Last year I started working on designing a character for animation. I set about finding key features that identified the character and traits and design elements that would make it easier to animate. What this really means is that I was drawing variants of the same character hundreds and hundreds of times. I tried different poses, costumes, hair, body types, eye types, etc but always kept in mind the personality of the character I was going for.

I think this ends up being a really useful exercise. I think many kids start off this way. They draw their favorite cartoon character over and over or a character of their own creation. By drawing that same form again and again, I at least, have really started getting a much greater sense of form and overlap that I hadn't found in years of study and life drawing. Once I'd gotten a design that was 'pretty close' to the character in my head, I just kept messing with it for hundreds of drawings. Can I make it read in this pose? With a pirate hat? In the style of the Simpsons? How does it look as cubism? If I drew an action, how can I push that action to a more extreme version of it? What would a wild take of this action look like? How can I draw their mother or their cousin? How would I identify them if they were turned into an ostrich? etc.

This myriad of little exercises has really been great. I'm thinking about form in much more concrete ways than I did before. I'm starting to really see the character in my mind in whatever way I chose to draw it. The character herself I can now draw reflexively without even thinking about it and that freedom gives me some good confidence that carries into my other works as well.

I really wish I'd thought of this exercise years ago.