Character Challenge: A Character a Day

Every creative has an area in their field that proves more difficult for them than others. One of my weaknesses is drawing characters. Stylistically, I feel like I am starting each character completely from scratch. Without a consistent starting point, characters take me far too long to create, and the quality isn't less than consistent. So I came up with a plan to fix this.I started a blog on Tumblr called the Character Challenge. Each day (excluding weekends) I force myself to draw a new character, and post it on my blog. It helps me remain accountable and stands as an invitation for constructive criticism. Though the biggest thing this challenge has helped me with is simply getting better through mileage. Because characters aren't my strong suit, and I don't advertise them a whole lot on Brave the Woods, not many clients come asking for them. And if I am not getting paid to do something, it can be hard to take that time to initiate passion projects. That is the one thing I miss about college; being forced to experiment.The further along I get in this challenge, the more I am starting to see my own, personal style come through. Before my work didn't have much of a consistency in terms of style. But now, as I experiment with creating these characters in all types of styles, I am seeing some reoccurring elements that appear in each one. People talk about finding a style as an illustrator, and I can't think of a more natural way to do that than to simply draw more. Regardless of what you create, a bit of yourself will always be left in it. Over time, and plenty of drawing mileage, more and more of yourself will begin to show through in the work. At least, that has been my experience.Follow my progress, and see all my characters here.