i'm having this problem. there's this character that's been in my head.a very sci-fi one. i mean it's to the point where i can see her move, know her persona, there's even been a story developing in my head and i can draw her pretty well, but her face, there's something about her FACE that just wont give! like i;ll draw it and i can tell if it's not long enough, or that the eyes arent the right shapes and what not and fix it, but it's still doesnt quite suit her. i know it's sounding bizare, but maby it's even something that should just stay in my head cuase i might screw it up or desicrate it it's such a cool, perfect thing that i start to think maby it's better that she just STAY in my head then. i know it sounds kinda flipped but i have so much respect for this character, i'd feel bad if i hocked a great big artistic loogey on it. it's a somewhat noble and stoic character, i don't want to cheapen it, like maby i might mess it up in my imagination afterwards.

anyone else ever go through somethin like that?

Oh yeah... many times. With at least four of my brain children

I know exactly who they are and what they look like, and for some reason I'm afraid of putting them in the wrong story. So I end up never using them! Even though they're awesome. I keep juggling them around with different story ideas over and over. And at least two of these characters are five (!) years old (as in, when I finished developing them in my mind and on paper)

I have couple of characters and ideas who are a bit like that. Mostly it's just the inability to transfer my imagination onto paper in a satisfying manner. I have a character that I want to really explore (and explore the world he lives in), and to do that properly, I need to figure out the proper way to draw him... another character is sitting in notes as a lot of story shall happen on ships and boats, so I need to learn to draw these beforehand. So in this case it's not the character but the setting that eludes me.

I have several characters that are sitting in my notes or in my mind, partially covered by a semi-transparent veil. I can see them, but I can't transfer them to paper yet, nor can I tell their stories.

Yup. I've got two characters I've had for, oh I can't remember, four or five years now, minimum, and I've never put them to paper yet.

They started life in a dystopian sci-fi future and soon all the other characters I'd created for that story, all twelve of 'em, just seemed unimportant. And so, when I finally scrapped that failed story, I kept those two and I've been toying with their lives ever since.

They've been spies, a normal family, scientists, and everything in-between. And I don't think I can ever write about them. They're just too...well, special I suppose. The magic feels like it would be gone if I tried to actually use them in a real story.

Yep, for about 4 years I have had a character that has been bugging me. I just can't seem to draw him right, or do it justice I guess. Someday maybe he will come to life.

Oh you guys are talking about your "perfect comic," your "epic," your magnum opus. That comic that you will draw when you're retired at 65, you have all the time in the world to devote to it, and hopefully by then your skills have caught up to your ideals but you're not blind and arthritic yet.

Yeah I have a story like that. I don't have a problem with portraying/designing the characters. I have a problem with making the story epic enough to my liking. But it's not important at this point because I like my current comics more. They're more mature and polished than my imaginary epic.

I based my "perfect epic" characters on real life ppl. A favorite actor, or a real life crush. Try that if you can't visualize a character design.

Yeah, i've had an entire story in my head with characters and everything for about 5 years xD. But I don't know how to execute it correctly :o. I mean, without it looking lame hehehe. Maybe someday, when i'm older and more experienced :3.

That's actually how I started my comic. I always have all these vivid ideas, great characters with all kinds of details. They are so "real" to me. I always feel a desire to bring them to life but know I just don't have the skill to do it. One day, I decided I had to get it on paper with or without skill or my head would burst.

Sometimes, I just jot down a paragraph, outline, or doodle and tuck it away somewhere. If I don't write/draw it somewhere, those things stay in my head and keep me up at night (or distract me from work/study) -- like my brain is afraid to forget unless I get it into a concrete form.

man i totally know whatcha mean,Used. ya gotta pry these ideas outa yer head even if you gotta use a fork and it's not even cuase you're trying to impress people it's like a yerning. seems a lot of people on here feel this way. i wonder why this feeling exists, it's kinda intersting, isn't it?

I kept on trying to put my ideas on paper and usually stopped on the script stage or on the first pages of art. I just couldn't get it right. So I ended up starting Din Krakatau to learn how to make comics and test my ideas and it quickly evolved into something much better than what I started with. At this point I am sure I could deliver my short scripts on about the same level as the current (and the upcoming) pages. The reason is simple. Before Din Krakatau, in the last 13 or so years, the longest comic that I have actually finished was 3 pages (and since Din still needs to be finished, it's still 3 pages, unless you'll treat chapters as separate titles, then it'd be 32 pages). So I should be capable of doing a 60-80 page title (my next planned book), since it'll be shorterthan the total lenght of the current one (128 pages). But can I really do a story that'll probably take 400-500 pages to tell as it spans several generations? Hmm. Perhaps. I can't be sure at this point as this is way more pages than I have ever finished.

My epic? My epic idea is so huge, that I can't really talk about it without people going "yeah, right" and rolling their eyes :D
There's simply NO WAY I could deliver it at this point. I don't have the stamina to trudge into the unknown for so long thinking "will I ever finish it?" I haven't came up with the right working tools and databases to help me organize it. Before I can tackle it I need to be sure I'm not going to waste my time working on hundreds of pages only to find out that I took a wrong turn somewhere. And I need to learn to draw much faster. There you go, so much for epic hints :D

I have two characters in my head for Silent Academy whom I just can't stop thinking about. But this is mostly because I can't wait to introduce them, and they won't appear for a few chapters.

For those of you with ideas so long you think you can't finish them, why don't you just compact it? As in actually look through the plot and cut out all the useless bullshit that doesn't advance the plot, use flashbacks for early scenes instead of starting from the beginning, find better ways to do two things at once, etc.
You have the means to create that story, you just have to be a little more creative with the writing then just having raw unraveled ideas.


And for those of you who can't get that character out, look at concept art for other characters. Look at your favorite video games art and take bits of the character that you thought were cool and fit them in. Don't steal the character but take what you liked and make it your own.
For example I wanted a knight character a while back but couldn't think up an armor, so i found references for armor and mismatched them on her. I couldn't visualize armor on my own so that reference was all i needed to clear my ideas and give me new ones.

Yes. But then again, that's kind of how my comic works. Different story arcs usually surround one/two of the 5 main characters, usually using the other characters for both discussion purposes and to move the story along.

Right now I'm focusing my comic on Raphael a little bit, but I do like to bring my other characters together when the time is right.

Skullbie
For those of you with ideas so long you think you can't finish them, why don't you just compact it? As in actually look through the plot and cut out all the useless bullshit that doesn't advance the plot, use flashbacks for early scenes instead of starting from the beginning, find better ways to do two things at once, etc.
You have the means to create that story, you just have to be a little more creative with the writing then just having raw unraveled ideas.

*deletes his long rant on the idea and writes a shorter version*

What if your goal is to create a project that could rival Cerebus in its scope? But instead of chronicling the life of a single character, I want to chronicle many centuries (obviously not in as detailed fashion).

To those not knowing, entire Cerebus saga is 6000 pages and it took Dave Sim 27 years to write and draw it. I don't want to spend 27-30 years on mine! In the last few days I achieved a pretty good tempo of 4-5 pencilled pages a night, so I could draw the entire thing in... oh... couple of years? But this is a project that's waaay to big for webcomics (unless I'll be posting these pages for the rest of my life), which means it'd be designed for print. And it would have to be my source of income, otherwise I'd have to take breaks from drawing whenever I'm busy saving my finances. Also, it'd be a good idea if I was better at drawing before I hit such a huge project. So, I shall do shorter stories first, for a year or three and then decide whether I have what it takes to tackle the big one.

And yes, ideas are not important, it's their execution that matters.

after thinking about it one night when i was going to bed, peices started comming together for my story pretty easily. so on second thought, i think if i just had the TIME to commit to it, it'd latch together allright. i've just never had enough time to sit down and give it a decent go. wouldnt necissarly take forever either. it's just as appealing as it seems, it gets pushed to the back of my mind until this hurricane of other things on my mind passes for a little while and i dont have anything else to do...IF that day ever comes.

If I'm talking about main characters I get a little crazy over them. When I was starting off MAG-ISA I had difficulty coming up with how the characters will look like. Even now when I'm far ahead as far as writing scripts are concerned. There are just instances where I fail to put a face on a particular character but just have his/her personality and general things like height and weight down.

I also debate with myself whether or not I'd introduce certain characters. Do I really need to? Will it really advance the plot? Or will he/she just end up standing there in the background?

For instance I'm thinking of introducing a villain that has this big ego and messiah delusion. At the same time, very intelligent but psychopathic (and good looking). I'm thinking someone similar to Kane in the Command and Conquer games. I still can't figure out certain things about this villain like age, gender, ethnicity, etc.


But to put a face on a character, I find it handy to have a yearbook. There's hundreds of faces you can copy. lol!

Oh I've had this problem many, maaany times... It happens mostly when I've pictured them in my head for months before trying to draw them. Because when I finally sit down and draw them - there's ALWAYS something off about the drawing. Many little, almost insignificant - but still annoying - "somethings" that would eventually drive me crazy. And no matter how many times I re-touch the picture, it almost never gets better. So the best thing I can do is settle for "just about right, but not quite" and accept it as it is. I've had this problem with Mick and Ryan, and a zillion characters before them (I used to be very prolific as a kid). Hell! I hesitated with trying to draw Erica (the girl who inspired A Bit Cheesy and became the pivotal point of the story) as a comic character for so long that I eventually gave up and decided not to! lol!

aw man, it gets nerve wracking doesnt it? that's exactly how i feel about this character, Fitz.
like she's metal looking and her face is featureless,but not completely flat, you know? like i try to make the eyes barely there or dark holes or whatever in between or a little bit of a nose or a bump and mess with the cheekbones and nothing's right but then i can still see it in my head. same thing with her body. it's metal looking but sleak metal, yet kind of jointed, like she's not the t-1000 or anything like that. then she also has hair, but it doesnt just connect to her metal skull,there's almost some kind of crown and that's been weird too. like you keep trying to tweek it and turn it and there's always just somethin off! drives you fuckin nuts!!!but i get close. VERRY close. i can get her movements. they're always very weight less like she's in space or something. she's got this sense like a sentinel about her. i got all that and other shit.
but for some reason when i draw her, it's like when you look at a picture frame on the wall and everyone says it looks really nice, but you noticed it's just a fraction of a centimeter off and THAT'S what you see. not how nice the picture is, but the fact that it's not hanging absolutly perfect on the wall. i'm not ussually like that with things...AT ALL. which is why this is so delicate feeling to me. but i'm feeling more and more complelled to tell this character's story, so maby i'll just start doing it and like a lot of things when you draw them a lot, it'll just naturally fall into place as you go along. this isnt something i normally draw so maby that's just it, i need to just get setlled into it a little more. maby a lot of us have that problem.

One thing I've noticed about drawing is that it comes out better when you... don't think about it. When you're fully focussed on avoiding mistakes more than anything else - like "OMG OMG OMG I hope I'll get it right" - you're almost bound to screw up. When you're just doing it - your hand leading the pencil across the sheet of paper, guided by your imagination, not your fear of failure - that's when you make it. Practice is crucial - that's a given. You're always a bit intimidated when doing something out of your comfort zone - so the only way is to practice until it becomes more automatic.

PIT_FACE
i'm having this problem. there's this character that's been in my head.a very sci-fi one. i mean it's to the point where i can see her move, know her persona, there's even been a story developing in my head and i can draw her pretty well, but her face, there's something about her FACE that just wont give! like i;ll draw it and i can tell if it's not long enough, or that the eyes arent the right shapes and what not and fix it, but it's still doesnt quite suit her. i know it's sounding bizare, but maby it's even something that should just stay in my head cuase i might screw it up or desicrate it it's such a cool, perfect thing that i start to think maby it's better that she just STAY in my head then. i know it sounds kinda flipped but i have so much respect for this character, i'd feel bad if i hocked a great big artistic loogey on it. it's a somewhat noble and stoic character, i don't want to cheapen it, like maby i might mess it up in my imagination afterwards.

anyone else ever go through somethin like that?

youre talking about drawing her?


christ man! i thought you were talking about writing the character.

dude dont even worry about the drawing part. dont dwell; the reader will move on and so should you. The way you draw a character is so miniscule in the larger scheme of things.

a well drawn character can be written badly...

and a crappy character can be awesome!

NickGuy
The way you draw a character is so miniscule in the larger scheme of things.

That is so incorrect(unless you draw stick figure comics). The characters design is as much part of the story as it is the way your reader perceives them. For example If you try to create a princess who's "the most beautiful in all the kingdom and loved by many men" and you draw her plain/and or ugly the reader will not buy into it. Also think of video games, it's harder to get into playing a crappily designed character. Even though you enjoy the gameplay it always pops up in the back of your mind how lame the character your playing as is. (and well designed ones are favored more)

Yes a well drawn character can be written badly but the flipside is readers will over look it for the characters design. Look at the time old cliche of 'mysterious loner w/ dark past'. They tend to have cool designs and be the favorite despite the overused writing, a crappily designed character would be seen for what it really is; a lame character with lame writing.

And finnally how the author. I know how pit-face feels because he's put a lot of thought into her, and getting it wrong would spoil the whole thing. And he's probably right it would, but mainly for himself which would hamper his ability to write her. Your characters deserve a face for the effort that's put into the writing.

Skullbie

NickGuy
The way you draw a character is so miniscule in the larger scheme of things.

That is so incorrect(unless you draw stick figure comics). The characters design is as much part of the story as it is the way your reader perceives them. For example If you try to create a princess who's "the most beautiful in all the kingdom and loved by many men" and you draw her plain/and or ugly the reader will not buy into it. Also think of video games, it's harder to get into playing a crappily designed character. Even though you enjoy the gameplay it always pops up in the back of your mind how lame the character your playing as is. (and well designed ones are favored more)

Yes a well drawn character can be written badly but the flipside is readers will over look it for the characters design. Look at the time old cliche of 'mysterious loner w/ dark past'. They tend to have cool designs and be the favorite despite the overused writing, a crappily designed character would be seen for what it really is; a lame character with lame writing.

And finnally how the author. I know how pit-face feels because he's put a lot of thought into her, and getting it wrong would spoil the whole thing. And he's probably right it would, but mainly for himself which would hamper his ability to write her. Your characters deserve a face for the effort that's put into the writing.

I disagree with you based on this one simple fact...

take the princess idea you mentioned. Now, how does the rest of the comic look? Is it generally a plain looking comic? do the rest of the characters look generally ugly? Then if you put a decent looking girl it works. What Im saying is that certain details on ONE CHARACTER is not very important. It's important for something like video games and movies and maybe even pin ups and posters, but for SEQUENTIAL COMICS not so.

Now im not saying that its to be ignored completely, because design IS important. like if i was doing a medievil story and i put someone in jeans and sneaker...lulz epic phail. So im not saying to ignore it completely.

instead what im saying is...pit face said he has everything the way he wants it except he cant seem to render her face the way he wants to. Im sorry, but just do something like a skull...sort of render indentations into the skull where there would be eyes. its such a simple and little thing that its really not worth stressing about.

I understand wanting to have everything absolutely perfect, but cmon...if you plan on drawing comics for a living or even seriously...you cant do that all the time. If im reading your comic and you post "sorry for the dealy i cant get this persons face right" youre going to lose me as a reader, because thats such a small detail.


there are things that im not happy about with KFK, but i suck it up and do the best I can because updating every day is more important in the long run than if i make a characters face look exactly the way i want it to.

NickGuy
but i suck it up and do the best I can because updating every day is more important in the long run than if i make a characters face look exactly the way i want it to.

I used to do this before, I started taking time on the page quality and the the readership went up substantially as a result. And looking back at my old pages I regret not taking the time I did for the chapter 2 pages. If you're just looking for a practice comic then by all means do it, if you want the fans to love and give their time to the comic then put love and time into the pages and all parts of the characters. With so many comics out there the reader is going to learn the sheer difference between a half-assed comic and a loved comic, and choose the latter always.

So again there's nothing wrong with pit-face wanting to get the face perfect because he's isn't half-assing with this character. I respect that.

Skullbie

NickGuy
but i suck it up and do the best I can because updating every day is more important in the long run than if i make a characters face look exactly the way i want it to.

I used to do this before, I started taking time on the page quality and the the readership went up substantially as a result. And looking back at my old pages I regret not taking the time I did for the chapter 2 pages. If you're just looking for a practice comic then by all means do it, if you want the fans to love and give their time to the comic then put love and time into the pages and all parts of the characters. With so many comics out there the reader is going to learn the sheer difference between a half-assed comic and a loved comic, and choose the latter always.

So again there's nothing wrong with pit-face wanting to get the face perfect because he's isn't half-assing with this character. I respect that.

yeah i look back on some of my early pages and i think "man that would be nice to go redo them"

but i dont ever do it. why? not economical in time or for the flow of my comic.

Now, dont get me wrong, if im making it sound like ir ush my pages i dont. I do thumbnails, layouts, and take my time both inking and penciling each page. but i dont obsess. when i finish the page and look at it, theres a certain point where i stop and go "thats good enough i need to do my daily update" and a point where i go "wow thats awful ill have to redo it."

you have to remember, the reader experiences the page a LOT quicker than you do. the hand it took you 3 hours to get right and thus delayed you updating for a day will only take me a second to glance at it. thats a huge discrepancy.

Im not saying pit should half ass anything...thats far worse than obsessing, but im just saying that instead he should do as best he can, and be satisfied with that.

and for pit....

heres an example i found online of a faceless character...dc's female question, drawn by philip tan



male question by some dude named brent




and a steve ditko cover