Week 4: More Interviews and Character Designs
March 25, 2026
Welcome back. It is now Week 4.
This week I am reminded of the trend in which writers on ao3 continue their work despite really unfortunate circumstances. They go something like this: “Sorry for the long wait! I was in the hospital because I have brain tumors and I nearly died!”
Fortunately, I am not going through anything as serious as that, I am only mildly feverish. Unfortunately, it means that I did not complete as much as I would have liked. I will go through my progress anyways though. I will keep this week short
To start off, I completed reading and synthesizing the interviews for the 3 works from last week (Week 3). As a reminder, these were The Summer You Were There by Yuama, Rainbows After Storms by Ruka Kobachi, and Mietemasu yo! Aizawa-san (I See You, Aizawa-san!) by Odoroo Doroshii (Odoroo Dorothy). There is not much to say about it but I did quite enjoy them and they have again sparked new ideas and new interpretations in my mind.
This week, I also wanted to finish some character designs so that I can practice drawing them over and over again. I had wanted to complete character designs for the 2 main characters of the work this week. However, I was only able to complete 1, and began thinking about the design of the second. You may notice that since these were done within the same week, I have not had adequate time to really ingrain the character designs into my mind and intuition, so there are some clear inconsistencies in the character which will be smoothed out as I continue work on them.
These are mostly sketches, and I have chosen to include some of my guiding lines mostly because it’s part of how I define the anatomy and will be useful for myself to go back and study, but it also makes it possible to see my thought process when creating the second character as well as the subtle changes I made between versions.
To keep it short I will end the blog here. I will continue working to make up lost time next week when I hopefully feel better. Here are the character designs below:
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This is a really good exercise. When you think about it, this is a skill that if it’s done right, no one notices it at all. Imagine you are reading manga or watching anime and suddenly you go, “which character is this?” And it takes you a minute to realize, “oh this is a main character but I didn’t recognize her because the shape of her face is so different or her hair suddenly six inches longer.” Something like that. You notice it when it’s done poorly. But if someone gets really good at drawing that character in all positions and all emotions, with different clothing and in different shadows, times of day, etc. then you never notice a thing! It’s kind of one of those unsung skills, but it’s so vital to master. Even though no one will talk about it if you do it right, they will certainly bring it up if you don’t, right?
I hope you feel better soon!!!
This is so cool! I hope you feel better soon, Leo.
I’ve always wondered how WEBTOON authors handle drawing the same characters countless times and what strategies they use to save time (and sanity). For example, do you think it’s possible to reuse the character’s limbs and face shape to save time, but just change the expression or outfit? Or is there too much uncertainty with lighting and body posture that makes it hard to reuse anything?
Hi Rinisha! To add onto what Ms. Silva has already said, sometimes is it possible. Typically this isn’t done with separate parts such as limbs or faces simply because of how the human anatomy is 3d and will change depending on the positioning of the rest of the body. What this means is that if there is any repetition, it is typically of a large portion if not all of the body. As such, you’ll probably see it mostly in panels that are meant to repeat with only slight differences.
However, human poses are too dynamic such that it would be very difficult to do across a large “gap” (eg. at the beginning of chapter 1 and then at the end of chapter 3). It just wouldn’t make sense. This difficulty also extends to non-human aspects as they are also 3d and in perspective. However, it is slightly easier to reuse some parts of backgrounds or background elements as they are typically not the main focus are are usually not done with as much detail.
Also, often, it is necessary to change or fix poses. Often, a sketch will be changed and adjusted as the artist “fixes” what they originally put down. That makes sketching and designing each scene from scratch much easier than trying to adjust an already completed portion of something to fit the need. An argument can be made to reuse parts of sketches, but if you are reusing a sketch of a limb or a face, it is often just easier to sketch it out rather than try to find something.
One thing I wanted to note, especially regarding WEBTOONs because they come out on a weekly basis, is that artists will get better at drawing the character as they continue the work. It is not uncommon to see a difference in art style towards the beginning of a series and towards the end. It is not something I expect to encounter much in my short work, but it is very apparent in long series. It is also one of the reasons why reusing old work feels so wrong. It just doesn’t seem to fit into the new parts as well.
I hope that answers any questions you have!
That’s a great question Rini! I know Disney is famous for reusing animation in the early years of their development. I’m not sure how feasible it is with this style of art, but it would certainly save time!