One of more exhausting exercises I’ve done, this took a decent bit of mental stamina to finish. Right off the bat I started by searching for a list of distinct professions that may allow me to a produce a variety of characters. In the end I just had to bounce between pages and even somewhat repeat some appearances. Although, the experience of the exercise did reveal a lot of things about my ability and style as I kept at it.

The first sheet:

It may not look like it but I did take my time on each individual character. However, in anticipation of fatigue I decided to keep the designs simple, and therefore. also concise. I started with the pilot which was supposed to set the foundation for the rest of the characters. As I finished it, I developed a dynamic with the process that allowed me to approach the design with a clearer method. I started with a simple line drawing but subconsciously would end up bringing out some clear anatomically accurate features, especially in the legs. Most of the appearances came from memory, few from research, since this exercise was more about the style rather than the final completed character. A lot of them were thus stereotypical because in my mind stereotypes are the best way to provide definition to a character, as generally inaccurate as they may be. An example, interestingly, would be the artist, because most artists today do no wear berets and a woollen scarf, nor do they all paint on a canvas, but those are what people usually identify as “typical artist attire”, particularly in a pop-culture context. However, I believe I might be missing something there, because I feel like if I’d done a bit more research I might’ve come up with a more modern representation for some of these ideas.

After a point I started running out of distinct professional uniforms to take inspiration from, so I started referring to historical and religious attire as reference, as well as some unusual professions like the beekeeper and the caretaker. I started notice distinct stylistic features in the characters, like square heads and giant rounded ears. Eventually, even the arms started to take a more anatomically accurate shape in some characters. There wasn’t a particular low point in terms of quality, it was more like an ongoing evolution that bring out some odd features like the feet of the policeman. And sometimes the designs were too simple, like the magician.

Finally, the comic strip was fun to make but it was also quite spontaneous, mainly because I had 40 characters to choose from and only three frames to tell a story. I finally decided to make something with the detective, and the next thing I thought of was the movie “Catch Me If You Can” with a Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, where the former, for a decent portion of the film, fakes being a pilot and is chased by the latter who is a detective. So I decided to add a second character, and make it a suspicious pilot. The drawing part of it sorted itself out as it went.