A little help with character design?

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Hey! Hate to ask, but I'm in a serious bind here. I've been trying to design my own character (for video, not gaming). I made this drawing of him a while back, put my very best effort into making an accurate DBZ style anime character (he's based off my appearance loosely). But I am terrible at proportion and could never recreate the same image the same way twice. Therefore, making it in orthographic views and doing it correctly alongside the original drawing was pretty much impossible.

I have to make a lot of guesses with this trying to model it since the front and side images contradict each other terribly in my opinion. Please could someone take pity on me and help me make this character the right way? That's basically the way he's supposed to look, except his head is supposed to be the constant DBZ male head (ie: Goku, Gohan, Yamcha)

Any help given will be added to the credits of anything I use the character in as "supporting character design", and that's a promise.

Anyway, heres the image.

http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/5833/jdude2gz.jpg
 
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You trying to get something like this....

sorry didnt finish it my computers acting up... didnt get to the hair... added a belt too to get more of a dbz feel too..
 
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Well, first off, you need to think about what personality your character has. From there, you can determine what type of fighter he is, and once you know that, you can add things like swords or guns or other things as you like.
 
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Lol! Wow! Yeah, that's definitely what I was going for! The hands look huge and I think the legs are a little long, but I could be relying on my own abysmal sense of proportion so I'll leave it the experts to judge...Yeah most definitely the look I had in mind!

Well, this character is actually two people...er...hmm...how to explain...

Okay, basically, the character begins as one person. He's got the body of a late teenager, but the mind and age of a man in his early thirties. In my story, he is a descendent of the Saiyan race, though he doesn't know it. The setting of my story is the year 2470 AD, hundreds of years after the original coming of the Saiyans (assuming DBZ/GT was present time for us).

He begins as a police officer wanted for some pretty harsh charges of vigilanteism that he was forced into from a frame-up. He was caught and brought to a local station for interrogation. He has no hard evidence that wasn't destroyed to prove his innocense and was railed on by the interrogator. During a particularly rude and provocative slur about his wife and daughter (both murdered by druggies in his own home), his rage built to unnatural heights and forced him to transform, into the first Super Saiyan in centuries.

In the story, after GT, the Saiyans never had a new enemy to rise to, so the race itself and its powers were forgotten, and melded into the human race. His family still told stories (now believed to be extravegant fairy tales) of the Saiyans and Dragonballs, Goku and Vegeta, and so he knew what had happenned to him.

But he was dangerous. He was born unlike most people, without an ego. I mean this in psychological terms.

The ego balances the id and superego to reality, like a balance between evil and good. The Id is our desires, while the Superego is our will to make the world better and do good.

This made him two personalities in one, the id being dormant. But the transformation awakened the Id to control, and so in rage and hate, he used his new powers to destroy his city.

Eventually, so out of control that he nearly destroys the planet, the superego fights the id for control. This struggle is so intense, that he literally splits in two, and seperates into two beings: J-Dude and Max. Now, they are independent beings with the same awesome powers and this time with a balanced mind of their own.

J-Dude resolves to kill Max, who resolves to succeed where Vegeta failed in honor of the Saiyan race and rule the Universe with his power.

The one I have depicted is J-Dude. Both have a small hereditary red mole on one side of the tip of their nose no larger than a sixth of a fingernail. The two during their split are inverted horizontally, so the mole is on a different side (J-Dude's is on his right side, while Max's is on the left). Max even has his twisted heart on the right side of his chest instead of his left.

Max, unlike J-Dude has a different set of clothes (don't worry about that, I've got it covered).

Both are of high intelligence. Max became a sadistic killer, cunning, rational, yet has weaknesses in the form of his dangerous overconfidence and his terrible pride for his heritage. He idolizes Vegeta but resents the fact that he changed his ways. Though American, he often speaks with an odd pompous accent distinctly his own, dispite having the same vocal chords as J-Dude. He often employs attacks from Vegeta's arsenal. The first of these which he succesfully pulled-off was the Final Flash. He considers J-Dude a narrow-minded fool, too soft to be a true Saiyan, and not fit to share his likeness. He has no mercy, even for his allies.

J-Dude is a good guy, peaceful, sometimes he may even sound sagelike, though this is just part of his casual demeanor. He strongly believes that everything happens for a reason, that there is a force at work beyond the Kais' and Otherworld. When fighting, he is no nonsense. While Max smirks and toys with him, he will not stop improvising new tricks to use to win, knowing that without help, the very fate of Earth rests on him beating his "brother". At first developing his own techniques, some useful (The Annihilation Wave) some obsolete (The Demolition Assaut) he eventually gravitates towards old tried-and-true techniques, such as the Kamehameha, Instant Transmission and the Solar Flare technique.

Both are almost exactly 5'8'' tall, weighing about 150 lbs.
 
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Shiyojin Rommyu said:
Well, first off, you need to think about what personality your character has. From there, you can determine what type of fighter he is, and once you know that, you can add things like swords or guns or other things as you like.
Well Shiyojin for the read off his book... lol.... I think hes got that covered...
J-Dude... glad you like it... but I'm not much of an expert either...
 
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lol, yeah sorry, I'm infamous on other forums for my novel-like long posts. Are you planning to finish the drawing and add a side view? If you are, that'd be cool! It really looks awesome! Maybe you're not an expert, but you're a Hell of a lot better than me!

Really, that drawing is super cool even unfinished! I'm sure with a bit of tweaking and input from other members that it'd be the perfect ref and design for the character!

Thank you, really for the help! I was geeking out when I saw it last night!
 
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Yeah I'm gonna have to agree with you that the hands look to big and the legs too long... but its an easy fix when your modeling...
Here it is... not to sure about the hair... i just followed the drawing you had...
 
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Yeah, I originally tried to draw his head bald, and then erase and add hair...didn't turn out the best, kind of made him cone-headed near the back. He's just supposed to have typical flat hair like mine...I could send a photo of me if you wanted to see what the hair is supposed to imitate, but I really could care less at this point, this is basically the gu I'e tried to create for a long time! Its no problem tho, I know what my own hair looks like, lol. Yeah, I'll go off something I learned about proportions and heads...something about a human body being on average about seven heads tall...or soemthing like that...

Oh well, I can always look at a Goku ref! He's almost exactly my height, tho heavier I think according to some stuff I've seen on his height and weight.

But this ROCKS tho! Did you use computer alone for this? It looks hand drawn!

Well anyway, I'll go look back at some refs and fix a few tiny things with photoshop I think. Thanks for the help man, you're definitely in the credits of anything I use him for! You rock!
 
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Wow...you must have some sharp skill with the mouse, I know I'd never be able to daw like that with a mouse...

Oh, and notice I used the image for my avatar! For some reason the forum dulled the colors pretty badly, I dunno why. Thanks again!
 
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JTVEclipse12 you sicken me...

explain!

is it really that hard to ask/credit DavidSkiwan for HIS work?
I guess this explains why you hadnt drawn the head bald first like most artist do who dont know what the hair is going to be like
 
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L-O-****ing-L!!! That's hilarious! Dude, have you no shame? LMAO...I guess I see why you said U weren't pro...*laughs uncontrollably*
 
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Owned. Good work ShadyD.

Also J-Dude, I'll tell you how I sometimes work. I get a image of the character I want to model in my head (in this case, Chibi Cloud). But theres only adult images of Cloud! What do I do?

I find references that have the proportion of chibi characters. Even if the chibis aren't Cloud, I have a general idea of what to model from.

So basically, what I'm saying is that, draw yourself a simple reference, which you did, and just find images to match that drawing.
 
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Thanks! I think this head will work though. I'll give credit for both JTVEclipse12 and DavidSkiwan in this case. Really what I needed was a ref of my character with a more DBZ style head, and I think this proved my theory that the most unique features between DBZ characters is the hair. That was the look I was going for, and it makes sense I guess since he's a descendant of Goku...well, I appreciate the trouble anyway, and I apoligize to DavidSkiwan for this little bit of hoodwinkery. If he has an issue with me using this ref, I have no problems respecting his wishes.
 
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ShadyD said:
JTVEclipse12 you sicken me...

explain!

is it really that hard to ask/credit DavidSkiwan for HIS work?
I guess this explains why you hadnt drawn the head bald first like most artist do who dont know what the hair is going to be like
Yeah hold up let me explain...
I was gonna post that i used davidskiwans goku ref but i didnt get a chance to... my computer was about ready to crash... so i made a quick post telling him that i used the pen tool... if you look at my first post ... i say something about my computer acting up...
So I repartioned my computer today... reinstalled windows... and i couldn't find the cd to reinstall my ISP... but i finally got it back on....
I was also going to tell J-dude that davidskiwan has some good dbz body refs that might be of use....



 
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JTVEclipse12 said:
Yeah hold up let me explain...
I was gonna post that i used davidskiwans goku ref but i didnt get a chance to... my computer was about ready to crash... so i made a quick post telling him that i used the pen tool... if you look at my first post ... i say something about my computer acting up...
So I repartioned my computer today... reinstalled windows... and i couldn't find the cd to reinstall my ISP... but i finally got it back on....
I was also going to tell J-dude that davidskiwan has some good dbz body refs that might be of use....
Those five words would have been all you had to say but instead you said "my computers been acting up." That's not really an excuse.

On topic. Do what bapplebo said about looking at other characters. He kinda looks like yamcha so maybe look at his body or some other dbz character. Good luck with the model. Also in side view your concepts legs are too short. but i guess that doesn't matter since in the model theyd be as long on the side as they are in the front.
 
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i think you need to draw it over again your self, i dont think its very interesting looking. in my opinion.
 

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JTVEclipse12 said:
Yeah hold up let me explain...
I was gonna post that i used davidskiwans goku ref but i didnt get a chance to... my computer was about ready to crash... so i made a quick post telling him that i used the pen tool... if you look at my first post ... i say something about my computer acting up...
So I repartioned my computer today... reinstalled windows... and i couldn't find the cd to reinstall my ISP... but i finally got it back on....
I was also going to tell J-dude that davidskiwan has some good dbz body refs that might be of use....
Never, ever, forget to give credit to someone even if you forgot to mention you used somebody's reference because your computer sprouts legs and arms and starts shooting floppy disks and cd's at you while attempting to beat you to death with the mouse and keyboard and then has the decency to say "Hi Dave" through the whole ordeal. Failure to post credits is the kiss of death on these forums.

The character reference does look nice, but I think you should focus more on a unique character style than using one from Dragon Ball Z, that way at least your model will be more original.
 
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JTVEclipse12 said:
Yeah hold up let me explain...
I was gonna post that i used davidskiwans goku ref but i didnt get a chance to... my computer was about ready to crash... so i made a quick post telling him that i used the pen tool... if you look at my first post ... i say something about my computer acting up...
So I repartioned my computer today... reinstalled windows... and i couldn't find the cd to reinstall my ISP... but i finally got it back on....
I was also going to tell J-dude that davidskiwan has some good dbz body refs that might be of use....
complete BS
if you really wanted to you easily could've said something.
the drawing looked familiar in the first post but i couldn't prove anything..
im cool with it, (for your sake i hope skiwan and the admins are too) just dont let it happen in the future.. if you wanna learn how to draw check out polykarbon tutorials

back 2 J-Dude, i think he looks like on of the peds in the dbz show.. he doesn look strong/cool at all =/
 
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I really can't say I can complain, that's the way I always envisioned him to look. The character is supposed to be from the DBZ world, so I wanted him to have a classic DBZ look. I know for a fact that all male DBZ heads (with the exception of brutes like Nappa) are basically the same, but with different hair or other identifying features (ie: Tien's third eye, Yamcha's scars.

I'd been trying for the longest time to get him to look just like that, using refs from the DBZ Budokai game guides (Its easier for me to draw from things on paper than on a PC screen).

And I did like mentioned before, try and use similar parts from other characters and implement those into it. I could never get that head-on head shape down. That original ref I made was my best work. I've never understood the DBZ nose shape, it always boggled me how it was drawn. I now know I used to make the very bottom of the nose flat instead of with the middle lowered. In fact, the nose in my ref was taken from a picture of Perfect Cell. Obviously in retrospect that was a bad decision.

Even with the help of books that teach you how to draw anime style, I followed their "box and sphere" techniques for the head, but I would always end up making the jaw curve wrong, or screwing up the process at the beginning so my character's head is unnaturally thin and tall.

So really, the ref supplied and edited by JTVEclipse12 is my best bet.

Oh, and I already made the body of my character a while ago with those same body refs. I've already prepared it with planes for box modelling and I'm happy to say the body I made is already proportioned correctly except for the crotch going much too far down. His shoulders need to be raised a little too, but otherwise I'm very happy with this! Oh, and I see now that the legs aren't too long after all, like I said, it was just my abysmal sense of proportion mucking things up, because the mesh body fits like a glove to the ref on the planes! Yeah, I think this will work VERY well!

Only thing, I've always had trouble starting with modelling heads; what sort of primitive should I start with? I normally use a cylinder, but thats for oddly shaped cartoon-style (non-anime) heads.

I'm thinking of starting with a plane to make the face, but I worry about the jaw and getting the spherical back of the head. Any pointers?

PS: Thanks for the help folks, I appreciate it!
 

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