• Until everything sings the same again •

Hiii Andy! I've adore your art for years and your characters. Their designs are so lovely!! And expressive!! I was wondering if you had any tips for a cohesive character design? Or even advice on adding little asymmetrical details or features? And help is greatly appreciated! Thanks! Wishing you all the best!

HELLOO!!! AAAH Thank you so much for such a thoughtful question, this makes me so happy to hear! I'm so sorry it took me so long to get back to you, it turns out I have way too many things to say about this topic AKLSDHFKLSDG

(pls take this readmore<3)

For the starting point in a design, I try to stick to whatever rules apply for the setting the character is in, and their role in that setting.

Basic colour theory is always at the back of my mind, as well. I tend to use analogous and complementary colours when I design my characters and their closets. Analogous colours keep a palette contained and feeling similar to itself without being monotone. And then using colours that are complementary to that elsewhere in the design adds contrast while still maintaining that feeling of cohesion :D

The intended use of the character also heavily affects what can make a design cohesive or not - it's very dependent on art style and medium. (A design for use in animation would be extremely different from semi-realistic TTRPG concept art. The rest of what I've written skews more towards the second option!)

I consider the colours, shapes and materials that make sense for what I want to convey about the world, and how the character would want to be presented in it. The Dogwood characters are my current exercise; Mel's clothes fit him perfectly since he works a labor intensive job on the farm, and his identity is wrapped up in it so he never strays far from heavy cotton, straight cut. Ryan and Park both wear ill-fitting clothes in completely different ways (Ryan, butchly. Park, autistic and transly) - and they each have work uniforms. Ryan's work uniform suits her gnc appearance (welding coveralls/safety gear), while Park's uniform completely transforms him into "Just Some Guy" and that changes how others read him, too (cashier). And they all shop at Local Thrift Store / Farmer's Surplus / The Walmart 1hr Outside of Town. Their styles give them each a distinct silhouette, and their levels of social comfort as well as public expression contribute to body language, colour choices, and shapes that make them stand apart from each other despite living in the same small bubble. COHESION!

Asymmetrical details and features are my FAAAAV THEY ARE SO FUN, I find inspiration for these in people-watching, nature documentaries, architecture, my reflection, my friends.. <333 This part is also fun to tie in to the character's setting! Springboard questions like. Are they prone to injuries? Magical injuries? Do they have like, modern dental procedures available? Do they give a shit about crooked or crowded teeth? Are they missing a tooth, or did they chip one? Do they smile a lot and have crow's feet/other wrinkles? Do they get a lot of sun, and do they have/use sunscreen? (Even finer wrinkles.) Did they have acne as a teen? Do they still? Are they in a combat-heavy setting, with the scars to show it? Even more uniform features like freckles aren't symmetrical.

Clothing is really good to use to play with asymmetry - maybe the character rolls their cuffs but one is coming undone a little. Jewelry of all types is also great for asymmetry since it can go anywhere on the body!! Facial and other physical deformities or injuries are also incredible to see, and should be researched to find out if they impact other parts of a person's overall health and mobility outright. The different skin texture of a birthmark, for example! I noticed in certain photographs, the subject's red birthmark changed the texture of the skin, so I started drawing Orson with one drooping eyelid on the side affected by his birthmark. The more you look, the more you find!

Before I get too carried away. I try to use asymmetrical details and features as a way to boost that "world setting" cohesion, and to bring attention to parts of the character I am personally endeared by or want other people to notice. Mahon's snaggletooth is an eternal fav, which made me draw him smiling more, which made me more prone to drawing lines around his eyes. And since the anchor is in his left hand, and he tries to hide it subconsciously, I put thumb-holes in his left sleeves, which he plucks through as a nervous fidget, and as a result, his clothes pull a little across his entire body :D ITS VERY FUN to find the right jumping-off point that lets specific details click into place. For Mahon especially, since so many of those details are derived from the setting and his role in it!

Asymmetry and symmetry are just tools at ur disposal. Asymmetry tends to be more comfortable and natural. Symmetry gives a sense of stability and can be pushed for a sense of power, a sense of being uncanny, rigid, etc. Asymmetry can also be pushed into uncaniness depending on what it's applied to!! (But as a matter of personal taste, I find asymmetrical details to feel more natural and inviting than perfectly symmetrical ones. Which. Again. Depending on the character's purpose, could equally contribute to a cohesive design!!!)

OMG ok my final thought. Asymmetry can also be used as a balancing tool which yet again lends to a sense of cohesion. Adding a detail on the left while leaving it out on the right, repeated throughout with different details where applicable. Loam's colour spots, archery gear, scars and jewelry are all areas I've played with this idea.

doing these prompts! today is “favorite summer outfits” (which is only loosely followed) & it’s dedicated to @aurastiel bc they were like “what if dean & cas & graying beard” read the whole series!

It’s no secret: Dean has always been a little vain. Not in the way you might think -- he’s happy enough trolling around in the mud and monster guts and flannel. But he’s always been well aware of his looks and he likes that he looks good. He got used to it, in a way that probably would lead to some upsetting revelations if he studied it with any scrutiny. But even with the vanity, waking up mornings in the mirror to find wrinkles and gray appearing became a sort of novelty.

He thought, for so long, that he was going to die young and bloody. He thought that he was going to die alone with nothing but a pile of ash to mark him. He thought he was going to be nothing more than a toast at Sammy’s Thanksgiving dinner: Here’s to Dean, he died doing what he loved: saving people, hunting things.

But then one morning he wakes up and he realizes he’s halfway through fifty. 

He slides out of bed, leaving a little bundle of once-upon-an-angel and chocolate lab between the sheets, and moves for the bathroom. He makes a usual pass at the mirror, running a hand through his hair (longer than he used to wear it and fuck if he doesn’t like the length) and his beard (also longer than he used to wear it and fuck if Cas doesn’t like the length, or the feel of it against his skin anyway). And he notices his face is slacker than it used to be, freckles where there isn’t facial hair. There are lines from his eyes and the corners of his mouth and by his brow but they all mold the shape of smiles and laughter. (Except for the notch at the center of his forehead that reminds him of too-long nights staring at a whiskey and wish in the bunker.) Mostly, it’s a face mapped out by a happy life, if one started a few decades late.

He pauses to consider that, to consider the life he never thought he might be able to try on. Because first of all he’s alive and second, he’s in New Jersey. He’s with Cas and they’ve made it work for going on nine years now, ten soon enough, and they have this house, this home filled with furniture and things that Dean has built or fixed up or put together with Cas. There’s a dog curled up in the well of heat that Dean left as he climbed out of bed and she’s the queen of the house. Sammy is twenty minutes’ drive done the road with his wife, with his two kids. 

Dean has a niece who loves him, who he loves more than he thought it possible to love another human being, and a nephew who is named after him. Sammy sent him a video the other day, little Dean just six months old and already wiggling on the floor in something that you could generously call “crawling.” In the background, he could hear Jo’s voice, asking Eileen for another apple, please.

Dean is middling between fifty and fifty-one and he’s alive. He’s really, really alive. There’s a patch of gray in his beard about the size of a thumbprint and a matching one on the other side, just a little smaller, catching up. One benefit of the job, he had laughingly said to Sam one drunken night, early on, hunters don’t go gray.

But, then, he’s not a hunter anymore, is he?

He’s wasted enough time staring at himself that the mirror is starting to fog over from the shower and Cas is trailing in. He ducks around Dean comfortably, reaching for toothbrush, toothpaste. After a minute, he realizes that Dean is just staring, not showering. “What is it?” he asks, mouth jumbled from toothbrush and sleep.

“Nothing,” Dean assures him, leaning in to press a kiss to Cas’s temple. And since he’s human, has been, he’s showing his age too (or, some of it, at least. He’s somewhere in the low millennia old, after all). Gray is strung through that perma-bedhead, through the dark stubble. His skin holds the shape of smiles, the folds of squinting eyes. Dean shifts, lays his mouth over crows’ feet. “Just thinking: Claire is right. We are old.”

Cas take his time brushing, spitting, rinsing, but when he wipes crescents of toothpaste from his mouth, he’s smiling. “I’m a little older than you, though.”

Dean rolls his eyes but presses at Cas’s back, locks him in against the counter. “Not too old to fool around in the shower, I hope.”

Cas laughs something fond and slow. He turns his head and tilts it, so he can catch Dean’s mouth up in his. “We’ll see if your hunters’ knees can handle it.”

In the next minutes Cas is stripping out of his boxers and tee shirt and cocking his head to the side, waiting.

Dean’ll take the gray hair and the laugh lines. He’ll take creaking joints and loose skin, all of it and more if it means he gets to keep waking up, morning after morning, with Cas, and with Colt, and with Sam and Eileen and Jo and little Dean. More than a fair trade.

tags below, as always pls let me know if you wanna be removed or added!

@prayedtoyou • @folklorecastiel • @good-things-do-happen-dean • @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you • @kimikomyashiro •  @bianca29753 • @spaceshipkat • @nickelkit • @dizzypinwheel • @epple-benene • @kayrosebee • @feraladoration • @queenvee08 • @destielangst • @destiel-is--real • @brazencas • @destielle • @flowersforcas • @50shadesofsubtext • @multifandomagic • @fluffiestlou • @gmotheemo • @geo-val • @menjiiii • @top13zepptraxx • @valleydean • @lanaserra • @eccentriccas • @trasherasswood • @angelresort • @starlightcastiel • @starclaire • @feeddoughnut • @jazzbabythatsme • @lyndalynn • @organicpurplepants • @cursed-or-not

REALLY  LONG  CHARACTER  SURVEY.

RULES.   repost, don’t  reblog !  tag 10 ! good  luck ! TAGGED.     @bardolctry TAGGING. @illdepths  [And everyone else is welcomed to it]

BASICS.   FULL  NAME :   Hartley Gabriel Van Dusen   NICKNAME :   Hart, Hertley, Minor-Chaser (pls dn’t even)   AGE :  34   BIRTHDAY :   March 28th, 1982   ETHNIC  GROUP : Dutch/German/French   NATIONALITY :   American.   LANGUAGE / S : English/Some German   SEXUAL  ORIENTATION :   Pansexual.   ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION :   Demiromantic.   RELATIONSHIP  STATUS : Single (varies the verse)   CLASS :   Middle class   HOME  TOWN / AREA :   Port Jefferson, Long Island, NY   CURRENT  HOME :  Astoria, Queens, NY   PROFESSION :  Business Owner / Blogger

PHYSICAL.   HAIR : Dark Brown, Shaggy/Bed-Head   EYES :   Blue/Green   NOSE : Roman Nose   FACE :   Chiseled   LIPS :   Slight pout, larger bottom lip   COMPLEXION :   Heavily freckled with a reddish skin tone   BLEMISHES :   Freckles over his shoulder, forehead and face (lighter on his face)   SCARS : Long scar along his back side from a childhood accident   TATTOOS :   None   HEIGHT : 6′5   WEIGHT : 260 lbs   BUILD :   Broad, slim, has vague muscle defintion along the torso, defined biceps and calves   FEATURES :   Greying in his beard, crow’s feet and forehead wrinkles.   ALLERGIES : Coconut Oil   USUAL  HAIR  STYLE :   Bed-Hair, slightly sicking up on top and ruffled.   USUAL  FACE  LOOK : Miserable.   USUAL  CLOTHING :   Casual, cardigans with a plain tee, slim-fitting jeans with loafers or Nike SB’s.

PSYCHOLOGY.   FEAR / S :   Failure to commit, brutal honesty, anything with more than 8 legs, Tattoos   ASPIRATION / S : A fulfilling journey, satisfaction, to be adored   POSITIVE  TRAITS :   Understanding, mindful, calm, humorous, indulgent    NEGATIVE  TRAITS : Apathetic, Satyriasis, temper, taking things too far   MBTI : ENTJ-A    ZODIAC :   Aries    TEMPEREMENT :   Phlegmatic    SOUL  TYPE / S :   Commander   ANIMALS :   Komodo Dragon/Red Panda   VICE  HABIT / S :   Sex/Marijuana   FAITH :  Agonostic   GHOSTS ? :   Non-Believer   AFTERLIFE ? :   Non-Believer   REINCARNATION ? :   Non-Believer   ALIENS ? :  No..   POLITICAL  ALIGNMENT :   Independent, Neutral (Registered as Green Party)   ECONOMIC  PREFERENCE : Socialism   SOCIOPOLITICAL  POSITION : Socialist   EDUCATION  LEVEL :   Half-way through Bachelor’s. 

FAMILY.   FATHER :  Unknown - Donor   MOTHER : Fiathe Van Dusen, Magdelene Sinclair   SIBLINGS :   Mireille Lefebvre (half sister), Kiyo Van Dusen (Youngest brother), Elijah Van Dusen (oldest brother), Thomas Corrigan (half brother)   EXTENDED  FAMILY :   Grandparents deceased - Michael Van Dusen (Uncle)   NAME  MEANING / S : Hartley = English,  From the stag's meadow. Stag wood or meadow from Old English - Gabriel = Hebrew,  a given name or surname derived from the Hebrew name "Gabriel" meaning "God is my strength" -  Van Dusen = Dutch, most probably a habitational name for someone from Dussen in North Brabant   HISTORICAL  CONNECTION ? :  Unknown

FAVOURITES.   BOOK :   Women by Charles Bukowski   MOVIE : Electrick Children, Kafka   5  SONGS :   “This Charming Man” - The Smiths, “Just Like Heaven” - The Cure, “Self Control” - Laura Branigan, “Faces” - Clio, “Mary Jane” - Rick James   DEITY :  Bragi (idk?)   HOLIDAY :   Valentine’s Day   MONTH :   August   SEASON :   Fall   PLACE :  Bakeries   WEATHER : Rainy Mornings   SOUND : Feline purring   SCENT / S :  Sandelwood   TASTE / S :   Melon   FEEL / S : Skin   ANIMAL / S :   Cats    NUMBER :   0   COLOUR :   Red.

EXTRA.   TALENTS :  Bass picking ;), charm   BAD  AT : Keeping in touch with people, relationships, keeping his hands to himself   TURN  ONS :   Open sexually, grace, hair, taboo, lips   TURN  OFFS :   Dependence, aloofness, adolescent mentality, narrowmindedness   HOBBIES :  Blogging, computer games, 80s-90s music, playing bass   TROPES :   Irony   AESTHETIC  TAGS :   Swollen Lips, Irises, Throat definition, Hands, Skin-to-Skin contact, Velvet Fabric, Pale Orange and Purple Sky, Deep clear waters, pebbled stones, Neon-Flashing sings, Smoke curves, Black and White, Minimalist, Simplicity, Twilight   GPOY  QUOTES :   ❛That’s funny, because I don’t remember her saying that while bouncing on my dick.❜

FC INFO.   MAIN  FC / S : Lee pace   ALT  FC / S : None   OLDER  FC / S :  None   YOUNGER  FC / S : Lee Pace again   VOICE  CLAIM / S : Harvey Keitel   GENDERBENT  FC / S :   none