B*W: Character Design & Style #1
The quick ones are the best
I must view this quick sketch daily: it’s simple, cartoony, funny and lively
I must view this quick sketch daily: it’s simple, cartoony, funny and lively
As soon as I started drawing the strips, the usual problem arose. I began to elaborate and add too much detail. I find it difficult to stick to a simplified cartoony style. Even though it looks better.
The detail makes the production process more time-consuming. Revisions and more revisions; and colouring them is made more difficult. The other thing is that as you add more detail to faces – they get older looking. What I want here are kids that look anywhere between 7 and 11 years old. Broad and loose enough that the readers might impose the age that they imagine, or best relate to, onto them.
In simplifying the design, I’d actually love to even use hosepipe-animation style limbs on the kids without much in the way of joint-articulation but I think I need more than just two dots for the eyes.
Weird Twist
“Cor, the seventies is brilliant!”
Incidentally, there was a weird thing that happened in this one. When I scribbled: “Cor, the seventies is brilliant!” it made me wonder about how the kid could be aware that he was living in a period that would be retrospectively referred to as the seventies. Almost as if he’s travelled back in time or is looking at it from outside. It’s a weird mix of childish optimism and living for the moment, and some sort of physical dislocation. I can’t put my thumb on it, but it’s fascinating me!
Learn more about the genesis of Between * Wars here ^
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