Filler: Sonja Character Study
Apr30
Just a Sonja character study.
New comic still set for May 7.
The Wotch
A comic by Anne Onymous and Robin Ericson
The Wotch
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Just a Sonja character study.
New comic still set for May 7.
Comparing her to the early Sonja, and the last one I could find by Anne, The colors are the same, but the hair and face are structured differently.
If anyone’s interested, I could walk you through the differences, similarities and design decisions and why I made them if you would like…
I’m interested in hearing about your creative process.
OK… here’s the process I go through (short-ish version).
When starting with a character I have to essentially reverse engineer it from the pre existing artwork. Anne did most of her characterization through her writing, and visually identified her characters through there hair, colour scheme and by giving them all unique shirts and heights. However, when it comes to a characters face shape, I will always make sure to look through Ian’s work, as he did a fair amount of work regarding adding character specific facial features and face shapes.
As I’m designing the face into my own rendition, and I like the idea that each character should have a unique face so you can tell at a glance who a character is, I end up referring as much to Ian’s work as Anne’s.
In this case, Ian squared off Jason’s jaw, making him VERY distinctive, as no other character has this jawline. Anne sometimes gave him a slightly flatter jaw line, so square jaw it is! But this is Sonja. and she’s a female version of Jason… Good news, there are rounded jawed versions of Sonja drawn. PERFECT! that looks very much like a feminized version of Jason.
facial features… well, half closed eyes. That much is a given from Anne’s work forwards. Now for the hair…
interestingly, Sonja’s hair style changes noticeably from appearance to appearance. first time we see her she has spiky hair. Next time wavey without bangles. then at some point bangles get added. Which Ian continues with.
As wavy bangles are a PAIN in the donkey to draw well, I opted for a compromise and added one on the nearest side, while merging the far side bangle directly into the main hairline.
last step. hand the result to Robin for approval and be pleasantly surprised he likes it enough to post it directly here.
I can see all of that, and I wasn’t so much criticizing, but critiquing, and I will admit to having forgotten that Ian drew Sonja a few times too.
I fully understand with the bangles. While I was drawing “Angels and Aliens” I one time set up a “Temporary” hairstyle for a character, then got surprised by Snufkins tossing some fire into the hole and suddenly no one has time to change their hairstyles for some 100+ comics. I got real tired of that hair by the time that we got to a point where I decided that changing it was kosher. I still hate drawing that half kinky, half wavy, all complex hair, and kept looking for short-cuts.
The chin does make her a bit more distinctive, but now I want to see all of the Wotch girls lined up to compare features and heights and what not. (You don’t have to, it’s just my curiosity speaking.)
“Comfey” is a Pokemon. “Comfy” is an adjective. Just doing my regular proofreading exercises (since no one ever comments on my errors).
Its gotta be a few years since i last red this comic *cracks mental knuckles* time for a brainspike binge read
And DONE ….damn that didnt take long