Creating a Tiger Character

For this course, I decided to develop a tiger character and create all the drawings on paper, even though I usually work exclusively in Procreate. I chose this course to improve my ability to draw characters that tell a story.

I used a sketchbook with square-shaped pages, colored pencils, and a black fine-liner.

I searched for a diverse range of tiger images that could represent the full spectrum of expressions and movements typically performed by the animal. This process was especially helpful because it taught me two important lessons:
1. Just because I’ve seen thousands of tiger images in my life doesn’t mean I can recreate every detail of their appearance from imagination.
2. There are surprisingly large differences in body structure and fur patterns between individual tigers.

To better understand the structure of the animal, I analyzed a few images in terms of the tiger’s main anatomical forms. In a second step, I recreated some of the animal’s poses in my sketchbook.

To develop the tiger character, I first had to define, what their traits should be and what the essence of this character could be. Then I drew some props that are linked to my character description or that came to my mind, when I imagened the described character in the wild. What would it see? What would it do? And what items would it find? After scribbeling the props, I dropped the animal character directly into wild and tried to get a feeling of how it would behave and what it would experience.

For the final sketch book sheets of my character, I shifted my tools to a red pencil for the underlay and a black fine-liner for the outline. I wanted to create a character that is always wondering about the beauty of nature and is enjoying every minute on it's adventures. I had so much fun to bring this character to life!