Small Guide For OC Reference Sheets
Some advice for artists who want to create better character sheets for their OC designs.
Disclaimer: I was planning on going into a bit more detail than I did, but I ultimately lost some motivation for this guide over time. Either way, I hope this can prove to be helpful for you!
As an artist, I’ve come across many different variations of character reference sheets. They can be simple, complex, intricate, basic, and the most unfortunate of all; annoying to use. Whenever I come across a reference sheet of someone else’s OC (original character), I tend to pick up on little things that make its using it a little bit difficult. For this article, I want to share 5 main things I look for in reference sheets, share reference sheet examples from fellow artists, and some other thoughts!
My 5 Key Observations
1. Readability of the Sheet and Design: The design of both the character and the reference should be easy to follow and have as minimal detail as possible. (I say “as possible” since I know some characters have a lot of required details in their design) If a person doesn’t know what it is they’re looking at, it will be extremely challenging to draw the character themselves. Everything should be as comprehensible as possible, and this can be done by making everything simple and/or organized.
2. Consistency: Imagine it in terms of animation or 3D modeling, you would want the reference sheet to properly display what a character might look like at any angle. It’s mostly hair or facial shapes that people don’t draw consistently from what I see, and it can be a little bit inconvenient while trying to draw from a new angle that it doesn’t cover on the reference. Consistency should be a major priority in my opinion.
3. Expansiveness and Required Traits: Thinking that someone might draw your character from a view, angle, or pose that you didn’t show, it’s good to give people an idea of what they need to include. My recommendations are to show 2 opposite full bodies of the character, (maybe 4 for all 4 sides if you are willing to draw that much). If you only want to draw 1 fullbody though, you should at least put side notes in order to show people what they can’t see and/or what should be a main priority in getting right.
4. Flat vs Shading: I often dislike when shading is part of a reference sheet. This is because it tends to get confusing when I try to figure out what colors are the main important colors that I can use as flat colors, and which ones are not. I think that in most cases, only using flat colors are enough. However, if you want to add shading, I would only suggest making it very clear what is only shading and what is only flats.
5. Organization of Complex Color Palettes: Think of it in terms of the sheet user’s perspective. If you see a bunch of colors that are similar in a color palette, it might be hard to know where they belong in the design. My suggestion for complex color palettes are to put the colors in order of what areas they’re used in rather than by the similarity of the colors. Even labelling each color or group of colors would be helpful. This shouldn’t be too big of an issue for simple palettes however, as long as it’s easy to tell where any two colors are meant for just by looking at it.
Reference Sheet Examples
I’ve asked a few artists I know if I could use the reference sheets they had as examples for this article. I will go through these reference sheets and give you the main rundown of what I appreciate about the sheets, as well as any nitpicks I might have.
I want to give a shout-out to Frostybirdy, Beanybabee, and Mayuniki for allowing me to use their reference sheets as examples for this blog!
CorE and Elegy
This one is probably one of my absolute favorite reference sheets I’ve seen. It has minimal shading and linework, which makes it easier to follow and allows me to focus on the designs’ core elements more. (See what I did there? Core, CorE…? Ah never mind) Any shading that was added is made very clear in the color palette that it is shading, which makes me extremely happy. The design notes on the side for CorE are well organized and easy to follow, which I love a lot! Everything in both CorE and Elegy’s designs are extremely consistent where it’s needed and the simplicity is very nice.
Lucius
Lucius’ sheet is very nice in my opinion. There’s one big fullbody and extra drawings to show necessary components that the fullbody doesn’t show. The side notes are simple but allow you to see everything you need to. I really like this sheet as an example of simplicity.
Luxiem
This reference sheet is also among my favorites. This sheet only has two full bodies, the name, and a color pallet. Despite it being insanely simple, it shows you pretty much everything you need in the most minimalist way. Even though, with the color palette, it might be a little difficult to discern the different blues/blacks from one another in the character’s design, I feel it’s straightforward enough for the most part. Everything feels very consistent and looks incredible! I admire how much is shown with so little.
Neru
While I have some minor complaints, this sheet is also quite well done. It’s very simple and I’m able to pick out what I need from it in terms of drawing the character accurately. It would be nice if there were a few more side drawings to show things such as the anthro back; to see how the wings connect to the back and how the hair looks from other angles. Besides that I find this sheet very nice!
Astrid and The Sky
I’m going to only have one description for these two sheets because they’re both pretty similar in layout, but I wanted to show them both because they’re great! I love how the notes are done in these sheets, they’re simple and the way they’re organized doesn’t take the focus away from the overall designs. It was very smart to have the front and side views of the face as the main focus, and I love that despite adding a bit of rendering to the drawings, the palettes I feel are pretty good to counter any confusion with that. I might argue that with The Sky, his palette has quite a few similar colors that may be a little difficult to discern in the design, but I think the palette is simple enough and the colors are just different enough to where that confusion wouldn’t last very long if it arises.
Mayu
Two fullbodies, limited but good notes, and a simple design, this sheet is also quite nice! While I’m not particularly fond of it having shading in certain parts, I feel it’s quite easy to discern the shading as shading and not flat color through common sense. The character design’s simplicity makes it very easy to follow and it feels much easier to draw in other styles than other references I’ve seen.
Jijang
I’m not a huge fan of the coloring of this one, there seems to be a lot of places where color picking the main colors isn’t easy and everything has some layer of shading to it. With that said, the amount of detail put into this sheet is incredible! I love all the drawings and written notes that show things that the fullbody doesn’t, and you can tell this character is at a higher standing than most. Despite there being a lot of information, the layout feels very organized and well thought out.
Yuki
Despite not being a fan of shading in reference sheets, I feel like this one does a great job of doing shading properly. It gives you the main 5 colors in the palette and the shading shows you how the textures should be. It also displays a couple parts of the outfit that aren’t shown through the main fullbody drawings and leaves the rest for common sense to figure out. It’s nicely organized and very well done overall!
Final Thoughts
There is one last thing I wanted to note in terms of creating the reference sheets, yet I felt it wasn’t a point I wanted to stress too much. A character’s personality and lore can change as you develop them more, so I feel like design/personality/lore should be separate most of the time. But it is nice if you can add a bit of the personality with the design so the person drawing the character know how they generally act and present themselves. Just as long as it doesn’t take away from the design’s readability.
While I’ve been drawing for a few years now, I’m in no way an expert! So take the things I said with a grain of salt and make your own deductions while using and creating reference sheets yourself. Use whatever methods work best for you and adjust as you learn. All I can hope for is that this guide gets you thinking and helps you with figuring and feeling these things out for yourself!
Here are a couple of my own sheets, to give you an idea of how I personally use the elements I mentioned!
I do want to note that with this Corrupted Aud sheet, despite it being my latest reference sheet, I’ve already found a couple things I would nitpick normally. The mask isn’t fully consistent for the eyes, I messed up because in the main fullbody it’s not just on the 2nd part, the bottom is about halfway through the 3rd part. However, with the other drawings, it’s only in the 2nd portion. And I also didn’t show what detail the backside of the shorts might have had.
This goes to show that no one is perfect and we’ll always make things with flaws in them. If we can learn from our mistakes, however, that’s all that matters!
In conclusion, I hope this helps you in your reference sheet creation! If you have any thoughts, whether they be your own tips, agreements, disagreements, etc., let me know! If you’d like me to expand on some of my points or want me to analyze your own reference sheets, let me know that as well. I’ll consider making more guide or analysis things in the future, but in any case, I’m willing to clarify, analyze, and all those sorts of things outside of substack for people too!
Until then, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day or night fellow internet user!