Creating Sholem, Part 1 [Design Diary]

May 04, 2020   #designdiary , #divinenine , #pitch , #sholem , #storyforanotherpost

Today, I thought it might be fun to take you folks through a Design Diary type post and show my process for creating new art. This is not to say that my process is the only or the best process, but throughout all of my years as an Art Director (which is, by the way, a #storyforanotherpost) I've developed a process that seems to work well for both me and for the artist in question.

Speaking of which, let me be the first to say that I am not the person who is actually doing the drawing in this process--I leave that to the professionals--and I've worked with many of these awesome professionals over the years, but that's another #storyforanotherpost. In this case, I knew I needed to develop my character Sholem for The Divine Nine pitch I'm building. For that, I knew I needed a specific art style to depict this character.

In this case, I'd already determined that a wonderful artist who I've been following for years on Deviantart, Nat, had a style that would be perfect for this particular character. I contacted them, did all the prerequisite paperwork/kabuki-dancing that's required to properly contract an artist (i.e. initial contact conversations, determining rates and schedules, getting NDA's and Contracts signed*), and we got to work.

Once you have a contract signed with the artist, the next step should be inform the artist of what they're going to be drawing. It's incumbent upon the Art Director to provide very clear, concise, and brief explantations of what they want to their Artist, without overwhelming them with world-building and unnecessary details (again a #storyforanotherpost, as this is a whole art in an to itself). For me, I've found that a simple two page document should suffice for this purpose. In the specific case of Sholem, it was only one of nine characters that I was commissioning, so instead of my usual 2 page document, I opted instead for a single summary page and a table to summarize the details of the commissioned characters.

In Page 1 of my Art Direction document, I always lead with any General Art Directions - overarching elements like style, mediums allowed, color palettes, overall mood, or reference links that I think might be helpful. This is also the section where I let the artist in question know how free or restricted they are, which really helps establish the working relationship and lets the artist know how much free rein they have with their concepts. Of course, once that relationship is firmly established, generally this does not have to be restated, unless you're beginning a new project with varying requirements for style, mood, medium, etc.

In the case of Sholem, I made the following statement:

Other than the specific direction provided in the table below, please feel free to push the designs as much as you would like. I prefer to see (initially) wild and crazy and then “pull back” from those wild and crazy designs towards the final. Do not be afraid to add things like multiple eyes, mouths, arms, legs, wings, tails, tentacles, etc. if you feel the design warrants it – your ideas will fuel my creativity.

When you're commissioning artists, try and place yourself in the shoes of the artist and remember that  you've been living with this baby for a while and you know all the "in's" and "out's". The artist is coming in cold and knows nothing about the project. It's your job to:

1. Inform them of the project, the world, and the characters, while
2. Not overwhelming them with details, and 
3. Make them comfortable; allowing them to do what they do best.

Another trap that I've learned to spring ahead of time with art direction is, I feel, critically important, but often overlooked. Avoiding this trap is: DEFINE YOUR TERMS. What I mean by this is simple. Creators, as they invent new worlds, creatures, items, and elements of story, often develop a lexicon that is personal and unique to them. You must remember that your artist is not inside your head and while your idea for a fluxeon magelodon convertex might be the coolest thing ever, unless you TELL your artist what it is, they will not know how to depict it, or what it means in terms of a reference. So, you should make it a habit to define these terms in your documents. I do it as I write usually with a bulleted list like this:

In terms of the specific headers in the table below, please bear in mind that most of them are for my use, and not necessarily for yours. They are each defined as below:

·       Fruit of the Spirit: This is in reference to the Bible verse that I am basing these creatures upon (Gal. 5:22).

·       Hebrew Word: This is the Hebrew word that I may be using for the name of the specific creature/spirit.

·       Element: This is the physical element that I am using as a reference for the specific creature/spirit. This is one you should pay attention to, as I would like to see these elements incorporated into the final design.

·       Body Part: This pertains to something else in the story and has nothing to do with the final design.

·       Class: This is merely a frame of reference for me, as I think about the characters/creatures/spirits in the overall story. If you are familiar with RPG’s (role playing games) then these should look familiar to you.

·       Powers & Abilities: These should be noted by you and if possible, incorporated in some manner of the final design.

·       Qualities: These are just general indicators of what sort of specific creature/spirit each individual is, and could well affect the final design.

·       Size: This is the overall size of the specific creature/spirit and should affect the final design.

·       Creature Inspiration(s): This should definitely be taken into consideration for your final design.

In this case, all of my terms that needed defining were located within the headers of a table, so I defined them before presenting the table, so my artist would be able to comprehend the table more quickly and easily. As you can see, in terms of the Art Direction, there were some terms that had no direct bearing on the art (such as Body Part), so I clearly told my artist this: while these terms mattered to me as the writer/designer, I should not necessarily burden my artist with them.

Finally, for Sholem, I presented the table with all nine characters I needed designed. In this case, I will only show the row for Sholem, as the rest contain what are at this time SPOILERS. Stay tuned in, however, for more of the Nine to be revealed as time progresses. At any rate, here's the Header and Sholem's row as presented to Nat:

Fruit of the Spirit (Hebrew Word)	Element/Body Part	Class/Powers & Abilities	Qualities/Size	Creature Inspirations
Peace (Sholem, based on Shalom)	Sound/Ears	“Mage”/Create & control sound and music, these sounds can be used to damage, distract, or even deceive, depending on which “side” of the spirit is dominant.Emotionally, can calm situations with soothing sounds or create zones of silence where troubled emotions must be faced.	Can be either Offensive or Defensive, but never both at the same time. One half is always dominant./Humanoid sized	Draw primary inspiration from an emperor moth. One half should be black with white markings and the other white with black markings. Other sources of inspiration might be moles or gila monsters.

Always let your artist know, as well, that if they have any questions, you're available and to feel free to ask. This goes a long way to building that relationship and putting your artist at ease.

Tune in tomorrow for the next step in the Design Diary for Sholem - when the art starts coming in and the revisions begin!

* - These prerequisite processes of finding, contacting, and contracting artists could make for a whole series of articles, BTW, so #storyforanotherpost.