Yo, I have some questions about the IDW Sonic comic character design if you don't mind! When you're designing characters like, say, Dr. Starline or Tangle, how much creative freedom do you have? Are characters' abilities determined before or while you're creating design concepts? If their powers are determined beforehand, do you get to pick the species or do others get a say? Lastly, roughly how many versions do you go through before the final design is picked?
Hello! Sure, I can take a stab at it.
First off, I should clarify that so far I have designed Starline and Whisper for IDW but I didn’t design Tangle-- that was Tyson Hesse.
In my experience with Sonic books, I’ve always been working with one or two editors, and Ian Flynn as the writer (or me as the writer, but checking my creative decisions with Ian to make sure I wasn’t contradicting his future plans for the world). The material I’m given to work with can range from a short bio blurb to a rough design and reference sheet (drawn by either Ian, the editor, or Aleah Baker, Ian’s wife and collaborator). They almost always contain a few key points:
-Character’s name, approx. age, and their species
-Their immediate role in the story (usually not backstory)
-A rough description of their personality
-Their abilities, and any special requirements in the design (such as Starline’s glove with the Warp Topaz on it, or Whisper’s Variable Wispon)
Other than that, I’m left to my own devices to gather inspirational material and start roughing things out. I’ll draw not just from pre-existing Sonic media, but from any outside source that feels interesting to me.
I’ll usually to one initial pass to send in, then everybody involved gets to throw in their two cents and I’ll split the design off into a few variants, combining and including as many ideas as possible. Then we reconvene and pick the one or ones we all like, and I’ll mush those together. A round or two of that usually gets us something good, then we send that off to Sega/Sonic Team to see what they think! They’ll give us some notes on changes to make sure it fits in with the world and doesn’t break any of their design preferences. Once their notes are applied, I’ll make a detailed reference sheet and we’re good to go!
Here’s how it went with Starline:
STEP 0: Collect reference! Starline's original style inspiration board. I also looked at real-life platypuses, and references from other Sonic media.
STEP 1: The first pass! I was angling for a mad scientist thing, I didn’t know he was more of a psychologist type of doctor. I’m throwing all the spaghetti at the wall at this stage.
STEP 2-3: Diversify! After checking with the crew, I reeled it way back towards normal Sonic-y proportions and made variants emphasizing different elements of his personality. There are pages and pages of ideation sketches that lead to these. Note that I label everything clearly, so we can call them out easily in email conversations.
(Version 3 consisted of different combos and color palettes, and testing them alongside Eggman. 1C down there is my favorite from this pass, but it doesn’t really fit Starline as we know him in the books)
STEP 4: Refocus! After batting around the design above and nobody really feeling it, I took a couple steps back and pulled some of the energy from the original into the later designs. I also knew his character better at this point, and I knew how I liked to draw it. As you can see, this is really close!
Oh, Sega gave some suggestions on version 2-3 that led to this one. You can actually see their suggestions listed by me on the sketch: pallid complexion, thin/tall build, intellectual-shorthand props, and a sleeker glove. I realized that these notes were leading back to the first pass, so I went with my gut and leaned into that!
(This is when he got his signature Benjamin Franklin/Jareth the Goblin King energy. Very important.)
STEP 5: Cleanup! Sega gave some more minor notes on do’s and don’ts to tidy up the design, and I did a few final fixes of my own. He was gonna have the zigzag-cut boots but they were HELL to draw so I made new ones at the last second. Also, fixed some color stuff and put the hair stripe back in.
This whole process can take a while, with stuff getting bounced around so much. It’ll often take several weeks to wrap it all up. My last few designs have gone through around 4-5 iterations, though certain elements may get more attention than others; I like to pick a few features that won’t get changed with every go-round, so the design stays focused.
Sometimes I get to have some input into the character’s backstory or personality, depending on how I design them-- this happens organically as we’re brainstorming design options. Whisper is a great example of this; in the design prompt, she didn’t have a mask at all. That was something I added as a costume option, and Ian, and I came up with the idea that it’s a tool that she uses alongside her Variable Wispon. It’s also become a huge part of how she expresses herself, and emblematic of the character in general!
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