardian looking hat, that way we can create that contrast. hehe, there's that word again, between a large hat and like the slim sleek hair. I mean we're already dressing her very nice. So she's obviously not a complete klutz. She can put one arm in a sleeve and whatnot Make sure she has nice long sleeves, so she can survive a colder climate and not to mention, she's got her home on her back right there, right. Bad guy. How do I make her look more evil? This jelly can maybe go in the pie. [Laughs] Cold weather, celestial, biological. We've got that down. I even included like flowers. How does she sit down? I guess she just doesn't...? Let's see if it can somehow make it a more winter looking outfit. ♪ Well, but then like, this kind of like ruins the entire character design so far. ♪ We lose like the hair when I do this because I feel like the long hair doesn't quite make as much sense so I bundled it up, made the Hat a little smaller. Just because that looks like something that was common in that era. I don't think it quite fits. I am gonna stick with this. She's got long sleeves. So it's not like she's dressed for the beach or anything [Chuckles] So I think that's fine. Maybe didn't give it the time of day, but I don't - I just don't care for it. My biggest predicament right now is well, the bad guy and talented stuff but like the celestial idea because snails are obviously very earthy. They spend a lot of time close to the earth. So I need to find a way to make it celestial, you know, I wonder if we could find a pose that's just floaty, just like give it a bit of an angel appearance like where you're just sort of like not touching the ground. That would give it like an airy, spacey vibe and then maybe I can start including more - [Tapping] Stars or something to that. I don't know, let's start real small. See if I can get some kind of silhouette that works with this body, that S shape. They're talking about on that one website. How do I? - See that's, that's, ooh, that's a problem. How do I make it look like a snail? But also floaty, that doesn't really happen, you know. I feel like I'm breaking the laws. I'm gonna give her a little bit of a umbrella like Mary Poppins here. [Hehe] Now
the skirt section ends up being really big when I do this. It doesn't really look like a slug at all I think to make her look a little bit more bad, I gotta give her like a lot of confidence in her actions because
I think that's just something the bad people require. They've drowned out their conscience I assume. [Short laugh] So they have to have a lot of confidence that they're doing the right thing or they'd find it hard to be bad, you know. I'm gonna try and draw her chin up a little higher like she's looking down at people. I definitely don't think I can draw her floaty. Definitely ended up a lot closer to humanoid than I expected at the beginning here, but that's definitely a fun thing about brainstorming, is that you kind of can end up someplace you didn't realize you were even going, just by allowing things to happen. I want to draw her - I don't know, interacting with someone like maybe if she was... Scrunched up. Her skirt would be doing one of these things. Trying to draw like the body underneath it. I hope that it'll help me out. Here we go. [Laughs] Maybe there's a little kid. Maybe she's offering him a pie! [Gasps] No! Look at that The poor innocent child! What's the pie going to do? Like a little boy. I don't draw enough male characters. Oh, he's so hungry. He's like, yes, I have not had pie In my whole life! Oh no! Oh, I really like this pose with the scrunchiess, the scrunched up snail. [Laughs] But what is the pie do? We can't just have it like be poison. That's just lame It's getting confusing. Hah. The butt's like back here behind the hair. So it's a little tricky. Make that obvious. Kinda lost it in the details there. ♪ Now, when he eats the pie, ♪ What happens? What happens? Maybe it turns him into a rose. [Gasps] Which she then puts in her hat. [Gasps] Whoo! So her hat is full of little kids who took pies from strangers! That's the moral of the story. Don't take samples at Cosco. You don't know them, you're just gonna eat their food? Unless you wanna get turned into a rose. So all these little roses are just like "Don't do it!" This deliciousness ain't worth this! Pies filled with such sweet jelly, that upon consuming it, you've turned into a rose But you see then, she uses to adorn her hat. That's a little, uh, creepy. Obviously if this was a story, there'd be some way to save the roses, I guess. Yeah. Well I made her evil, okay, are you happy you now? and she's talented because she makes the best pies in the world. That's not what I wanted, but I think we're just gonna have to accept what's been given to me. Se's very talented. She makes very delicious pies. Alright, we still need to do coloring for the neutral color palettes. The jelly, we put jelly inside the pie. I don't know if that's how you make pies but that's fine. Oh Celestial, that's the last thing we're missing. So maybe she's not really a snail but she's an alien [Laughs] Hiding among men. Turning your children into flowers. That's a really weird idea to be sure but it's got kind of like that Grimm's fairy tale vibe to it. Which I kind of like. Even
though I'm not the biggest fan of Grimm's fairy tales. You know, they're kind of grim. Oh, we lost your optical tentacles and their sensory tentacles. I feel like those are important. These will be the kids of this story that take down this ferocious snail Lady. There we go. It's kind of like a Hansel and Gretel sort of thing [Laughs] but on the streets... Of a busy city and no one seems to notice. Whoa which is creepier in my opinion. Now that I think about do snails eat flowers or anything? Snails enjoy plants, fungi and algae. So maybe she does eat them. Oh, I don't like that. [Laughs] Plant matter, vegetables, lettuce dandelions, cucumbers and carrots. I hate her so much now. Leave the kids alone! I don't like that she picks on kids. Why did I do this? Know what? How did the kids take her down? Maybe they steal her hat or something. Running from the witch! Running from Ferocious. Maybe the kids give her her name. That's why her name suits her so well. [Laughs] Oh my gosh running is so hard to draw! and a skirt even. They steal the hat. [Gasps] Maybe they plant the flowers, Why'd I draw two kids? And then they grow back into children. It's a kid! Yay! Happy ending. [Claps] We need to go back to Ferocious though and finalize her design, maybe add some colors. Well, obviously we need to add some colors , but her palette is supposed to be very neutral Oh I really like this sketch still Okay, and maybe we'll try to add some like galaxies or something somewhere I might hop into my computer and draw it digitally. Thumbnail pose idea. Do that S curve. Posture the Edwardian thing. Snail shell. Tail. With lots of flowers. Whoo, maybe the flowers - So she's gonna have a super neutral color palette but then her flowers are going to be all different colors because they're children and then as the children give up hope, they'll slowly become more neutral colors too, so most of her flowers will probably be very bright and cheerful. How do you hold the pie like this? Skirt section down here that way we can use color that complements the character design and even kind of tells a story There's really only one pose she looks good in, well, I like this one too, but like one that like shows off the character really well and maybe when they bring the children back, it kills Ferocious. So she's like, aww, dead! Crushed by her own shell. [Laughs] She loses all their powers. Classic. I think I managed to get all the prompts to fit together in some way I think the last thing we need to do is just make a colored version. So I'm going to start off with like a colored pencil here and lay out our pose on the paper and then maybe we can use some Copic markers or something Gonna try and change up the pose just a little maybe draw are more head-on. We haven't done that. Let me just see if it actually is possible. [Laughs] That's always a good thing to check. Big snail shell behind her. Lot's of flowers. Oh, you know what? I forgot these things again. Go ahead and erase... This pencil that kind of interacts with it. So I don't have to worry about that. I really wanted to make sure we keep some of those fun shapes. I'm exaggerating like the hips and like the ankles and things like that. Just so that you have more interesting fun shapes. Slugs texture. [Laughs[ I like these little optical feelers - No, sensory tentacles. They kind of give me like earring vibes, which would not translate in real life but with art it does. Add that to the list of reasons I like art more than real life. Whoo! I'm going to test some colors before I throw them in here You know, you got likes grays. I don't really have a lot of desaturated browns. I think with the Copic color system, you want the second number to be a really low number for it to be less saturated. I don't want it to all just be gray scale though. It just gives off too much of an evil vibe, like how she's supposed to trick kids, when she looks like that, you know. [Laughs] That's my opinion. So I might just start including some other tones too. Throw in some purple and see what happens. Doesn't usually steer me wrong. Alright that's feeling a little bit more approachable. I think we're heading in the right direction. I wonder if we had some straight black, if that would just add a little contrast and I hardly ever - Actually,
I don't think I've ever used my black Copic marker Alright. She's seeming a lot more approachable now. She's got like a little bit more, I don't know. She looks a little less raggedy. She
still looks like an old widow who hates children though Which maybe she is but I don't want it to show. I don't want it to be too obvious, [Laughs quietly] if you're something really crazy like I'm gonna
do something really crazy and throw in some orange Yuck. Yeah. No, that's not the answer. [Blows raspberry] Not feeling it. Let's go ahead and throw in some line art on this See where that takes me. Add a couple leaves in there, Ah! My hand bent. [titters] Oh well, keep going! I probably could have done better than that. I'm just not sure if I'm going to be using this sketch now at this point, since I added color there, it's not gonna show as nicely as if I hadn't. Looks pretty fed up with the world. I love it Yeah, I do think I'm going to move over to some digital art just that I have more freedom with the colors and I do think I'll be able to get a better result. So what I'm going to do is probably, you know, sketch it out figure out the pose and make sure that it's something that I'm happy with, then I'll probably you know, Sketch over that sketch. You know, I call it my second sketch layer and I'll find the details and everything. Really iron out what I want Ferocious to look like. That was her name, right? Yes, it was. [Laughs] Then I'll probably you know, do line art. I think I'll keep it kind of simple and poppy, pop arty, you know thick line art and then after that I'll probably add in some colors. So this is gonna probably be the hardest part 'cause it's what I put the least amount of work into here but I'm gonna try and keep the colors kind of neutral but have like pops of something bright to draw your eye in different directions. Like I want you to look at the pie and like the roses on her hat 'cause those are like important for her story Um, I don't know if I want the like shell to be super obvious, but I guess I'll figure that out. Then what else is here. Is that it? I just had color maybe a little bit of shading. Obviously,
the color is going to be the thing that takes the longest Because it's gonna take a lot of experimentation, but once I can find something that I'm pretty happy with, I think it'll start going smoothly, you know once I get that idea for it and feel for it. Yeah, and then that'll be it. So hopefully it turned out well, tell me what you think. How do you like Ferocious our evil snail lady? Yeah, who tricks children into eating pies, turning them into flowers. Yeah. So that is our character based off the suggestions and the replies to the poles that you gave me. Thanks for participating over on my Instagram. While that's happening, I can do what I want over here. I'm gonna throw in some color though, Oh, I probably should show you the beginning here, our humble beginnings. I think when I drew this one, that's when I was like Oh, I kind of like this idea and then this one turned out really nicely. Maybe went a little downhill, but hopefully the digital one turns out better. I haven't done it yet. You let me know. Thank you guys for watching. I'll see you guys all next week and I'll be the delicious evening full of waffles. Bye! ♪
