Step Four: Face Off (Model)

In the animation industry the term "off model" refers to a character or prop which is drawn differently than the original design. In a show, characters being off model is a trademark of low-priced, high-volume, low-quality subcontractors. As previously mentioned, there is nothing wrong with interpreting a character your own way for an illustration though. It is a good idea not to get too far from the original feeling of the character though.

			In the Eye layer I trimmed off all the extra image besides the eyes by selecting, clearing and erasing. I did the same for the mouth and the nose in their respective layers.
			I looked at the Mylene reference images and use the Free Transform function to change the size and shape of the eyes to be more like the original character. I sized and stretched the mouth as well. (The rough of the new jawline is superimposed on the old one here.)
			Then I made another layer, cfix, for color fix up (what would be paint retakes on a cel) and fixed the jaw and neck areas. Eventually this layer would become the paint layer. I recolored the mouth to look a bit more natural.

Step Five: The Eyes Have It

At this point I really wanted to get the eyes cleaned up so that I could make sure the other elements were in proportion. The eyes are a great reference for the rest of the face and they should be done right in order that everything else will more easily come together.

			The eyes should be approximately one eye width apart, and the rotation angle of the head should be kept in mind at all times.
			I modified them a bit so that her head would have more of a turn to it. Since none of the reference material had the same eye shapes (who animated this show?!) I eventually gave up and made them about the way I thought they should look. I also added in the eyelid lines, which I noted the character has in all the reference images.

I cleaned the lines up by sampling the color of the skin and using it to shave down the black lines a bit, particularly the upper eyelids. I removed all the highlights, retouched the eye color and then repainted new highlights. There is no hard and fast rule for highlights and most artists use the same highlights no matter what the lighting conditions are which is pretty strange when you think of it. They're more part of the design than they are real.

One of the things that was a problem in the original was that the eyelashes weren't defined enough. This is common when you try to paint with Photoshop style brushes vs. Painter's watercolor brushes. The best way around it is to put the eyes in a separate layer.