Turnarounds: 3 Quick Tips

In this premium video lesson, character designer Gerardo Escamilla discusses quick tips for developing your character proportions in different views.

We’re working with a ruler, tonal markers, black liners, regular and colored pencils, and erasers. Start with a colored pencil, drawing a basic circle. Then use a ruler to draw lines across the page. Now you can draw two more circles within the lines. These circles will act as the base for the character in different views. The first circle will be the character in the frontal view, so he draws a line down the middle and starts to develop the character on top of the circle. Try to keep your design readable and easy to understand.

For the second circle, the character will be seen from the side. Using the ruler he marks the features from the first circle across to the second to keep them aligned. As he develops the side view of the character he slightly alters the expression. For the third circle he draws the character in a more complex pose, looking over her shoulder. Keep an eye on your previous drawings for reference.

Once he feels good about his lines he goes back over them with a graphite pencil, correcting any mistakes.
Now he can add final details using the liners and markers. He goes over the pencil marks with the black liner and adds shadows and dimension with the tonal markers.

And now he’s finished! Remember, practice makes the master.