
These next few images are for the next character in my retelling of Alice and Wonderland in Japan, Tweedle Dum. He has a twin who looks exactly like him but the arms are different. You'll see what I mean, and no I haven't designed the other twin yet, this one alone took me some time to figure out the design. OK, here we go:
Step 1: Figure out my story--Tweedle Dum, henchman to the Cat. Dum and Dee are the Cat's most dangerous and loyal bodyguards, not the smartest but man are they tough. The queen of Hearts tried to assassinate the Cat but failed. Upon trying to escape she ran into the twins, in short, she kicked their butts and cut their arms off to flee. This did not go well with the twins.
Step 2: Sketch--I did quite a few pages of sketching and a few more hours on gathering reference for my characters. This helped me greatly because I had a clear picture in my head of the feeling I wanted Tweedle Dum to have. I know, a clear picture of a feeling, what the heck is that...I myself cannot explain it fully but it is an important part of my creative process. Below is the final sketch I decided to go with, this was done in my sketchbook and its about 2.5 inches tall.

Step 3: Revisions--Took it into Photoshop, created a new layer and began to do another iteration or version of it. Making another layer in Photoshop is pretty much like putting a piece of tracing paper over your drawing to make corrections. That is basically what I did and this is the result:

Step 4: Revisions...wait, wasn't that step 3, well its my step 4 also so get over it buddy! Revisions and iterations are keys to a successful design. Not to say to keep doing it infinitely, but for myself, I learn a lot from my bad drawings and do not want to just accept those mistakes but learn from them to create better deigns. I usually do 3 or 4 passes at a design, some of you may be bale to hit the design on the money at first pass..to those who can I admire and hate you at the same time...j/k...not really.

Step 5: Final revision Lineart. Now I clean up my linework considerably and really start to pay attention to how things work, especially that dang arm. I spent quite a bit of time on that arm, figuring out how it would work and what shapes to push. I have a lot more to talk about on that particular aspect of the design but I will save that for another post. Basically, I looked at gears and drawbridges, combined with a Japanese storage barrel that holds a spiked statue head which he uses as a mace. Makes sense right?!?!

Well, I will be coloring this guy up now so I will post that up when ti is done. I will also post a sneak peak for an upcoming show I am going to be a part of in San Diego during Comicon Weekend..the show is called Meanwhile in the Halls of Justice.
Stay tuned!
-Pat
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