One of our favourite parts of illustration is designing characters. From coming up with an initial idea for a character to sketching them out in different scenarios and giving them a world to inhabit. When coming up with characters to design, we begin by gathering references, looking closely at facial expressions and getting an overall idea for their personality. We draw our character in lots of different poses. Often we sketch the character over and over again, giving them facial expressions and emotions which helps make them more believable.
When drawing child characters we like to exaggerate their movements. We find that by giving them lots of movement enhances the personality of the character and gives a playful feel to our work. When adding colour to our characters we try to keep in mind the original sketches, so as not to loose the original playfulness and spontaneity of the sketch.