Subcultures - Character Design Progress 1

There has been a lot of progress so far with my character designs, so I figured that it's only right to begin writing a little about the going ons in the past few days. While I was initially going to go for a more realistic art style (With Neko Showgun's works in "Lollipop Chainsaw" being my main inspiration), during my visual research, I realised that a more cartoony style would actually be more suitable for this project.

After doing some really quick sketches of both styles, I then shared them with some of my peers to see which style appealed to them more, in the end a majority of them also believed that the latter would work better and will allow me to play around with my designs a whole lot more. And so the first thing I did was to make a rough sketch of each character, while intending to make sure that each of them had particularly distinct silhouettes from one another (At least when it comes to their faces).

Left to Right: Goth, Hippie, Punk.

I then started off with the Goth and her colour scheme, whom I had based
heavily on a friend of mine.

From the very beginning, I was very intent of breaking away from archetypes when it came
to cliques and races by giving her more bright make up and hair (Based also on various
references that I gathered) while still showing that this character was still part of the
Goth subculture without having to conform to a more stereotypical look recognised
by the mass media.

I did the same with the other two, while also considering the fact that one
of them should at least have an outfit simple enough for me to animate later on.

I then sort of went backwards and erased and sketched out what their
body shapes would look like for the other outfits later on.

I then finally started working on their clothing.

A friend however said that she couldn't really see this character as a Goth, due to her
fiery orange hair, and so I decided to momentarily change it to something more typical...
While the hair now made it seem more obvious that she was a Goth (And actually matched
her makeup better), I still felt unsatisfied with it.

I would however return to this issue eventually...

The Hippie proved to be a lot more enjoyable to design, especially as I could play
around a lot more with colours as compared to the Goth.

Having given her slightly different hairstyles with each outfit, I then realised that
I would also have to do the same with the Goth.

This was where I realised that my layers were in a complete mess
(By having accidentally deleted the very last outfit), and so after painting
in the 5th outfit, I then started organising and labelling all my layers.

Same process with the Punk, I gave her a slightly more mohawk-ish
hair style for the last one just in case (While making sure that it could
be styled with her normal hair).

Returning to the Goth issue, I then went to another friend for some helpful critique.
Being a really experienced concept artist with lots of experience, she gave me some advice
on how I could make the orange hair work (While also assuring me that she has
known Goth friends with hair colour as bright as this).

Obviously I will have to polish all of these up further, once I finish the last few outfits that is, I am also intending to give the Goth a few different hairstyles (Like the Hippie and Punk), while also adding more accessories to her clothing to break away from all of that black.

Also, aside from one turnaround animation, I do believe that I should also add in some sketches of how each character would look from the side and back, as well as give them an expression sheet each (At least some basic ones so to show that they actually have some personality as compared to what is shown here), thankfully it is not necessary to fully colour those as well. Hopefully I can get these done over the weekend.