19 // Early Development - Wizard (or maybe a Warlock)

So I spent the previous week sketching out some ideas from which to jump-start the character design process for the Wizard. This stage is very-very early development, as I really had no idea how I wanted to present the character, hence I began by experimenting with a range of cheesy-fantasy character archetypes to try and settle on the kind of personality I want him to have later on.

I played with quite a few different personalities in my initial sketches; crazy/manic; young and confident; dark and mysterious; nerdy/dorky; old and haggard; young and nervous; hard and serious etc. This was a fairly important stage for me to get a grasp of what might work within the world I'd like this character to be a part of, as my ideas are pretty jumbled at the moment.

As far as genre and inspiration goes, I'm quite into the idea of basing my characters on retro fantasy schematics: D&D presents wizards quite specifically, so this is something I'll be adhering to, while applying some anti-hero/villain twists to the design later and making the character's personality and appearance darker and more disturbed. 

I also want to add some real 80's retro twists to the designs - I watched Tron recently and have big plans for getting neon in there somehow. D&D has always placed great emphasis on magic within their worlds, so maybe I can go crazy with that kind of thing? Besides, my original ideas that I rambled on about in an earlier post mentioned something about magic being out of control in this world, so maybe I should develop this further so as to have an excuse to get as many over the top lighting effects in there as possible? It might lead to some interesting illustrations later on. Then again it might not.

My early ideas for the kind of environments these characters might exist in centre around a dark, kind-of-apocalyptic fantasy setting. Based on this, I get the feeling that the majority of these sketches show characters who wouldn't fit into that kind of setting very well. However, the beardy chap and the old man have some potential; I get a lot of extra ideas for backstory, personality development and outfit designs when I look at them, so I think I'll choose one of them to take through to the next stage.

Another reason that this stage is important for me is that I'm using this project as a means to evolve my art style; I want to be able to consistently produce stylised, original characters, even when using reference as a base. This series of early development sketches should help me to refine my style for later stages.

This week I'll be following similar steps for a Dark Queen (or Female warrior) character. From the experience I've gained here, I should have a bit of an easier time with her, and be able to cut straight to presenting darker designs rather than messing around with typical examples.