Since i have seen some pretty horrid characters, that are sloppy and just thrown together. I am here to help you with that.
If you render/screenshot your characters, i really urge you to actually sit down and draw one freehand. You don't need to be a proffesinal artist to create your own character. If you draw with pencil then scan or if you draw with a tablet, it dosn't matter anybody can create there own character by themselves without an aid from disney.
To me creating a character from a render is not your character to me. All you did is taken someone elses drawing and converted it into yours. So get ready to create your own character.
First off get away from the computer, don't even get online, because it will tempt you to grab someone elses style/markings. The reason for your own character is becuase it is unique and belongs all to you. If you like to work where it is silent go for it and if you like to work with music by all means do it. Almost all my characters are based off music, music helps you to get ideas.
Start experimenting, start doodling, don't worry if it's messy this is just the first stage. It's supposed to be messy because you're brain storming. Start creating your own style, and to do this grab a couple of wolf pictures. Actual wolf pictures not anothers drawing. Print them off or whatever you have to do to get them, now start doodling. This helps with anatomy as well.
After you have doodled your first sketch of your character, lift the paper away from you and see if everything looks right. No need to panic this all dosnt need to be perfect, it's just a first sketch. To mentain a character you can have two choices, cartoonish style or realisim, or even both. To do this get a feeling of how proffesinals come up with theres, big foreheads, slighter biger paws, more fur detail.
After you feel that your sketch is good to
yourself, start putting in the details. I seriously recomend looking at wolf pictures to help you with this. So you get an idea of where the proper muscle structure is and which way the fur moves. Other tutorials made by other people can be off or basically wrong.
This is what you should have so far a rough sketch of your character. Don't worry we will add detail next.
Your style, there are so many ideas to choose from. The fur alone has so many styles. This here is the few styles that are out there.
The rest of the body is really up to you and what you want. But another thing i have to discuse is markings. Markings can be anywhere and whatever style you want. You can put letter markings from your wolf name or even markings that would go good with your character and his/her style of music. My characters marking is unique becuase nobody else has her marking. See below.
You can get so creative with a marking, the one i have on Panama is supposed to be a P, yes the letter P. I designed it myself and gave it a really weird design, kinda like an accient time symbol. So go for it this is where the creativity starts, make up your own and what goes good with your character.
You can post your characters here if you want, wouldn't bother me. Hope this helped and i probably will be adding more to this since more can be possibly done to a character. This is just a little boost to get you started.
