Character Design Sketch of Alejandra “Ale” Ramos by Ralph Contreras
Meet Alejandra Ramos: Unveiling Character Design for First Legacy
Here’s a character design sketch of Alejandra “Ale” Ramos. She is one of the main characters for my revamped cyberpunk medieval goth comic, First Legacy. This is the first sketch I’ve done of Ale. I had a vivid idea of what I wanted her to look like in my mind.
Ale is a fierce warrior in her early 20s. She’s still in training but determined to prove herself. In First Legacy, she’ll be thrust into a quest to support the main character. Ali is dressed in leather, has shoulder armor, and wears a cloak. I sketched out her saber too, with a fancy handle guard.
Armored Charater Sketch Design by Ralph Rcontreras
Character Creation Journey: Sketching Supporting Cast for First Legacy
Here’s a character sketch drawing for my upcoming comic project, First Legacy. I’m excited about this comic because I’m writing and illustrating it. Right now, the story is set in a Dark Goth Cyberpunk world. I’m still trying to work that concept together into a story.
This design is for a supporting character for the main protagonist. I haven’t named him yet, but I know where he’ll fit in the story. He’s wearing medieval armor, which will be interesting to make fit with a cyberpunk future. It’ll make sense in the story, though. He looks a little like talk show host Conan O’Brien; I think it’s the hair. lol.
Marcio Takara: Female Character Design for Comics online course at Domestika
From Inspiration to Creation: Insights from Marcio Takara’s Female Design Class
I’m always looking for ways to better myself and my art. While on Facebook this week, I kept getting an ad for a figure class on Domestika taught by one of my favorite comic artists, Marcio Takara. I’ve been a fan of his for years, first discovering his artwork on Deviant Art and Tumbler. He’s drawn for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. I really like his approach to drawing the female super-heroine form. Both feminine and strong at the same time.
I decided yes; I want to take this online course by Marcio Takara. The class name is Female Character Design for Comics. What’s very cool is that Marcio will actually look at and evaluate your character designs. The comic art course is broken up into several sections, these include tutorial videos by Marcio Takara and character design assignments. We share our designs in a group forum.
I haven’t finished the online course yet, but here are a few of my initial female character designs. A hard-knocks street-level hero, a martial artist/psychic character, and an alien or underwater warrior. I’m both having fun and learning in this class.
Character Sketching: Creating a Street-Level Fighting Hero
Here’s a quick practice character drawing I did last night. I didn’t use any photo references for this drawing, just what I could imagine in my mind’s eye. I feel like the proportions are good. I wanted to draw an athletic female who is a street-level fighting hero.
I really wanted to draw her as Afro-Latinx like Rosario Dawson or Gina Torres. I also tried to add some emotion to her face. The drawing has my drawing style too. There is no character name yet, but I have some fun story ideas for her.
Pencil sketch of an Astronaut on his smoke break by Ralph Contreras
Drawing Inspiration: The Take Me To Your Leader Challenge with an Astronaut
Here’s a pencil sketch of an astronaut on his smoke break for the Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday challenge. The Spaceman was drawn with my trusty Pentel Mechanical Pencil. I wanted to give him a melancholy look like he was ready for the day to be done.
Thanks to Marshall Lee and Scott Serkland for coming up with this fun weekly prompt challenge. They started the challenge on their YouTube channels. The challenge is to draw an alien and post it on your social media with the hashtag #TakeMeToYourLeaderTuesday.
From Sketch to Color: Creating an Alien for Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday
I love a good art challenge and there are so many good ones these days. So I was excited to participate in a fun art challenge called Take Me To Your Leader Tuesday. This challenge was thought up by talented comic artists Marshall Lee and Scott Serkland.
I follow both these fun and energetic artists on youtube. They started the challenge a while back and decided to start it up again. The challenge is to draw an alien and post it on your social media with the hatch tag #TakeMeToYourLeaderTuesday. I posted my alien on my Instagram page.
Pencil Drawing by Ralph ContrerasInk Drawing by Ralph Contreras
I wanted to draw someone fun and show the whole figure. I’ve been focusing on drawing faces lately. So I knew I wanted to draw the full figure. I drew a female alien with a staff and antenna on her head. First I started off with a sketch using my hb mechanical pencil. Then added details and shadows in the pencil sketch. I feel the drawing came out well. Maybe a little stiff, but I like it.
Then I inked the pencil sketch and added a few extra hatch lines. I’ve really started enjoying inking my drawings. I then colored the inked drawing with Prisma color markers. I tried to add shadows and depth with the colors. I colored the character’s skin blue and didn’t even realize I made her look like an Andorian from Star Trek. Andorians have blue skin and antennae on their heads.
This was a fun challenge to participate in. I really enjoy Sci-Fi so drawing an alien was right up my alley.
Streamlining Character Creation: Embracing Croquis Templates
Character Design is one of my favorite things to do. In fact, I’ve probably created over 100 characters in the past few years. For my comic book, design challenges, and just for fun. but sometimes I feel like I’m spending way too much time just drawing the form. So I decided to give Croquis a try to let the creative juices flow. A Croquis is a figure template you can trace over and add a character’s costumes to.
Character created by Ralph Contreras using a Croquis Template
A few years ago I created a female Croquis for my other blog Comic Book Graphic Design. I took that template and extended it to have 3 figures. Here’s one of the characters I created using the Croquis. A Roller Derby type character with spikes. It was fun just to add the elements of the costume to the character and not have to worry about drawing the form. I traced the figure and added goggles, spikes, and a big “A” on her belt. She has a very 90’s X-Men feel, well at least to me, lol.
I’m happy with the way this character came out. I’ll have to write a short comic story with her in it or put her as a background character in one of my comic book projects. I’ve included a youtube video of me drawing over the Croquis and creating this character.
My Process for Redesigning the Color Scheme of Sylvia Light’s Armor
Last night, I spent some time working on costume redesigns for one of my characters from an upcoming webcomic project. Specifically my main character Sylvia Light, also known as Aurora Light. I was redesigning her basic look.
The idea of Aurora Light came to me a few years back when I was challenged to create a superhero team for The REPLICANTS Project. Sylvia is one of Lilith’s warrior daughters and the greatest warrior in her army.
In her original look, Sylvia was a blonde with gold and red armor. Here’s a blog post with her original character design. I wanted to switch things up for her redesign and make her a brunette. Here’s a blog post where I 1st attempted to redesign her look. I also experimented with different hairstyles to see what would work best for her. I drew her three times with small variations in her armor and hairstyles to see what would look best.
Armor Color Schemes by Ralph Contreras
I placed tracing paper on top of the sketches and used markers to come up with different color schemes for her armor. I tried out several color combinations, including yellow and black, gold and yellow, gold and black, and gold and red. This helped me to narrow down my options and find the best color scheme for Sylvia’s new look.
Redesigning Sylvia’s costume was a lot of fun for me. I’m someone who loves world-building and character creation, and working on her costume redesign was fun. I’m happy about the changes I’ve made to Sylvia’s look.
Day 3 of the Inktober challenge. I inked a redesign of my main character from First Legacy, Sylvia Light (aka Aurora Light). This is a redesign of her basic look. I’ve changed her from a long-haired blond to a short-haired, darker-skinned character. I’ve had her redesign in mine for a while, this is my first attempt to place it on paper. I used a 102 nib pen and a #3 sable brush for this inking.
This is my first time participating. Here’s the Day 1 inking of a random cyborg guy. With this challenge, I’m going to try different inking techniques. I used a Pentel Medium Tip Brush Pen and a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen here. The lines came out a little thicker than I’m used to. Might be inking with a heavy hand. I had fun with this one.
