Designing Dino

So before I wrap up the second story, I wanted to show my original designs for Dino.

With Stickboy and Psychoboy, I was going for funny looking, exaggerated characters. For Dino, since her character is more normal and grounded, I wanted the design to reflect that. Yes, I've said that normal people look boring, but it can also be a lot of fun to capture the likeness and essence of a person in caricature. So the design is based off my ex-girlfriend. Here are my early attempts...

Yeah, not that great. I don't why, but I don't like glasses with rounded bottoms on my characters. I was debating whether to go with doing a caricature or maybe try an intentionally cartoonish, humorous hair style with the curly hair.  The design in the bottom right corner was a Charlie Brown swipe, since Dino is essentially grown-up Charlie Brown in this story.

Obviously I want with a straight caricature, which I refined in this next page of designs....

Caricatures are challenging. but this one turned out okay. The shorter hair and her full figure gives a unique look among my characters. It also makes it a challenge to draw. It's more difficult to capture feminity in a character like that. It's far easier in someone like the skinny, hot female cashier in the story. Most comic characters tend to have perfect, toned, muscular bodies, not because comic artists are pervs but because it's easier to draw (though some artists are still pervs). I actually originally drew the story with Dino skinny. Not sure why, since no design I have of her was like that, but I eventually corrected it.

Dino doesn't appear that often in my plots. Stickboy is more often teamed up with characters that lend themselves to more outrageous stories (like Psychoboy) as more of my stories lean in that direction. However, very few supporting characters get their own solo story, so I guess it evens out.

Most of my supporting cast won't appear for some time since I can only put out a few shorts a year, so it's good that one of them got their moment in the sun early on.