Quick Sketch.
Initial quick expressive sketching of characters keeps them alive and kicking. Or exhausted and moping as needed.
A practice reinforced by Mallory Grigg, Senior Art Director at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, during a breakout session at the SCBWI Marvelous Midwest Conference held in Iowa this past weekend. Her suggestion of flour sack doodles and stretch and squish variations to reinvigorate the liveliness of our drawn characters was impactful.
I quickly put the practice to use in these emotive color marker character sketches, echoing the flour sack shapes I did in the session.
Flour Sacks and Blob Heads.
I highly recommend this practice as well as the Blob Head drill of creating odd blobs and turning them into character heads, as a way of punching up the uniqueness of your characters.
So grab a pen, pencil, marker or pastel to sack, blob, and stretch & squish away.
Happy sketching.