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Unique Features Tutorial: Pt 2
Published: 2010-02-20 05:08:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 233811; Favourites: 12603; Downloads: 5813
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Description
Hey! I have two webcomics where you can see this in action: Miamaska and Trial of the Sun . If you liked these tutorials give them a shot!Check out part 1 here! jeinu.deviantart.com/art/Uniqu...
and part 3 here! fav.me/d3a6v8u
Part 2: Lady Faces! Sorry I took more than a week! The next one will be next month sometime, keep an eye out for it. Feel free to pass this along to artists who are struggling with this sort of problem. I hope it helps
All those characters up there are copyrighted to their respective owners, I do not claim ownership to any of them.
This tutorial series was inspired in part by an article on the TvTropes website. tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php... Click there to see more examples!
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Comments: 431
This is REALLY informative! 8D
I never realised that so many manga and even cartoon characters have the same sort of appearance :/
I'll make sure to take note when I'm getting references next time!
By the way, will you be releasing a Tutorial of male's anytime soon?
They're not so easy to draw either
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Part 3([link] ) is about male ^^
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This is absolutely invaluable. Thank you for this guide!
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This is so helpful! Congrats on the DD!
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congrats on the DD, this is so helpful!!!
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Great stuff!
I haven't drawn in years and I'm completely stuck on where to start again. This is a great help!
Thank you!
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trhanks for the tutorial it's useful for making characters not look like clones which can be boring XDDDD
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I need this so freaking much c: Thank you! And congratulations for the well deserved DD :'D
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You see, the best part about having distintive structural characteristics is that you can make your character instantly recognizable, even with different hair or clothes and even different colors.
My biggest problem is consistency within these features (specifically lips), but I'm getting there.
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While I think that everyone has to figure out the way to vary their characters looks, but your tutorial is a great remainder and a collection of useful tips! Very well done
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Nice reference to have!
Kind of understandable having characters with the same facial type in animation. I means that parts can be copied to save time and that tweeners and other animators only have to work with one type of face, which can help things stay on model. I see less use for it with still drawings or something where only one person works on the art
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this is so true! Thank you! I'm already trying to do some different face, but it's hard, maybe I should do some studies!
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very great point at the beginning, going to the link to see more examples now
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Well just...thank you?
And really good work.
It will help me lot, that's for sure
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This is insanely useful. Thanks for sharing and gratz on the DD!
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Brilliant! This should be seen by all the beginner artists (and some advanced, too)!
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One should print this out and hang it over the working place as a reminder. Very good tutorial - beautiful and helpful and entertaining. Fav.
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Okay, I took the time to check all the comments to see if somebody had already said what I'm going to say. Apparently not.
I agree with the whole point of your tutorial, it's the typical mistake we all make no matter what style introduced us to drawing.
Probably this is one of the reasons why I love One Piece so much. Many people here have left comments like "it's about the style". Well, Oda Eiichiro's style is the perfect answer to that. All characters are different and he has a huge cast. A really HUGE one.
But, and here comes my observation, your examples are from tv shows broadcasted weekly. Apparently you are into animation too so you probably know that when you have to make an episode per week, simplification is the answer. And distinction comes with colors, voices and accesories, because you have to move those characters every week. Here comes again the example of One Piece. The anime is not really that good, most of the time is extremely static (well, in general anime is). The movies have the real animation because the team takes more time to produce them.
Anyway, that's what I wanted to say. Good tutorial
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despite one piece being static- wouldn't you say that you're still able to differentiate the characters greatly? i've never seen the show, but looking at the character designs, i can see that simple shapes go a lonnnng wayyyy.
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Yes of course, but that's because the animation studio didn't really change the style. In the case of Sailor Moon, the anime style is completely different from the manga.
Just to make it clear, I totally understand your point and agree with you; just pointing out other things to keep in mind.
I do think, however, that drawing using an animated show as a guide is not the best thing to do; comics (or manga or whatever you want to call it) and illustrations are the best way to learn, IMO.
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imo drawing from still life is better for starting out-- getting the basics down solidly before you draw comic-ly. it's kinda like learning to spell longs words before abbreviating them. just helps out understanding in the long run.
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Ah sure, but I was talking like when you start from the very beginning without someone guiding you or having an extra goal besides having fun drawing.
Well, I guess I never considered drawing from still life or any other option until I wanted to go further. That's my personal experience, though.
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This is a wonderful tutorial! It's very well written and easy to understand. Thank you very much for all the work that went into this, including your experience.
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This is brillaint.
I wish people would stop assuming that you hate those shows, they were just example's peeps.
Alot of the time, shows only use the same face shapes because it's quicker, cheaper and easier to animate and they can reuse the same base face layers for every character. If you look at alot of higher-budget anime shows and films, the characters vary alot more and there is more frame-by-frame animation rather than that let's-not-move-anything-but-the-mouth animation style. Studio Ghibli is a fine example of great Japanese character designs (they're kinda anime-ish, right? 
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oh i know the animation tendency to use same face shapes-- i'm an animator myself. the problem is when they use the same faces. considering that many low budget animes and cartoons don't fully animate the face-- it can't really be used as a valid excuse. also considering that a lot of people(kids really) learn from these very tv shows, they can get stuck in the same rut. i know this tut isn't going to affect animation industries at all, it's for the kids that learn/copy exclusively from them.
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Oh oops, I should have said that second paragraph was meant for other peeps to read it, I assumed you knew it already haha
I'll admit it though, up until a few years ago, all my characters had that face shape. I need to stop doing fanart so much right now and start desiging unique characters again, haha xD
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haha, i think a lot of modern artists start out at that point, just drawing fanart and oc's to other people's stories--i know that's how i started out. as long as you grow out of it, s'all good 
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i'm glad ppl point this out, but they never keep in mind that not everybody draws like them and have their own styles :/
not everybody draws noses or lips so detailed D:
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There's ways of drawing varied-but-not-so-detailed noses and lips too ^^ Look at Disney films for example. They aren't ultra realistic, they just use a few lines to suggest the shape. Check this pic out: [link] Not very detailed, yet the two characters have extremely different personalities and you can tell just by looking at them. And the noses are just a few lines.
And whilst I did point out Studio Ghibli having good character varied designs in another post, they also have some films where their characters look the same. Check this out for example: [link] (however keep in mind that this film was most likely lower budget than Disney films
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I think they look better with the same generic face
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Thank you so much for this! Very helpful!
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HMM I don't like it when there are mixed styles in ONE story. It's like a crossover. And often Artists become popular because of their styles (Arina Tanemura for example). Actually it don't has to be exciting-it has to be full of fantasy and if the artists have their inspiration they should draw without thinking about if the character will look like 5 before
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true, but i think these distinctive styles could be pushed more. if the artist has a really distinguished style-- wouldn't they be able to draw any sort of character and have it be recognized as theirs?
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I don't think the artist meant for different styles, just a variation in facial types. It's difficult to make everyone look good, sure, because people tend to automatically go for their idealized facial type when designing characters, but that's why she encourages us to play around a bit (this can stay within our own style) and I think this is a very good thing
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hair HAIR we just need hair now!
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Im an offender of this too.. u.u but im still gettin the face thing down.. I saw a tutorial on body shape that got a DD too.. And ive been trying to follow that since, ill try to follow this tutorial too. >.>;; I think Ill start drawing realistically soon..
:3 Love your tutorial, very inspirational and mind opening. Grats on the DD. X3
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Very useful, I'm glad I found this on the DD page
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This is a wonderful tutorial mate, and I'm quite enamored with your nose section. 
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True, also because the appearance of a character should tell us a bit about his/herself, and having the same kind of face doesn't do it any justice.
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wow your oc character tutorials are very inspiring and engaging! congrats on the well deserved DD
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This is SUPER CRAZY helpful - the face shapes especially, since I usually need to remind myself to vary the face shapes of my characters.
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I love you for this! 
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I love your tutorial, but weird thing is you forgot big ass noses on there :U Everyone on my moms side of the family thats female has a large nose, and we are mainly girls yo.
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It' s cruel. I Love SM, Winx and Danny Phantom and this is sad. I' m obsessed with the world, I love everything and I' m lackofcritisism fan.
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hey, never said there's anything wrong with liking these series 
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