In this tutorial I’ll be showing you how to sketch up a character concept. The character we’ll be designing is for my comic book project ‘Renegade Alpha’ (working title).

His name is Commander Slug (real name John Colton).

Slug’s story, takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, where Earth has been invaded and taken over by a hostile alien race known as the Sarcofarge. Slug is a key player in the rebel forces that have vowed to protect the remaining pockets of humanity, fight back against the Sarcofarge stronghold, and someday salvage what’s left of the planet they once called home.

In short, Commander Slug is a total bad-ass. Highly respected and even feared among his peers, he represents an unwavering pillar of strength that the occupants of Sector 21 can look toward in a world filled of uncertainty.

Slug doesn’t have a whole lot of people skills. Stubborn and hard-headed, his word is usually the last word. This can be a set back at times, especially when he makes the wrong call – but he always takes responsibility for his actions. His confidence and decisiveness in the moves he makes, is precisely what makes others follow his lead without question – most of the time. And if they do question his authority, let’s just say they better have a good reason.

To begin today’s demonstration, I lay in the foundations of Commander Slug’s character design, establishing his proportions, pose and placement on the page. I also plot out the other concept illustration’s that’ll be presented on his character sheet. Then his anatomy is sketched in over the top. I’m still keeping my drawing very loose as I place in the major muscle groups throughout his body.

Next I move onto developing the design itself. Once more I’m keeping the sketch very rough. It’s important at this stage to experiment and explore the different design directions I might be able to go in. If I’m too precise and neat to start out with, that’ll make me feel as though I’ve got to stick with what’s there on the page – confining my creativity.

Commander Slug isn’t so much a military soldier as he is a rebel. So even though he’ll be dressed in some military gear such as pouches, shoulder and knee pads, gun belts, etc, his outfit overall should appear less like a uniform, and more like getup that’s been put together with left over military gear he’s found lying around.

Slug’s an older guy, which explains his stubbornness and short temper. To have that come across visually in his design, I’ll give him a mustache, and receding hairline. But that doesn’t mean he’s not one heck of a physically fit old man. Commander Slug is fully jacked – in this brave new world, the weak don’t last long. So the strong have got to look out for them, protect them. That’s Slug’s job.

Since I hadn’t drawn in quite a while, it took me a little time to develop the concept sketch for Slug and settle on a look for him that I was satisfied with. There were many iterations before this one – and in the end it was worth the many times I went back to the drawing board to completely restart his design.

I hope you enjoy this video and get a ton of value out of it. This won’t be the last we see of Commander Slug and there will most definitely be much more to come when we move onto inks. But we’ll save that for another video.

PLEASE NOTE: This tutorial may not always be available for free. There’s a good chance it’ll be taken down, re-edited and packaged up as a premium product later on. So if you find this lesson valuable, please make the most of it while it’s available for free, by taking notes and putting as much of it as you can into practice. Save the video onto your hard drive as well if you’d like, so that you can refer back to it later on.

Thanks so much for watching, until next time – keep on drawing!
-Clayton

Software Used: Clip Studio Paint/Manga Studio

If you like the video, show your support by commenting, sharing or subscribing.

Comic Art Community – https://www.howtodrawcomics.net/comic-art-community/
How to Draw Comics .NET – http://www.howtodrawcomics.net/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/howtodrawcomics/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/howtodrawcomics
Twitter – https://twitter.com/howtodrawcomics
Tumblr – http://howtodrawcomics.tumblr.com/
Pinterest – http://www.pinterest.com/howtodrawcomics/