Character Drawing – The Protagonist

I’ll admit, I’m a little paranoid speaking or writing about my book series. I’ve got a long way to go before it’s ready for publishing and there’s a little part of me that wants to keep everything to myself for fear of losing a great idea or character to a thief. Not that anyone could ever replicate my story, but the less information I put out there the less likely it’ll ever happen. It’s 2017, people are crazy, you just never know.

There’s a part of  me that also really wants to share what I’m working on since my series takes the biggest chunk of my writing time right now. Plus, there’s no way to get people excited about an upcoming release if they’ve never even heard of it, right?

Last night I created my very first character headshot in Adobe Illustrator. I’ve done plenty of sketches of my characters, environments, and cities (I even have a detailed map of, well, the entire world) but I’ve never done any digital drawings of my creations.

I’ve decided to share my digital drawings with the Internet. People love artwork and I’m looking forward to creating my entire cast, hopefully building some anticipation for the series (my aim is to publish book 1 by 2020).

Here, I’ll show you the stages of my first drawing.

1. Face outline. She has a heart shape faced, large eyes, thin lips and a straight nose.

 

2. Color and hair. She’s blonde and pale, with violet eyes.

 

 

 

3. Add hair length (not traditionally braided but it was fun to create) and shirt outlines, plus a cute bow accessory.

 

 

 

 

 

4. Finish and alter colors. Meet Jayna S., my protagonist and main squeeze.

 

 

 

 

I love being a writer and an artist. It’s such a thrilling combination that allows me to create stunning visuals for my world. Building a universe is a lot of work, but one I wouldn’t give up for the anything.

I hope you enjoyed meeting my main girl and please come back to meet more characters down the road!

Yours for Happy Writing,

Lady Jenji