When making original characters, an artist must keep the context in mind. What’s the surroundings like? What’s this character’s personality? All these questions I ask myself when I create a new character. As a kid, this came easy. There were no boundaries and the characters were very simple, but now that I’m older I find that there are many more facets to a human being.

I want my characters to wear something that expresses who they are. In this case, I chose to draw three females that I’ve concocted over the years. The first lady in the picture is named Tony. I came up with the character when I was making random Miis to populate this game I had called “Tomodachi Life”. It played something like the Sims. In the game, Miis are given personalities. Tony was the only Mii given the personality of trendsetter. I found that to be very unique, so I saw what she did in the game and developed a story from that. I drew her with a street savvy, fashion killer outfit that matched her personality.

Reference is always helpful when making an original character. Picking certain personality traits and physical features from what’s seen in the real world is always helpful. When making the character in the middle, I chose to Find some of the most aesthetic features of models, actors and singers. I thought it would be fun to mix these elements to create a person.

The last person to the right, is Artisha. Unlike the other characters that I created on this drawing, Artisha was just an idea strewn up in various sheets of my sketchbook. I didn’t really have a personality for her, so I just went with the flow. She was supposed to represent art, hence the paintbrushes in her pant pocket.

In the end, I wanted the viewer to create a story with these characters. It’s always interesting to hear what people say about my work. Hearing what they think things mean, seeing purpose and symbolism in certain objects, makes the drawing even all the more interesting to me.