Welcome to another comic art tutorial! In today’s video we’ll be working on a brand new character concept for my upcoming comic book ‘Renegade Alpha’ (working title).

This time we’ll be designing a female character named Beretta. She’s a smooth talker, a sharp shooter and has a knack for kicking some serious alien butt on the field. Beretta might be one of the boys but she doesn’t try near as hard to impress. Her quiet confidence and self-assured attitude say it all – and it’s no wonder this gal’s as cool as a cucumber… With an extensive skill-set, athletic physique and quick thinking, Beretta is well and truly equipped to handle herself when the heat is on!

Like many of the female characters I draw, Beretta is a beautiful, but powerful woman. So as I roughly sketch in her figure, I intend to visually convey those characteristics at a base level through the way in which she’s posed and her proportions.

To tell her backstory, all we’ve got to work with is her visual representation. So my aim is to project her personality, attitude, and her bio as much as possible through the design itself. Most of this can be shown with the pose of the character alone. The way we hold ourselves, and the way we move gives away a lot of visual information that implies how we feel about ourselves, about a situation, other people, and even what we’re thinking.

So I’ve got to get inside Beretta’s head to an extent, ask myself who she really is and gather an intimate understanding about the character in order to properly present her on the page. To truly nail a pose, set of proportions and body type that conveys those attributes clearly, you’ll likely need to go through multiple iterations during the drafting stage. Experimentation and exploration is key to ensuring the best outcome for your character.

After the basic figure has been posed, proportioned and sized up correctly, we’re then ready to define Beretta’s underlying anatomy. This is an important step, since the clothing assets we draw in on top will need to be fitted to her body. If we’re able to ensure that the anatomical structure is on point before dressing her up, it’ll not only help us give her costuming the proper form and thickness, but it’ll also make the overall design appear more convincing.

Once the character’s anatomy has been defined, the design process begins. Since Beretta is part of the human resistance in my story, her outfit will feature military gear such as pouches, knee pads and gun belts, however it won’t be a full blown military uniform. Instead, her clothing will appear more personalized, as if she found individual military costume items and composed the outfit herself.

References are used during this portion of the illustration process to make sure real world design elements are drawn accurately, specifically in relation to the smaller details. The more intricate aspects of any costume item can easily be missed if observational material isn’t used to properly flesh out their depiction. It is important to note however that references must always be used within the context of your idea, rather than confining your design to the context of the references. References should merely aid you in filling in the details.

I hope that you enjoy this tutorial and get a ton of value out of it. Be sure to try out some of the techniques and methods you’ve observed throughout this demonstration, and see how it works out for you!

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

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