Hallo folks!

By now you may or may not have heard of the Artist at the Ready (or ATR for short) OC competition that the lovely =Yuritsuki is holding. If you have not, a shame upon your household.

I'm not here to explain what the OCT is about, 'cause all that information is up on the OCT's own page. () If you're interested in sequential art and a friendly, competitive art jam atmosphere, hit it up.

What I am here to do, before returning to Endzone finale a'drawing, is announce a little mini-competition I'd like to throw in an effort to get those already psyched about the ATR even more pumped. Yo. What what. Enough of that.

Reference sheets! Ref sheets are quite important. Ever considered going into conceptual art? Character design is a facet of this, and you are tasked with not only coming up with captivating designs, but making sure a number of other people on your team gather what they need to know about this characters personality solely from your artwork alone.

Bridging the gap between 3D models and conceptual art is the infamous orthographic sheet. You've probably seen these before. A turnaround of a character, typically seen from the front, back, side, and a 3/4ths view on occasion, with details about accessories and such elsewhere on the page, if at all. It is important to be able to visualize a character from all angles, as all too often folks just design a character to be seen from the front, and then find out their extravagant sparkly costumes make absolutely no sense when looked at from the back. Reference sheets help you better your character and flesh out the sometimes overlooked portions of your favorite guy or girl or half-demon half-angel super shiny vampirelol. But.. you can take things one step further.

In the spirit of things, I'd like to challenge the ATR hopefuls to make the most interesting ref sheets you can manage.

Instead of simply trying to portray your character in an easy-to-read fashion, why not spice things up a bit? I find that the most interesting reference sheets are ones that didn't just draw the character first then slap in the background and information separately. Sure, it gets what it needs to get across, but where's the pizzazz? The MOXIE?

Design the sheet as if you were going to be pitching this character to a company. Bring the sheet alive. Incorporate elements of your character into the design of the sheet itself. Is your character sci-fi inclined? Use that in the ref sheet. Take something in the story, something of relevance, and integrate it into the overall composition. We don't even need to know HOW it fits into that particular character or story, so long as it sets your work apart from the rest. It gets people thinking, if you did it right. If you know all of this ties together somehow in an intriguing manner, folks want to learn more.

Questions?

SHUT UP. WHAT IS THE LONG AND SHORT OF THIS, WINDBAG!

I want you to design kickass reference sheets for the ATR competition. This goes by the rules set for that tournament, in other words, designing a ref sheet for you, and three of your original characters. It's all explained on the site, like I said earlier. (*TheReal-OCT) This is just a mini-contest I'm running on the side

BUT END! WHEN IS THE DEADLINE?!
June 20th. That's the deadline I'd like to impose for this contest. This is a challenge for folks entering ATR, for folks not entering ATR but just interested in making a kickass ref sheet for their OCs (although adhering to the rules of the ATR OCT would certainly make your entry easier to judge against all the rest), and for the students of DACAD. :3 I'd like to end it earlier than the audition deadline so people don't completely ignore their auditions. XD; Don't forget those need some love too!

WHY SHOULD I DO THIS ANYWAY!? GIMME GIMME.
Well, if you're entering ATR, why wouldn't you want your ref sheet to stand head and shoulders above the rest? You need more? MOAR? Well..

When the deadline is up, I'm going to pick the three most delicious of the lot and display them here in my journal for all to see. Additionally, *Arteche and I will be pointing out exactly what makes the three winners truly effective sheets that work well as standalone pieces in their own right.
What's more, if you're serious about art.. you should be challenging yourself to do stuff like this on a regular basis anyway. :3 It's a reward in and of itself.

Did I mention the boss of my studio has told me on numerous occasions my reference sheets were what made him hire me? XD That should be incentive enough for the professional-hopeful among you.

OKAY, you've convinced me, shut your gob. What do I do when I'm done the sheet(s)?

For those who want their ref sheets to be in the lineup for this tagalong contest, send a note right to me with a link to your sheet(s) in it. (But if you are actually entering the ATR competition as well, don't forget to follow through with their entry rules and send your ref sheet and auditions to the correct officials detailed on their page!)

That's all. Not complicated.

Good luck to those who decide to try for this. Take care.