It Begins…
2019 was the year I really began to explore character design and illustration. While I was classically taught in the Fine Arts, character design is not among the things we learn as part of our core. I always felt lacking in the ability to create a cartoon-like character. So after nearly forty plus years on this planet and a Masters degree in Fine Art, it was time to take the plunge.
In 2018, I decided to participate in Inktober by Jake Parker. It is a fun daily challenge for the month of October. You can create your own theme or use his word prompt list to seek inspiration. My husband suggested I pick a character and focus on learning to draw them well. After going through a series of famous characters, Stitch became my go-to. He may look simple to draw, but he isn’t. If you don’t get his eyes just right or get his head or body out of proportion, Stitch looks demented or like he ate Santa Claus. From that spawns my Stitch parody illustrations, which had become popular at comic cons.
From there, I started playing with the flour sack character. If you are into animation or character design, you know this flour sack all too well. The flour sack exercise if a staple for animators and character designers. If you can generate emotion and body poses with a flour sack, you can do so with any character. I highly recommend this to anyone learning to draw. Once I nailed down the flour sack, I began branching out to cats, dogs, bears, and more. Bears stuck. The design I used for the bear continues to be a combination of the flour sack and Stitch.
Soon all this branched into creating a little robot curious about the world around it. I called him Lil’ Bot. He was rounded with a simple body based off a 3D printable. Knowing this wouldn’t do, I played with the idea of a bot made out of left over bits of medieval armor complete with scroll work and designs. He soon became more simplified and not as many scrolls. Now he looks like a mini knight in a dystopian land. Then, I moved back onto my bears and created a whole story for them inspired by the A-Team.
My husband rediscovered Lil’ Bot and suggested I put Bears on hold and create original content (no parody illustrations) with the character. After some consideration, I decided to move Bears to take over my Stitch parodies, and focus on creating original content with Lil’Bost. He’s a fun bot full of innocence and curiosity. The works will be stand alone images and not comic or graphic novel. I hope you will enjoy Lil’ Bots adventure and want to take his images home. He will make you smile, like he does me.