Someone once said that artist are creatures of habit. We work with what we know and like, and we don’t like trying things new. Sometimes

But it is important for us to expand our powers of creation to new ideas and subjects, if only for a moment. Bellow I have outlined a few of my favorite drawing exercises/games. I hope you will enjoy them.

RANDOM CHARACTERS:

There I was on an Amtrak train to Disneyland with my friend Linda. She is a vetrin train rider and warned me that it would be many hours in transit and that I should have activities to do. I decided to play a game.

I prepared index cards with: types of characters, quirks, and personalities listed on them.

I then would shuffle them and pick 3. My goal was to create a character from all three words.

Example

The words can be many things:Types of characters: Pirate, Princess, Ice Dancer, Superhero, Queen, Ranger, Athlete, Fish, and Gardener
Quirks: One Eye, Funny Hair, Big Hat, Giant, Dwarf, hat, Magic Weapon
Description: Sleazy, Gross, Slob, Sexy, Gentle

So imagine drawing: an Inanimate Object + a Gardner + Magic Weapon (as seen in the drawing above. The drawing might seem weird at first, but this is a great way to come up with new ideas. How do you think they came up with the Title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

RANDOM SUPERHERO

Another exercise I have done with the kids in the cartooning class is creating a superhero. After we go over the elements that make a superhero character (secret ID, powers, weakness, villains, etc.), we give the students 5 index cards. The cards are labeled with the parts of Superhero Names that I got out of the Encyclopedia of Super Heroes book I have had for a good chunk of my life.

Examples: Super, Spider, Bat, Wonder, Man, Women, Queen, King, (the) Amazing…, Robot, Android, Tornado, X-, Aqua…, Silver, Blue, Cyborg, Gold, Booster, Dog, Cat, etc….

So then the student puts together 2-3 at least to make a name: Super Dog King, the Amazing Gold Man, Aqua Android, and Silver Robot Man.

Then the artist works on creating a story for them: Who they are? What their powers are? How they got the Powers? What their real name is? Who is their arch Foe? What is their weakness?

This hero template was created from the RPG character sheet for champions (Third Edition, Fifth Printing April 1987 ICE publishing)Then the student can create a drawing of the character to go with the story. Some students will want to use their skills to do a drawing, others might want to use a ‘cheat sheet’ (above) that has the structure, but they can add the features.

Here is a character I created during the last class I did: Sir Frog

Secret ID: Lord Amphibas, ruler of the lands of Cama was a young and foolish ruler, and he careless let the evil wizard change him into a frog. And then he fell into a long sleep waking up at the history museum in 1980′s Oakland CA. Now he will use his skills to help those who need it and to help others to accept him as he is
Powers: He’s a human sized frog, powerful leg muscles, trained with a sword.
Arch foe: Evil Wizard
Weakness: He is shy and had no knowledge of the time period he lives in.Example: Super Bat-bot

Secret ID: Bruce Kent
Powers: alien scientist LalKal made a robot man who he programmed with all their knowledge of their world into, since the world would explode soon. He is rocketed to earth where he becomes a millionaire playboy and uses his powers to help the city of Gothtropolis.
Arch foe: Lex Jokster, millionaire toy maker
Weakness: excessive soda pop drinking which make him giddyIn the end they have come up with a pretty interesting hero, and had a lot of fun too.

RPG characters:

A variation of the above Drawing Games is to use the character creation tools for a role playing game. Many times they will have ways to randomly create a character by rolling dice or using cards. There might also be websites that have the computer randomly do it for you. Then you should sit down and develop that character both visually and story wise.

Thoughts?

Also check out my post on Random Name Generators HERE

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Visit http://www.atomicbearpress.com/comics/log/ to see my
production art for my comic book, Beyond the Great Chimney
as well as other art, sketches and drawings.