Preliminary Sketches

About 6 months ago I came across an article, I couldn’t find it again for the life of me (sorry), that talked about preliminary sketches. What are they you ask? In short, preliminary sketches are what some artists do to make sure they like their illustrations before they put them down on a more permanent surface. They have a few other functions as well, which I’ll be covering in this article.

For the sake of categorization, preliminary sketches are considered both an illustrative tool and a practice. The reasons will be explained below.

Normally used for character design, preliminary sketches can show many things that are expected to be seen in the scripted comic. Things like body language, facial expressions, body type, a character with their costume on, maybe how they look using their powers, etc.

If you are working under an Art Director or someone else wearing the same professional hat (writers). You are probably better off doing some preliminary sketches.

The benefit that comes from this is simple. Everyone involved gets to see how characters or designs will look and can come to an agreement. No surprises and everyone is happy. Changes can be made at this stage before endeavouring an entire project.

Another added benefit of performing some preliminary sketches is that you get to see how working with someone will be like. If they ask for too much from you; too many redesigns, are never happy, they literally eat your sketches and spit them back at you, etc. You can at that point resign from working with that person if they become too unpleasant. You know, before you invest a month or more of your time trying to finish a project with that troll.

Yes, sometimes you are your own. You’re your own writer and your own artist. You might want to use the preliminary sketches for references to how certain characters are supposed to look. The characters could be minor characters of issues past (my attempt at a Christmas Carol reference) that you probably want to a refresher on for later stories.

You could even keep them together with your Character Bio’s. This way you get to keep any ideas for a character all in one place.

Picture it again, you’re your own artist (It doesn’t stop being scary does it?). You are your own worst enemy when it comes to deciding if something looks good or not.

Another benefit is that you can use preliminary sketches to get feedback on your designs from your friends, family, and peers. You can also post them on Deviant Art, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media for the same result.

If you have a Patreon or other crowdfunding campaign and want to show your fans that you care then variant designs of your characters can do just that. Sharing your process with your fans has shown to result in a significant increase in support from fans.

Heck even if you don’t, your followers on social media will love to see your designs. I sure love liking, sharing, commenting, and retweeting on sketches.

Preliminary sketches can have an array of benefits that can help both the individual artist, the creative team, and even gives fans and followers renown interest in your work.

If you aren’t using preliminary sketches in your process and just going freehand. Then… good for you! I can’t imaging doing that myself.

But in all seriousness, you can definitely benefit from it. They are a resource that any artist can produce. Whether they illustrate with pencil/pen and paper or digitally.