Me and My OC Part 1 - Character Concepts

Hi guys, this is Renfred. Today we’ll be starting a mini GameDev tutorial on making an original creation (OC) asset! For this tutorial, we’ll be making a steampunk-esque BB8.

This is a timelapse, showing how I drew this concept art. After referring to steampunk art style and BB-8, I made sketches and thereafter polished it and completed the character.

This is drawn in Clip Studio Paint.

Of course, you’ll want to be able to draw concept art of your own OCs in the future. So here’s some tips:

When I start my line-art, I like to use the Vector layer. (green)

And when I start my painting I will use a clipping layer (blue). Clipped layers reference the drawn area on the layer immediately below so that the selected layer is only displayed within this area.

When using a vector layer, I will usually use a vector eraser (green). I will choose the option shown in (blue) as well. This allows me to erase one part of a line intersecting other lines.

Rulers are pretty useful too. Using the symmetrical ruler (blue), what I draw on the left will be copied over to the right.

Sometimes I will use a guide ruler (green) too. It will create a ruler horizontally or vertically across the canvas, helping me gauge the proportions of my characters.

When I have rulers on my layer, I will toggle the snapping option on my pens and eraser. (blue)

When it is turned on, your brush strokes will follow the ruler, and ignore the ruler when it is turned off..

When shading, I will change my layer to darken, (green) and lighten (blue) when highlighting.

I usually use black when shading and white when highlighting as well. This will make the colours drawn on the layer follow the RGB values below it but with its brightness changed.

Whenever it is too dark or light, I will change the opacity of the layer.

This is the finished product! Hope you guys found these tips helpful!

You can download my concept art here:

concept_art.zip

Download ZIP • 240KB

Stay tuned for the next post where we’ll be talking about 3D modelling!