ART – The Power of Creating Model Sheet Turn Arounds

This week I’m sharing the model sheet turn around I just finished.  It took time so I didn’t get to work on a silly comic or anything fun like that.

The turn around is of my character Ariana who is an antagonist in the Draw Fu comic I’m working on.  Not having finished this one turn around has been the biggest reason why I haven’t gotten more work done on that project.

Now that it’s done, that project should really start moving forward.

Take a look at the drawings below and then I’ll go into why I think model sheet turn arounds like theses are very important if you’re making a personal project.

Why Model Sheet Turn Arounds are Important

Over the years I’ve come to rely more and more on model sheets and turn arounds.  The reason why is because they take the guess work out of drawing the characters in your project.

If you don’t have one, you’re inventing the characters over and over as you go.  Sometimes that’s good but most times, not so much.

You end up using your previous drawings as model sheets anyway just to see what you did with your character in previous panels.  If you have a model sheet with a turn around to begin with, your character will also be much more consistent through out the process.

For me, the greatest benefit of having a good Model Sheet turn around, is being able to literally place the model sheet under my roughs of the character so I can quickly and easily get all the proportions down as fast as possible.

So if I have the character running, walking, jumping talking, etc, I rough out the pose I want them to be in, then I enlarge or reduce my model sheet to fit the size of my rough. I then put the model sheet under the rough drawing and start drawing the character “on model,” by comparing the model underneath to my rough and I make adjustments based on the pose.  I don’t copy the model sheet pose since it’s stiff and boring, but I get all the proportions where they should be.

And sometimes, depending on the pose and view point, I just straight up trace the body part straight off the model sheet.

I do this at work all the time with the Simpsons Characters.  It saves me a lot of measuring time so that I know I’ve drawn the character proportions right from the start so I can worry only about the composition and the acting.

Model sheet turn arounds speed up the process immensely.

They are the answer to the question, “How do I get my character to look consistent through out my project?” The answer is, create a Model sheet turn around, then reduce and enlarge it as needed to put under your drawings to make the most accurate version of your characters.

If you want to see a video version of this in action, become one of my patrons on Patreon. I’m going to be making a video for my patrons that explains the process of making your characters look consistent very soon.