Sketching Original Characters 

    Artistic character creation has its own rough draft stages. It's considerably harder to not work from a model. Like inventing the light bulb, you find many more ways that don't work before discovering the magic formula that does.

    I'll invest a good amount of time figuring out the pose. Poses are hard, especially action poses. You need the proper proportions and foreshortening alongside an interesting and balanced position. This applies not only to humans but creatures and machines as well. Often times I'll not know what to do with the back arm.

    Fleshing out and adding interesting clothing can be challenging as well. The face is always the worst so I try to add it first thing after the figure. Inventing new styles of clothing for futuristic and fantasy races involves a lot of knowledge and planning. Are they warriors, merchants, nobles? Are they loose with the rules and have one arm not in their coat sleeve or do they have it fully buttoned? A picture's worth a thousand words and you can tell a lot about a character's personality by how they look. It's usually helpful to take inspiration from real photos.    

    As always I'm looking to learn and grow and would love to hear other artists' thoughts on the subject. 

Here's a sketch in the rough draft stage. You'll see it finished later.