AJMarekArt
patreon
Old Character Sketches- Pt 3
🕑 Added 2020-11-14 20:25:16 +0000 UTCBeen a bit slow on making new stuff lately, so here's some more old artwork.
I've taken a number of approaches to designing my characters over the years.
The first Murphy artwork was made as a test to see if I liked this design when it was fully lined and colored. I did not, so I scrapped that idea. He's also not wearing pants, which is very weird. I did eventually use that look for whenever his hood is up, though.
The second drawing was a real sketchy piece done on my phone. Nothing too big or special. I don't draw on my phone anymore though because it hurts and frankly sucks.
The third drawing was a color exercise mostly, I was trying to figure out Mitzi's color scheme back before her design was even finalized. I've always had trouble with color, but now have a much better grasp on what works. Either way, I did this by jumping straight to color without laying any lines down, so it's kinda blobby.
The last sketch is my first basic thumbnail of Zoe. These sketches are really unrefined and super ugly, but this helps me sort of figure out the characters quickly. This is usually how I start any character's design. At this point, Zoe also wore eyewear on her head like Murphy. I didn't know what I was going to make her character be besides "older sibling figure", but then I decided on her being a rollerblader.
Comments
IkariBunbun
It does make sense a lot of cartoons back then and even now used that sorta "opposite personalities" type thing to have a better dynamic between the 2 or more characters. (Ed,Edd and Eddy,power puff girls and dexters lab). And yeah I can see that lol especially with how kid friendly these two have been in all the animations/illustrations, it is still funny to see it as a "what if" situation tho. Kinda would be cool to see the Murphy and Mitzi we have today interacting with other versions of themselves (the scraped designs) kinda like alt universes I think that's a trope that would fit them I remember seeing cartoons doing that all the time lol
AJMarekArt
Yeah, Murphy and Mitzi were always meant to be roughly the same size. I felt like it kept them equal in stature since they were so different in personality, kind of like Billy and Mandy. And yes, she's giving the middle finger lol. I can't even remember why she was doing it here, I think I just sketched it in that way and decided not to change it. I don't think she'd be rude enough to do it now, she probably wouldn't even know what it means :P
IkariBunbun
It's interesting to see how in the final version you did a lot of variation with head shapes and body proportions outside of the main duo who share a very similar body/head type! Crazy that I never do iterations for my characters not like this anyways I kinda just do subtle changes over time sometimes due to another artist's interpretation I liked. With how good all of them turned out I'd say it was worth the effort! Also never thought I'd see mitzi being that rude and giving the middle finger but somehow I can also see her doing that to mess with murphy lol
