Designs

I get many questions when it comes to how I design things and how I choose the features/colors. So Im going to talk about my process and how its been since the beginning.

In the beginning the design of something didnt really matter to much, most of my designs were uber simple, usually having one main color only.
These are my very first characters, and LAWL They are either black, gray or white. How sauce.
Same friggin hair bangs on them all, everyone with baggyish pants xD Not much diffrence. I didnt really think about making them special eyeflakes. AND I remember when I drew them without colors, it was very rare that people could tell them appart xD which pissed me off haha. NOW I can see why, they look nearly identical.

After A while I did start drawing more gryphons , Ive always loved griffs ;u; They also looked really dull when I drew random ones xD

I swear my favourie design to add is TAIL STRIPES. I mean, ever since I started drawing animal designs, OR even some of my humanoids, DEM EFFIN TAILSTRIPEs. Im doomed, I cannot seem to get away from this curse. XD Its crazy...










2006

Random design year xD didnt really think about much other than just drawing down some designs here and there, Mostly gryphons.








2007 Quest to design myself a persona/mascot!

This year I actually started to see how people kinda had characters that represented them, I used to have Nicole, shes this crazy hyper orange lion. But she wasnt me, so I wanted to find someone that was me.

This dragon was one of my "personas" at that time xD so was a few other small ones, I struggled hard trying to find something that could represent me, and all the designs I came up with, just didnt hold up >8C so i just ended up making them into characters instead..

eWe I remember being so frustrated... I was never really pleased with them for to long and ended up changing my mind several million times...





2008 Year OF YES

Late this year is when I started actually designing characters for people. I did lots of design trades and it really got me practicing with things. I HAVE TO SAY MOST OF THE DESIGNS...ARE FFFFF well very ugly xD atleast to me now... I dont even know how I could like the combos I choose haha... but Iguess what I like and dislike will always change over time, and so is it with others. D8< Not only was it a great practice with designs, but also anatomy because people often wanted creature mixes that I hadnt drawn before! :D

BUT theres always the times when good designs pop up! I still had some hard time though! But it was slightly easier when I did so many diffrent things rather than trying to please myself only. I also started to design LOTS of characters for myself this year aswell D8 AND this is also the year when snuffen was born :'D <3 I had tried so many times to make my mascots design D8< finally pleased! FFFFFFFFFF I still remember the epic feeling <3 I was so proud haha xD

This is the first drawing of snuffen as we know her! It has lots of weird small details xD and she has changed over time ,which I will talk about futher down!

:'D I was so happy and pleased haha....











2009
















2010













2011

:D sauce



D8< STARTED DESIGNING LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS







2012

FFFF Ive never designed so much like Ive done now..
xD And I feel like ive gotten more creative with my designs after doing so many!

:'D you might notice that Ive only choosen designs with tailstripes xD haha because I love them, I love them more than ever now haha...... I should do a group picture of all the characters I have that has tail stripes D8<

Now im babbling randomly! ---- BACK TO TOPIC!

ANYWAY SNuffen Design evolution Time!

Ive drawn snuffen in so many ways, I think the coolest thing I did with her was to like not be afraid to draw her in diffrent and new forms, this really made me develope her more and find things that I liked better, some may like her old design better while some like her new, we all like diffrent things but its important to be happy with the desing yourself :D

Snuffen had lots of weird tiny details in the beginning, like the spots in her face and on her assflanksauce! She also had this super divided white bellychest area xD DONT KNOW WHY

Her hands were socks with two blue stripes while her tail had all kinds of stuff, her wings even had spots xD I guess I felt good adding lots of details for some reason. This however got very tiresome to draw over and over and over, atleast when I wanted to draw her lots!



Her getting more simple was actually a totally random mistake! It was not really planned, when I drew this drawing of her being a plush, I was actually thinking practical about if it was made in real life meaning details would be hard to add. SO I just naturally made the most simple shapes.

I did not know that this would make me fall inlove with the simple concept! I did draw a human version of her with the simple two colored arms only, but this is when I realised that I loved it. And like that her white belly got merged, and her legs got the simple two colored brown.

I stopped drawing the facespots and ass spots only after two drawings if I can remember correct xD <3






I also made her wings more simple, now she was pretty much perfect, I loved drawing her, her bright colors fit my personality so well.

I also started to play around with diffrent kinds of forms for her, this gave me an oppertunity to play around with diffrent kinds of designs for her without ruining her main one.




And this is the first drawing of her tail without fur. Im not sure why I decided not to add it, I also removed the leaf because drawing her semirealistic made me want to keep her look realisticish without silly symbols xDD

This is what changed snuffen to what she looks like today, I knew after drawing this, that this is what ive been looking for.

I also wanted to add the crow part back into her more, and changed her wings to be totally black.

8D I still do lots of weird forms for her after this aswell, I just love messing around with her xD
When I did the ultimate snuffen reffrrencesheet, is when I also gave her thumbs on her hind legs!
I later changed her foxlike frontpaws to be more dragon like, I actually did this because there were so many people who copied snuffens species and just called it something else xD

Now ive totally fallen inlove with her chubby frontlegs <3 I draw them more chubby than I did at first aswell haha xD <3









Her colors are now warmer than they were at first, and I usually draw her slightly diffrent from time to time :'D but I dont mind, Its fun to draw her non the less <3


8D BUT Its fun to have a character for so long seeing how it can change over time. Its been from 2008 til 2012 drawing her over and over, and shes also helped me with many of my other designs by actually putting time and thought into the diffrent color contrasts and so on :'D

I love my snuffensauce!


Inspiration!

When it comes to inspiration, I GET inspired by nearly everything, sometimes it can be random objects laying together with their colors looking epic and im all OMFG I NEED to use this one day xD BUT I think taking inspiraton from nature is a great way to start out! base your designs on animals that actually exsist! this way you can get lots of epic results. Try to mix two that has features/colors/markings that actually go together! Just have fun and try out crazy ideas! You can also totally do new random colors or markings for the animals. DRAW DRAW DRAAAW 8D the more you do the better! dont be afraind to make crappy ones, I do this all the time, I just dont save the ones I dont like xD, andjust jump onto something new if you dont like what your working with right then.

When I make up designs, things that also have a say in how choose is Color/form contrasts, This just happens by itself now, I dont have to think to hard to make it work, its not easy in the start but it gets easier the more you use them. I will make another post more about this later!

:D SAUCEGREETS

New canvas!

As a start I want to talk about how It was for me as a new online artist! Atleast in the best way I can remember/explain.

I started drawing on the computer around late 2004 or very early 2005, Im not quite sure, but somewere around then. I joined this online oekaki called Team Artail. Its like an art forum thingy were you could draw and post what you made and then comment on peoples art/recieve comments from others. I quickly became obsessed with drawing when I got feedback xD It just was much more amazing getting feedback from people I didnt know. AND SO MUCH more helpfull, because finally people wasnt afraid of telling me what they thought and giving me helpfull crits.

I used a mouse while drawing, the oekaki BBS as my program. I got used to draw on a tiny canvas because the program being so small to begin with haha, but after drawing lots, I got better at it, and I got used to the mouse aswell.

I didnt really care about anatomy at all during this time, I dont really know why, It just never crossed my mind to work on it xD and that clearly shows in my artwork aswell! I just wanted to draw down my ideas.

I also spend much of my beginning time to draw fanart to others and this ended up with me getting my first fanart! I have to say that that was the GREATEST feeling ive ever had when it comes to art XD. I still remember it so well, I have it saved somewere on a CD. It never occured to me that I could get my characters drawn by others haha I was such a newb. I also asked lots of the same questions as many new artists ask me now, its so amazing how we all kinda start out in the same way.

I joined DA on january 2005 ish time, I wasnt that active in the beginning, I just got a page because someone on the oekaki linked to it.

One of my Idols in the beginning was Neoikeia, who also did some art over at Team Artail. I just loved her style so much( I still do! ), to me she was everything I wanted to be! I did lots of art that was inspired by her, even inspired me to start developing more stories around my characters because of this comic that she and others were doing. I will admit that I did indeed copy her sometimes! I also traced some of her work over to paper xD BUT I always gave credit and I never uploaded it any were, it was just personal practice. :'D just the bright and colorfull art made me so happy!

I remember sending her my newb note on DA in 2005 being such a fan.
griffsnuff said the following:

i really love youre art :D and i was wondering if u do arttrades? cause i have really whanted to ask u 4 a while
but if u don want to thats fine ill draw u something any way mwehehe

lD;; haha I cant help but giggle. I get notes like this now, I dont mind at all ^^ I remember when I was like that and how it was like sending notes to one of your idols, it can be scary, but they arent so scary as we think they are, like im not that scary either! so never be afraid to send me notes or ask me things haha.

I DID draw a lot back then like I do now, I remember being one of the top 2 of the oekaki with many thousand members that had drawn the most. I just love to draw! And after starting a roleplay called Evil Fighters on this forum haha with some other people, drawing my characters got so much more fun! I still have my 5 oldest characters! They may look dull, but they are my most developed ones when it comes to story and personality.

It was great meeting so many people from around the world. Becoming an online artist, has inspired me so much! being able to see so much diffrent kinds of work. Amazing, I dont regret a thing! I will admit that as a newbie, I did get very inspired about the things I saw, and sometimes ended up creating similar ideas. This however pissed of a few people on the Oekaki I was on, and they ended up searching for anything that could look like what I made. And over half of what they found were things I hadnt even seen before. I was called an art theif and lots of other things, the worst thing was probably knowing that there were atleast 3 or 5 others thinking the same as the person who sent me this message. I was devistated and totally depressed, It never even occured to me that people "owned" certain ideas, like I got people mad for drawing a birdgirl because someone else had drawn a birdgirl before me. Now ofcourse looking back at it, they were totally obsessed trying to make me look like a bad guy. One of them even left the oekaki and when I stopped drawing on it 4 years later, they came back. xD Sorry but that just, What the hell.. Anyway being accused for stealing peoples art did affect me right then, but im glad it happened, because it made me aware that the internet isnt just sunshine and flowers and nice artists. BUT It also did make me paranoid drawing anything similar that someone else had done. So I constantly had to look through what everyone else had made before I made it. This however was a total waste of time, people are bound to do similar things one day or another or get inspired by eachother, making similar things.

I also started basic art school fall 2005. And for the next three years I learned about the basic theory behind art, colors and shape. I also finally got myself to study more anatomy. Excpecially in humans which I sucked at drawing. They have been the totally hardest thing for me to draw. HANDS , FACES AND FEET FUUUUUUUU.... Until the artschool I was the best artist I knew about in real life, now there was suddly more people that was better than me, this made me want to practice and get better aswell haha xD competition really helped kickstart the process of improvement!

With time comes also change! And that was around 2008. From the start til now I usually just drew with the pixely lines as you see in the first drawing over (when it comes to digital art ), because that was what oekaki BBS had! But I started trying out the other drawing program on the oekaki called Shi painter, which made me use a more soft brush, I remember however getting a comment saying that I should do this style more, so I totally did, and it made a great change occure over time, this was also the period where I did more animals and canines, before now it was mostly anthros. The more change I did and the more diffrent things I drew, the faster I improved!
This has been one of the most important things Ive discovered! I also tried doing some style tests, Being a very good friend of Sincommonstitches ( which is my best friend in the world now! ) She made me practice more anatomy because I JUST FFFFF So jealous of how good she could draw anatomy! She made me improve a lot! Not only with anatomy but I got so inspired putting more effort and details into my small drawings! 2008 Was the year I got super inspired and impacted by her and her art! and this is when we got really close as friends! We did start chatting and so on late 2006 or early 2007. :'D Im so glad I got to know her ,shes the most amazing person I know. In the beginning I was a SUPER fan of her, and always drew her lots of fanart, she also were on Team Artail which is were I found her first, and then she joined this other oekaki with some others called Bloodshed or something, I saved all her works like a creep xD <333 Im so glad she started talking with me mdfgdfg <3

I still did lots of the same old style with the pixely lines, it was what I was most comfortable with, but I wasnt afraid trying new things.
This drawing of my new mascot snuffen that I did not long after getting my first tablet! I wasnt very comfortable with the tablet as I was with the mouse, but it didnt hurt my wrist as much as the mouse did. This drawing changed lots. I got more brave doing this style and created many similar drawings in this style after this one. When I noticed how similar it was to painting actual things ( I loved to paint traditionally with acrylics because of school! ) I think the start of 2009 was my epic breakthrough! End of 2008 and start of 2009 was when I started studying for an Animation batchelor! I met lots of amazing new artists and this is also when I started to get a lot of fans on DA. It was a great year for me. AND a very productive one aswell haha!

2009 year of epic improvement and sauce! Not only did I do more styles but I also started animating, sculpting and do more traditional things again! FFF so much new experience is all of the yes! My character designs also started to get slightly better this year! And my poses aswell, when you do animation, its crazy how much better you get at seeing poses! fuffufufuuf :D Studying real life is a great thing! Doing quick sketches of people and animals moving!

Another great breakthrough artpiece that made me work more on my art was this. It made the effort put into details mean so much more, and light! FFF I was inspired by a few photos I found, but I never thought I would be able to create this, and the time used clearly made me realise that putting time and effort into something can make a great result!

I did draw snuffen a lot! Like I loved her so much, she has been one of my proudest creations! Many others loved her aswell! She is a very huge reason why I started to get lots of fans, and its in the period from her being made and me getting a Daily deviation is when people started to notice me more. Snuffen got a lot of fanart aswell! Which made me so happy! When it comes to the topic of snuffen copypeople and snuffen theifs, it did bother me so much, I was so proud of her silly made up species and features that I had not seen before! She was a special creation for me, because I felt her being very original compared to the other characters I saw at that time. And when people started to copy her, I guess it felt like they ripped parts of me away claiming it as their own. It hurt my pride and it hurt my process of being the happy and carefree artist that I had been all along. I mean It made me so upset and I got obsessed trying to find people who did copy her and then yell at them. XD Like looking back at how I was scares me so much omg.. I GUESS Ive gotten used to people just taking her features and recoloring it calling it something else, Im not really bothered by it anymore and I try inspire people to make something that looks more original and less snuffen. Like I cant really copyright the fox having wings, redpanda markings and bird/reptile made up backfeet that somehow has gotten SUPER popular XDD Seriously its so amusing seeing people make up species that are mixed with birds, reptiles, geckos, dinosaurs, or dragons and their hind feet looks just like snuffens hind feet. There is NO animal living that has the anatomy of snuffens hind feet that I know of. I guess people think that those animals really have feet like snuffen for some reason, Ive started a trend with hind feet looking like that. xD I think its epic. I find it cool how something can have such a huge impact! I have no problem with people being inspired by me anymore, not like the way I used to, I love to inspire and help others! Its the greatest feeling ever :'D Making people smile with my art and ideas is why im still on DA 8D I love you guys!

Theres one thing that makes me very proud, is when people who are inspired by me are able to create something totally new and amazing! Something that even inspires me back! xD Being open for people to be allowed to copy similar ideas that I do has been more a great experience than it has been a bad one. Theres always someone who over does it and does everything excact the same xD but mostly they realise they need to change which is good for them! 8D change is improvement for the win.

I guess the years that continued to come made me improve more and more and moooore :D
Becoming an animator made me better with poses I must say. It made me more intrested in drawing more diffrent creatures aswell! Knowing the basic idea on how animals move made things so much easierrrrrr. Atleast when you actually had to make them move! xD

:'D I guess that is enough about my start for now! I will probably talk more about recent changes or stuff soon! Thanks for reading and hope it was somehow intresting! ^^