Aureth Design sketches, Original character sheet, and character design evolution

Aureth! My beloved.

Thankfully for Aureth I knew pretty early on what I wanted her to be. As a soldier and a paladin/knight type, I knew her look would be practical.

I had just played a character with long hair, so short was always going to be the way to go for her. The half-up look was her original silhouette, and I liked it because it had that 'ready to go' feel I wanted for a guard character.

Her palate was just a nightmare to try and sort out. I was very close to choosing the Purple hair/lavender skin look, but the Gold hair/silver eyes won me over in the end. In this world we're playing in elves are basically all colors under the sun, so that was a fun exercise in trying a wide variety of mixes.

Her clothing during the beginning of the campaign was all very practical and muted. Heavy cloaks, grey and green tones, very much reflecting her trying to be inconspicuous living among humans and her own inability to trust and open up.

(I actually don't have a great example of this as most of my early campaign stuff was very messy and uncolored so just trust me on that.)

Over the course of the campaign, Aureth has had one large change up in looks and one minor. The first was her injury/disguise arc, where she cut and dyed her hair silver, as well as suffered from going blind from an axe wound to the face.

I love campaign events that change a character's look. It just really gets my goat to have to figure out how they'd change and do a new silhouette.

After another like 20 sessions and a bout of spooky blood magic to be unpetrified, Aureth was restored to life with her usual golden hair. After that, I swapped her to the (mostly) full-up ponytail, which is usually how I draw her now. I just like the silhouette more, and it works a bit better with the new winter wear of always wearing cloaks. 

Aureth also has had a palate shift in terms of her attire and clothing. She now wears reds and golds, as well as displaying the symbol of her patron god openly. This shift coincides with her learning more about her pst, who she is supposed to be, and coming to accept that responsibility.

One of the reasons I like making very distinct silhouettes for my characters is that when I do anything quick for after-session doodles, it's easy to recognize whose who if you have a distinct shape. For instance, here's some messy Aureths, but I always keep her hair and ears to easily denote her no matter the sketchiness  or lack of details

This approach has worked out great in streamlining any quick doodles or shitposting I do for my campaigns, and establishing the shape of a character is actually one of my favorite parts of doing a character design. I might make another post just talking about how important it is when you do less detailed pieces.