Model Sheets, Character Turnarounds and Expression Sheets!
One of the things I’m asked is how I keep my drawing style consistent on a project that’s taken over three years of my free time. Part of the reason is because I’m drawing a style that’s natural for me. My style. But I also recommend making a model sheet or character turnaround. This is extremely important if you’re working as a team to create a graphic novel. While working in the movie and animation industry, this has been an important learning experience. Sometimes I like to stray from the model sheet when trying to express an emotion. But knowing what to stray from needs to be in place before you can stray from it. In fact, I can really stress it’s importance now because I didn’t think I needed one for Sonja in reMIND and now she’s giving me problems every time I try to draw her face from a new angle or with a different expression.
My Definitions:
Model sheets are posed characters, styled ideally for a project. They can be referenced in order to keep an artist or team of artists “on model”.
Character Turnarounds are similar to model sheets but focus on the front, three quarters, profile and back views. I’ve seen Turnarounds with up to 8 angles. Some turnarounds only focus on closeups of the head at different angles.
Expression Sheets are examples of the range of typical expressions a main character might have to refer to later when trying to keep a characters personality “on model”. Here’s a good example I found online.
There are other names for these but you get the idea. They are all designed to help you keep consistent. Constancy is key to being a professional looking artist. Notice I said “professional looking”. If your art is professional looking then it won’t be long until you are a professional artist.
My first commercial animation job was animating Barbie for Mattel. What a nightmare. Don’t ever take a job from Mattel. Anyway, we were forced to crank out animation without an approved model sheet and then when the model sheet was approved it kept changing. We ended up reanimating the same characters over and over.
I was hired later to design a character for a Windows XP commercial and the first thing I insisted was getting the final approval on a model sheet or turnaround before any animation started. Here’s what I ended up creating for the character turnarounds.
Notice the attention to details in height and proportions as well as pockets and folds in the clothes. You should be able to draw a horizontal line across any part in a turnaround and have the lines hit the same point of the character across the board. This is important to figure out at the start so you don’t have to redraw anything later when you realize the strap in the front never goes anywhere on the back. Not to mention just figuring out all the angles and faces really good. Another good idea is to make an expression sheet with several common poses and expressions. You can build these with notes of things to remember like what the buttons look like or the bottom of the shoes or how that fold in the pant leg looks. Here’s what I came up for Windows.
Another brilliant idea is to make a head bust, sculpture or marquette of your character to view from multiple angles and under different lighting conditions. I’ll go into this in a later post.
We were lucky enough to get James Baxter to do the character animation for this commercial. James is a legend in the animation industry.
Even though this example is from a commercial, all the same rules apply for your graphic novel. I learned it the hard way. I made one for Victuals but I never made one for Sonja. Now I need to keep reworking Sonja over and over until she looks the same throughout the book. Make a model sheet or a turnaround!
All this artwork was created at Stardust Studios. If you want to see the final commercial go to Stardust.tv. Click on their Library link at the top left and filter by “Tech”. Then look for “Windows XP: Monster 2″. Sorry there’s not an easier path. Stupid Flash.
Hey! nice post! very informative..thanks for sharing your experiences..oh by the way have you checked DA lately they started this group thingy..well i joined this group
http://getwatchers.deviantart.com/favourites/?new
and it helps in getting a lotta views in your deviations at DA once you're a member you just submit the deviation to them then they'll do the rest..i won't go into detail on how it really works but it's fairly simple and it's worth checking out..if you submit a spread of reMind on DA you could put a link back here in your blog or at any website that you want by putting it in the artist's comments.
Hey thanks for the heads up on the groups. I joined a group called Comic Creators and it's been pretty neat. I'm still getting use to that place but I'm starting to understand how it works finally. Thanks again!
Not to rain on anyone’s parade, but in my personal experience the GetWatchers application does not generate a significant amount of views or feedback. Note that the views GetWatchers “gives” you is a function of how many times you use it to view other peoples work (cycled randomly, with some preference filters) and how often you comment/fave/vote through the application (which is capped per hour). It can be very time consuming and the returns are inconsistent.
Groups are the most effective means. Submitting the same piece of your work to 5-6 groups (which only takes minutes) will generate more responses than spending a few hours on the GetWatchers app. Look for niche groups specific to fantasy, scifi, and of course comics, but you can also considering submitting to one of the larger groups that has a large pool of subscribers (i.e. 20k+) to get even more exposure.
Thanks for the advice! I tried GetWatchers for a few days and then never used it again because it just didn’t seem to amount to much of anything for the time that you needed to put into it.
Great suggestion on submitting to large groups though. I’ll have to try that next.
Sure thing. There’s a two I can name off the bat with 15000-20000+ subscribers.
http://eliteartists.deviantart.com/
http://realm-of-fantasy.deviantart.com/
Joining is automatically approved, and submissions are approved by the moderators. Some smaller groups will still yield a fairly decent amount of exposure, since they may have been formed more recently and have a higher percentage of active users.
Anyhow, looking forward to seeing more tips and advice from your blog. Definitely going to get down to doing some modelsheets of my own.
You know it's funny, in the building trade the same thing is a common occurrence, albeit on different terms. Technically, there are about 24 "Job Phases" that a project goes through, of which five are devoted to actual drawing. These five (programming, schematic design, design development, construction documents and construction administration) really are supposed to go off in sequence, because if they don't, you end up redrawing things over and over every time the design changes. If only it were as easy as insisting on a "model sheet," i.e., that the client make up his mind once and for all, and then let you go about your business.
But it's simply never like that. I think it may well be common to any kind of applied art, because once you take a creative process and distill it into a series of steps to be followed, you're giving everyone who's even peripherally involved a chance to get in on the act. And if they can, they will, and when they do, it's a mess. But then, that's where my paychecks come from, so who am I to complain. As a colleague of mine says, "So long as they keep signing the checks, we can draw forever."
–M
Quoted “If only it were as easy as insisting on a ‘model sheet,’ i.e., that the client make up his mind once and for all, and then let you go about your business. But it’s simply never like that.”
Isn’t that true, I don’t know how many commercial jobs I had where we tried to force a sign off on a model sheet and it still would get changed. It seems like the more you push it the more they will want it changed later.
As far as a graphic novel goes, you can totally be in control of this step and that’s the beauty if it. Oh wait, what am I talking about, I changed my model sheet after I started and now I need to finally make on for Sonja so I can change her some more. Ha.
model sheets? But, I just want to draw action…
;)
Haha, I know the feeling.
Went to Stardust, did what you said – maybe i'm dumb, but i couldn't find it.
.
That is a truly poorly-designed web page.
Yeah it's kinda hard to find. I was trying to figure out an easier path but it seems like there is no real direct link to it. So let me try again:
Goto http://Stardust.tv
Right next to the StarDust logo in the top left of the screen there are 3 other tabs: Reel, Library, and Contact.
Click on Library.
A new window will open that says Library – Filter by: all, new, featured, car, fashion, sport, tech, and other.
Click on Tech.
Now a list will appear with the Stardust reel at the top. Towards the bottom of the list are a bunch of Windows XP commercials. The 4th from the bottom is titled: Windows XP: Monster 2
That's the one to click.
Once again, I hate Flash.
Wow, Great blog post. I think its very important t know what the characters should look like before you start drawing them in a story. I even created a 180 view sheet to help creators do just that. After reading htis post, I think I"ll create a full character turnarounds template sheet. Thanks for the great blog on the creation of your comic – Shazam!
Here a link to the Character Design 180 template sheet I created.
http://comicbookgraphicdesign.com/free-comic-book…
sculpty is your friend.
Here’s a free 3D modeling program that’s fairly easy to use and perfect for character turnarounds: http://www.sculptris.com/
You need a fairly good computer to run the program, though.