Captain Crossfit

One of the most challenging things I've done as a freelance artist and a comic book creator wannabe is creating characters based on a real person. It's particularly tough when you're having to do it by request or service for a complete stranger, especially when in my case, meeting the client in person has literally between very little to absolutely no chance of happening.

Since every person is unique and not a lot of his/her actual personality or distinct nuances can be derived straight from a photo, it's easy to get complaints and other negative reactions when your designs don't quite get certain traits the client is looking for. A lot of the time, though, problems like these can be solved or better yet, avoided by proper communication. You can't fault a client for sending photos of himself/herself that may look good for them but don't really help much as drawing references. Expect that they expect you to be the artist and that you know what to do with them. Asking the right questions is key and knowing the specifics that I need to get a design correctly makes it easy and sometimes it's clients who ask the right questions or have a clear, definite picture of the character design in mind.

I've been very fortunate that most of the clients I've met through fiverr have a clear enough idea of the characters they need help creating and communicate them very well and yet are very open to suggestions for improvement.
Creating Captain Crossfit for my client, Mike, was a breeze because not only have all the
details for the character like costume theme and colors been specifically laid out but a personality profile and references for background objects were all provided right away.

I'm also glad that despite a timer to get a gig done starts immediately when it is ordered, most clients aren't in a big rush to get the art done no matter how excited they are about the rough drafts that I send them for review. Thankfully, it's also these types of clients who gladly hand you a 5-star rating.