Videogame Ragdolls 01
I tried something new the other day. I thought to myself, what if my pictures were more like a video game? I mean, usually a main character is only drawn so many times in so many positions, and then the picture reused as a sprite over and over in all situations. Maybe that could cut down on time and allow for more in the way of consistent characters, if I could find a way to do something like that.
So what I did was I drew up a concept of a very simple kind of player sprite, just a silhouette with eyes and enough features (like hair spikey things) to be distinguishable, and then redraw it in many parts, each with its own photoshop layer. I have a separate head and torso, and three part arms and legs (upper, lower, hand/foot) all grouped together to form one fully poseable ragdoll dude (hence the comic name). 😀
It doesn’t look like a whole lot now, but imagine if I spent a lot of time drawing up a really cool looking dude. Then I’d be able to make several comics/pictures involving him doing a variety of things without having to redraw him every single time. Could be kinda cool, no? 🙂
I’m not sure if this is actually at all faster than just drawing the same character over and over, because it’s not super quick to rotate/rearrange all his parts each time he’s drawn (not the least because its actually quite hard to make the poses look good). I suppose it would depend on his complexity; this one is so simple it almost definitely would have been easier to just scribble him out each time with a small black brush xD . Oh well, this one is just a proof of concept, might see more of this idea later. 🙂
The other challenge with following a video game style is of course trying to capture the experiences of the player into still images. This comic, for example, tells a very simple story of (naturally) going for the star, only to find that it’s a trap. But even this simple story in comic form doesn’t quite capture the “oh” moment when the player realises they just got eaten by a giant frog thing. Difficult indeed.
So… what do you guys think silhouette dude should do next? xD
walk off a cliff then fall when he realises gravity exists 😀
If you do the character side on (rather than isometric) then you have far fewer combinations to worry about.
Perhaps he could get blown up by a bomb and have all his body parts fly in different directions?
Lol, interesting idea. I’m pretty sure if you practice enough, the whole rearrangement stuff would get considerably faster. Ctrl-A to select the layer and Ctrl-T to transform…now that I think about it, it’d be REALLY fast…haha.
Haha hmm well there’s also the problem of knowing where to rotate everything to. I mean, getting the poses looking good is harder than I thought it would be, even with a silhouette figure. >.< I can send you the psd if you want to try messing around with it. 😉 Lol Tony so violent! xD Hm yeah true side-on might be easier to do but in my opinion it looks worse. And you can't do as much with showing the front of the character and their expression etc... I dunno. Maybe I'll try it some time and see.
Ragdoll should do cartwheels down a hill or something, see how well you can make him look. 🙂
In the second frame, theres some purple in the background which make it look like hes wearing a cape.
Lol, you have a mannequin for a reason, Hiro. 😛
Posing the mannequin is about the same as posing the dude…except then I’d have to pose the dude afterwards. It’s hard to make an active stance look natural when you’re just shaping a stiff, static thing.
Ah, so true, lol. Fair Enough then. Back to proper drawing! XD
Hah, says you. I’ll draw another proper drawing when you get back to drawing yourself (and of course showing/sending me the results ;D ).