Characters - Redesign and Analysis

After drawing my characters several times for my project, I have come across a problem that could potentially affect the current development of my final major project. I noticed that, after drawing one of my characters (for my physical portfolio for the London Book Fair within Portfolio and Promotion module) is not that good. My reason for this, is that I realised that the way I currently draw them (as well as painting them) is not one of my strongest of strengths and the standard of those character drawings is not up to my expectations.

First initial attempt at colouring one of my characters

An illustration of one of my character duo I did as a pilot illustration, which turns out to be unsuccessful in terms of my standard in drawing human characters. The colours feels muddy and the colour palette is weak. 

A small exercise in practicing colouring and drawing a human face. It could of have been better but it seems that the lack of experience is what is stopping me from being confident in the way I draw them. 

One after another I tried again to see if it is an artist block or some sort that is preventing me from drawing human characters as good as non-human characters, though after several attempts it seems that it is indeed not my strongest points in illustrating, which is a bit saddening as I do love drawing characters. Maybe the slight stylisation of my character drawings (slight Japanese manga influence) in combination of trying to be anatomically correct with human proportions is what is hindering me from getting where I want to and the natural lack of confidence in drawing human characters does make me a little worrying on the outcome.

Another illustration of my character duo. The one thing that is lacking from this illustration is that the contrast of the colours is not strong and it feels a bit flat. The pose/gesture is not fluent. 

From these drawings and outcomes, it appears I will have to redesign the characters proportionally. Discussions with one of my tutors, Fumio, recommend I should reconsider how I should approach drawing characters than the usual, as a way to look at the character design from a different perspective. After taking his advice, I considered reconstructing the proportions and anatomy to make their design a little simpler (or draw mini versions of them) that may help me draw the characters in a way I am comfortable with. I can naturally draw characters that have their proportions exaggerated (big head with a small body, arms and legs) so perhaps this will be the next stage in developing and designing my characters for my world.

Fumio's feedback on the idea of re-proportioning and exaggerating the character's features, after sending him my initial idea of my new design for my characters.

To conclude my analysis of my current character illustrations, it seems I would need to change things up in terms of design that I find comfortable and confident in drawing. The characters will stay the same, it’s just the redevelopment of their anatomy I need to go through again, backed up with the visual feedback from Fumio.