Getting to know you

Preliminary character concept sketches

I'm working on getting a feel for the characters in my story so that when I get to actually writing I'll know who they are a bit. 

So now, for starters, knowing how a guy carries himself, and how he dresses, goes a certain distance to knowing what kind of a person he might be. I'll refine the designs as I develop the characters further, and I've drawn both of the main charcters too short here, but again it's a start.

The younger cowboy here has a casual, but prepared for a fight stance. So we can assume he's a bit brash. He's got a lasso but no gun so he's either Canadian or has recently spent time in Canada. (it's the latter.) He's generally clean, but in need of a shave and a haircut. I drew him that way because he's been on the run for a while.

The bartender doesn't count for much, because he's just a piece of the set. But if you look closely you can see where I drew his whole figure, behind the bar, to check my proportions and where the floor would go. I generally do that with my drawings anyway - include the bits that are behind other bits when I'm doing my initial sketches. Doing this helps me give a three-dimensional feel to the drawings.

The older guy, taciturn, grumpy, kinda stiff (stiff cause of old injuries, not cause of him being stuffy). I'll make sure he keeps the guarded body language and the big, old-guy ears when I do the design tweaks that this guy will need before I start drawing the pages.

I started a rough drawing of the lady in the book, but it turned out looking too much like Elektra so I scrapped it. I definitely have to get that stuff locked down soon, though.

I'm kind of working on the story outline and character designs at the same time here, because each one informs the other.

So, that's where we are this week. It's time to do a bit of writing so I'll have stuff to draw, and at the same time to do a bit of drawing so I'll know what to write down.