You might have noticed that we just published a whole load of posts at once. This is because it has been decided that this blog will proceed with its little identity change.

This means that this blog soon will become RedLineStation's BuildGuild expansion. RedLineStations basics and anatomy help can still be found in our budding community on discord: https://discord.gg/tVtcUC5QZd

Where you can find help and guidance for your art fundamentals through the discord channels. Here you can receive help both from mods and community members alike, as well as join in the regular events that the mod-team host.

It has been a privilege to work with RedLineStation as part of its art fundamentals blog interacting with our members and other mods on the discord server is like talking to one big extended family. But for now, I hope you guys will help us welcome the new face of this particular blog:

When we put out a post talking about this new direction for RedLineStation we received a bunch of positive feedback, which means that we now have the courage to roll out the new venue.

RedLine Build-Guild will, much like RedLineStation be part of the RedLineStation family. Here, we will discuss anything that has to do with worldbuilding and design for visual storytelling. That means anything from character design, storyboarding to the conceptualization of lore and inspiration/motivation. Just like the previous format of this blog, a lot of the content will be user-prompted through our askbox. Which will be open for any general questions about the design of a visual narrative and everything surrounding it. On top of that, we will, again, just like the original RedLineStation; offer personalized feedback. Where followers can send in their material and have it reviewed. RedLine Build-Guild will also feature a regularly scheduled Worldbuilding Guide, which will be published in short chapters here on the blog. This guide will help you with some of the more meta-contextual aspects of worldbuilding. While its accompanying writing/design prompts should help you explore your world and story from angles you might not have previously.

As part of the Build-Guilds curriculum, we will also be showcasing other worldbuilders and authors who have mastered the art, so that you won't just have to hear us drone on about our own individual biases exclusively but hear about the methods of creators around the world too. A more thorough walkthrough of Build-Guilds content and format will come out later. For now, just know that the revamp is in the works and that we are currently writing, drawing, and planning a heap of content to start the blog off in the new year. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask them as a 'reply' to this post beneath. Mod Wackart will be around to answer as many questions as possible as quickly as possible.

Cheers! Can't wait to see you all again

Down in The Redline Discord, we had a lovely end of the year art exchange between members and mods where we made secret art gifts for one another to reveal on New Year’s! It was a blast for everyone to see their presents and all the amazing work created for this ‘goodbye 2020′ event! Below are the entries made for this exchange and none of us can wait to see what the next Redline Discord Exchange will bring!

By @violet-fire-cat

By thewiglesswonder (Discord)

By @pris-art​

By @lazydragonfish

By @theukuleledraws (Instagram)

By @nebulaeyedfish​

By AmateurOwl (DeviantART)

By @willow-tea

By @ryr-art​

This happens to me a lot in my initial designphases ( and sometimes, I just leave the characters looking similar. if it’s not used for some kind of official production, and is just for your own collection, having similar character’s ain’t the worst. ) Though, if you’re striving for wide variety in your characters, here’s some pointers.  We’re actually going to dive into a bit of design method and theory for a moment - to understand the process that goes into designing and optimising anything. 

It’s called

The Iterative Design Process

Sound technical? It’s actually not as dense as it can sound. 

https://felix.delattre.de/weblog/2019/03/14/a-strait-agile-coordination-method/

The Iterative design process, as pictured above is a method in which an idea is worked through several times. The cycle starts with an idea, any idea. In this case, an idea for a character.  The artist starts out drawing their idea as is, then - they send either set it aside for a while, or - preferably, sends it out for feedback. As feedback comes back and the artist have been away from the design for a bit ,they return with fresh eyes. They evaluate the design based on the criteria of their goals ( in this case: making the character look less like another character ), review feedback, and note things down for potential alternatives.  The circle closes when the artist goes back to the drawing board to work another design out based on the results of their evaluation and feedback.

A cycle like that ^ is called an Iteration. And a design process typically goes through multiple iterations. It is inherently a very circular process until someone calls for the project to finish once satisfactory progress has been made, or the deadline’s coming up. 

So: for the sake of our little design project, we’d end up with a process looking something like this. 

In a concept-art process, those iterative cycles might come out looking something like this v

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/X1vBD

Whenever a concept artists makes an attempt at a character, they bring it up to a potential board or director, where the design is discussed and either green-lit or sent back to the drawing board with alterations or improvements to be made. Often, a concept artist will also bring multiple iterations of a design to the table, in hopes of facilitating conversation with the remaining team or director about what works and what doesn’t. Making it much easier for them to start a dialogue about what a final design could potentially look like. 

If you have created a design that leans too close to another, then it might be time to take it back to the drawing board. All the way back.  Identify the pieces of the design that you recognize are too similar to another design, and start debating whether or not that particular piece is valueable and important to the design. Certain details that can seem all-defining for a character can sometime end up completely unecessary.  Once you’ve identified what can be done away with, try putting in new things in its stead. This can be anything from a change of garment, a switch in hair-style or a colour pallette. Killing your darlings is absolutely crucial when doing iterations. Not everything you like may be benefitting the design, and it takes bravery to trim the fat of a design.  Remember, when doing your first initial sketches of a new iteration, be light, be quick, be careless. Don’t take too much time, or you’d risk getting too attached to a design  ( and also stiffling how dynamic it is by getting too detail-oriented ).

Additionally: you can switch things up by shifting reference points. If the design you are trying to deviate from takes a lot of reference from a certain era of clothing, you can either look deeper into said era, and find something that would be right within the context of the era, thusly maintaining the thematic feeling of the design. Or you can switch it up completely and go for an entirely different era, but maintain shapes or colours from the original design. Like this, you are keeping parts of the original design, those that you might favour, while still recontextualizing the design’s themes to yourself and your audience. 

Once you’ve got 9-10 new sketches out, it is up to you to play your own art director as well. Look at your pieces critically, and start picking and mixing until you have something that doesn’t look as similar to the subject matter as it was before. 

After some cycles of this, you should see things start to change. It’s a long and painful progress, i know this. I just had to go through a very dramatic scale-back of a character design, which removed a lot of features i had grown attached to in a character, but ultimately , it was necessary and it felt much better to draw the character afterwards. 

Best of luck! 

Increasing effectiveness is a common want for many artists. Myself included. Unfortunately, the answer to becoming faster isn’t as simple as simply drawing quick circles on empty canvases or the sort. ( Though warm-up excersizes like that are thoroughly recommended ).  Your speed comes down at large to your fundamentals and yours understanding of the skills required to do the specific piece you have in mind. Our precious time when drawing is in most case spent labouring over the likes of figuring out construction, composition and solid line-art. These are crucial steps to make the finished product look how you want it to. But that does mean - that if you want to speed up your progress, you’re going to want to study the skills of which you think are your biggest time-sinks.  For me, those sinks would be construction, particularly rigid objects in perspective ( buildings, etc ), or when constructing highly intricate poses that move in 3D space. For me, that means looking into perspective drawing and architecture. So as to boost my spatial understanding, and thusly make it take less time for me to translate my vision onto paper. 

https://www.wikihow.com/Sketch

That said, I personally think 5-8 hours for a character on a background isn’t outrageously slow. I personally spent between 4-6 hours and all the way up to 3-4 days to finish illustrations. 

There is of course the option of just “caring less” about the polish and finish of your piece. Taking more shortcuts and generally being more lax about the look of your art. However - while I recommend people loosen up about their art in general, it’s probably not going to be a satisfactory answer. Especially if you, like me, like to make art that look polished. 

Aight, imma put something out there for all of you non-fandom artists.  From one exclusive-original-OC-content artist to all of ya’ll 

 - As long as you are drawing whatever the heck you want to draw, as long as you are having fun with what you are drawing, as long as you like doing what you do, no matter if its mainstream popular or not - you are never wasting your time! 

Drawing an OC, or drawing fanart ( hell, drawing anything at all ) will still improve you as an artist. It can still be incredible quality content, it makes you happy to indulge. The only difference is the certain skills you deploy. Designing an OC takes creative design-thinking, drawing fanart requires you to recognize and duplicate traits, styles or ideas.  Both are very valid skills.  Personally, being very critical of the media i consume, and generally taking to actively “liking” something very rarely - though still have a few pieces of art/media/entertainment that i adore -  I have hardly never felt the impulse to draw fanart for it, unless it was for some kind of product deal.  If i see something i love and want to work with creatively, i almost always end up falling into creating my own spin on it. And that is okay. It doesn’t get views or recognition, but it makes me happy, and it improves my skills all the same.  You don’t need to draw fanart to be happy.  Moreover, you don’t always need to draw fanart to get recognition either.  Many artists i know have garnered a following by having OCs that are well fleshed out, interesting and consistently posted in their galleries.  These OCs will be highly developed, and portrayed with intriquing stories, and spades of personality expressed in sprawling art-pieces.  And. They. Are. Awesome! 

Don’t feel bad for not drawing a specific thing. Just draw what makes you happy, and you’re doing the right thing.