The Cute Off
Added 2021-02-26 20:16:27 +0000 UTCThis is a bit of a silly experiment, but I've been noticing lately that the more I draw Riley, the cuter Max seems to be getting. And I wasn't really sure why. Was it just an evolution of my style? Was I slowly unlocking mastery of the elements that make something look "cute" to me? Was it because I was drawing them too similarly? Or was it because of something else?
Riley is a challenge because a part of her visual design look is a bit creepy. She's meant to look cute... but also... a tiny bit disturbing. She's like a cat laying with its belly exposed. You want to pet it... but for the attached murder mittens.
Max is supposed to just plainly be frikking adorable. Even a little alluring. He's supposed to inspire you to want to cuddle him with no hesitation.
In this test sketch, I started by drawing a basic face for Riley, then I copied and pasted it to finish both characters. My fear was that maybe I'm just falling into a trap of drawing the same character and tacking on different ears and hair. But I'm kind of happy that while the top one looks like Riley to me, the bottom one doesn't quite* look like Max. A much younger Max, perhaps, but I think normally, there might be quite a few things I do differently when I draw his face that make him look more like him, and less like her. Now I just gotta figure out what the hell those things are. >.>
Anyway, I'm calling this sketch a Cute-Off, so which one wins?
