Drawing KonoSuba Characters every day for a hundred days

Ach ja, another year, another me back on my arbitrary quest to keep up self-imposed challenges. As mentioned last time, if I were to keep doing this, I was already set on what I was going to draw. The twist was that there were not just one, but many characters: More or less the wider cast of the KonoSuba series… so lots of characters, actually. Part of this decision was my lack of decision on what character to choose, but also because I thought it would be good to have some variety in what I am drawing every day. Also, it massively helped me with figuring out what to actually draw and I was also able to use the same idea for multiple characters. This still didn’t stop me from struggling to figure out what to draw, but it would have been way more of a pain if I only had to draw the same character. If I continue this challenge next year, I should really look up a prompt list or something, because I am creatively bankrupt with figuring out what to draw.

Anyway, I was actually a bit uncertain how this one would turn out. Finishing last year’s 100th drawing, I essentially didn’t pick up the pencil for what is forever. Looking at my note pad, in the next seven months, I filled only ten pages, mostly with scribbles, before going back into the rhythm at the end of the year. To my utter surprise, despite doing nothing for more than half a year, I somehow got better… practice is a lie, I tell you. No, seriously, why? Surely it can’t just be that I continued watching tutorials and drawing exercises, right? I mean, I am not complaining, but it sure is wild that I think my average drawing is simply better than a year before and I regularly drew something better than last year with only a fraction of the time or effort. Or it is simply selective perception, because I actually learned how to draw heads in the meantime and something something human psychology.

Well, with that being said, once again, here is my hopefully not too detailed rundown of what I learned from drawing KonoSuba characters every day for a hundred days.

The Design of KonoSuba Characters

There is something funny in drawing several characters from the same designer for some time and eventually noticing similarities between them. Though to be fair, like with Kumoko and Yukari, I again primarily oriented myself by the designs for the anime adaptation, so this effect is probably a lot more pronounced by the fact that the designs got a lot more simplified. You can find the Settei on Settei Dreams, though, as much as I appreciate them, I kinda wish they were available as a cleaner scan. Especially Darkness' are a bit hard to make out properly.

Anyway, why does virtually every character, whose hair length allows it, have their head and face at the sides completely framed by the hair?.. or at least down to the bottom of the ears. It is especially noticeable with the three main girls. Aqua and Darkness almost look the same in this regard and Megumin’s strands are just a bit shorter. Even Kazuma has them, though due to his hair being shorter, it doesn’t cover as much. It is just something I learned to notice with almost every character.

But speaking of Kazuma, let me go on a small tangent on how much I like his design. On the surface, there is not a lot going on or something specifically differentiating him from your generic light novel guy design, but once you draw him a couple of times, you notice the small things that make him look so much more appealing and recognizable. Especially the way his hair breaks up at the top gives him a proper silhouette to distinguish him and I adore those strands of hair at the tip that make him look like there are two apple leaves sprouting out of his hair. Too bad the anime design forgoes the smaller strand of hair in the middle for the stem of the apple. Lastly, the anime design gave him a lot more softer facial features, compared to the light novel, which was a fantastic decision, because the facial expressions and how malleable they are is one of the KonoSuba anime’s biggest strengths.

Another thing I noticed is how simple or clean the hair of most characters is and how, especially longer hair, tends to curve inwards. Sure, the bangs for most characters can go all over the place, but in general, the hairstyles are pretty simple and often only broken up with some variety of braid, bundled hair or ponytail and all the excess hair at the back flowing down the same way. Ironically, this is something I constantly, either knowingly or accidentally, tended to ignore… I don’t know what to tell you, I just like it when the hair is broken up a bit more and curves outward, making everything look a bit more messy.

In general, the characters are pretty simple to draw. Again, most of the characters are relatively young and cute looking and have similar facial shapes and features. I was actually a bit surprised how similar and simple the eyes were, because I somehow had it in my mind they were pretty distinct, but no, most, if not all, have this simple curve for the upper eyelid, slightly more slanted, depending on the characters, and some with more indicated eyelashes and essentially none on the lower eyelid. The iris itself is also nothing to write home about.

For the clothing, there will be some dedicated paragraphs, but overall, there is a lot going on in terms of variety. Simple clothes with a lot of layers, from more casual and functional to suits and frilly dresses and even armor. Most of the clothes have either highlights or special line work, but nothing too complicated, crazy or even full of patterns. There is also a huge variety of clothes for specific characters. The normal range of clothes is already pretty big, but then there is a lot for special occasions, which made it possible to draw the main cast in a lot of different fashions.

Getting started and difficulties

Rereading the post from last year, I guess I am unfortunately able to repeat myself quite a lot, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. This time, I actually drew what I wanted to draw on another piece of paper and then only started drawing for real on a separate piece of paper, which is actually a fully blank one not in a college block. In the beginning, I even tried drawing the entire drawing on the first piece of paper and then cleanly traced it onto the second one, which didn’t really work out… maybe for the better. Also, unlike the last times, this time, I would start out big, meaning, instead of drawing the full body, which will only cover a small portion of the page, I would only draw a portion of the entire body, filling out the space on the paper and forcing me to use all the space to draw the lines properly and not hide behind the fact our brains will fill in for lack of details… this also almost worked out semi-consistently with most of the drawings in the beginning actually being from the hip or knees upwards. I probably should have gone even bigger and only do some drawing from the bust or neck upward, to really force myself to do things right. Alas, I did not.

I appreciate me locking the fuck in for the very first drawing. I have no doubts it will make itself great on the thumbnail, but it is neither indicative of how the first drawings looked on average and also a microcosm of what I was doing wrong. Last year, I talked about how observation is a skill that needs to be learned and improved and this drawing is proof that I still suck at it. At first glance, it might look fine, but there is so much wrong with it: Hair, head angle, eyes, nose, this fucking bean mouth, the neck, the cape, left arm and general posture. Considering I more or less copied one of the drawings from the reference sheet, the only reason it doesn’t look completely off is due to some relatively clean lines and my normal mistakes not overshadowing the rest of the drawing.

Speaking of which, I am still making the same mistakes as last year. The two most egregious ones are that my heads are still way too big and kinda ballon out of proportions and the opposite being the case with my lower bodies being consistently too small, to the point some characters look like they have dwarfism. This also goes way beyond the natural foreshortening that is happening when drawing on a non-tilted surface, but rather the result of me not fully planning out the height of the character and starting from the head and then working myself down and eventually running out of space on the paper.

Another thing I might have actually gotten worse over last year are my poses and figure drawings. As mentioned, I didn’t really draw anything for a long time, meaning I stopped doing my pose exercises, so I think I actually got a bit worse in simply drawing the human body in terms of proportions and anatomy. The one thing I certainly improved on are the heads and faces, but this is also mostly due to me being able to draw a very specific perspective and less actually understanding and being able to draw a head, as can be seen by most heads being drawn from a very similar perspective along most drawings and every time I don’t, it kinda just falls apart. In fact, every time I try a more “ambitious” perspective, I fail horribly.

The reason I am a lot harsher on me than last time is because I did improve and now consider myself on a level, where I can be consistent enough to be criticized. There was no point in telling me what was wrong, when it was up to chance whether I would do the same mistake in the same way again or could even incorporate the advice next time. From now on, I can work on specific things in the hope I will do it better in the future… Anyway, what was I on about?

I eventually went back to simply drawing the full body, or rather not limiting myself to use all the space on the paper, which mostly led to the character standing upwards from around the knees upward, which tactically hid the feet or shoes, which I can’t for the life of me draw. It is actually worse than hands, if you can believe me. From there on, I simply just drew whatever I wanted, randomly deciding to lock in at times or not give a damn some other day and praying every character would turn out recognizable at the end… Eris-sama unfortunately didn’t listen.

Ideas and Poses

While I didn’t plan it like this from the start, I eventually got into the rhythm of drawing the main quartet, then two other characters and repeated the process until I was done. In the end, I almost drew every major and minor character sans Beldia, Hans and Arnes. Why did I leave out those three? Well, Beldia is a full suit of armor, which I simply wasn’t able to draw, not for the lack of trying, Hans simply looks kinda bland and concerning Arnes… I forgor. I guess I also didn’t draw Keith and Taylor, as well as the two girls accompanying Mitsurugi, nor any of the girls from either the OVAs or the Fantastic Days Gacha. And while we are at it, obviously most of the Crimson Demon Village misses too, there is the Axis Church Priest Zesta, Alderp and his son and I suppose I could have also drawn the Tranquility Girl from season three. Also, aren’t I the Spider Guy? Where is the Mobile Fortress Destroyer?.. Writing it out like this, I am actually missing quite a few characters :D.

Like last year with Yukari, I didn’t really had a plan or a theme for what to draw, so I mostly just spun the roulette on Posemaniacs to give me a pose to draw the character in, though I mostly settled for some variant of a standing poses at a rather easy and simple angle. At times, I also just looked up random references of people on Pinterest and copied them, to very varying degree of success. When I did have an idea, I was very glad I could use it for several characters and it is not like KonoSuba, as a series, also didn’t give me enough options. I really like how the winter excursion turned out. Also, throw in some swimsuit versions, maid uniforms, school uniforms and whatever my dirty mind thought amusing. The only thing I was too much of a coward of was a fully muscled out Darkness. At times, I also went utterly wild with my references, like how I copied the cover art for the ending theme of the second season for Kakegurui… you know, as you do. I also tried myself at some backgrounds again, though, as always, I added them mostly at will and with almost no consistency to how detailed they would be nor even a plan to begin with what the background even should be. Shout out to #50 for me spending a few minutes drawing the character and then going all out on the background for literally no reason :D.

As already mentioned, the characters themselves actually have quite the variety of outfits, so I could also draw them each time at least once. This came especially clutch with Darkness, whom I have drawn in armor two times, before deciding to simply not do that again… ever. Haters would say it is because I couldn’t draw the armor, but it is actually because I am a massive pervert and simply prefer to draw her without. Fuck it, just draw her in whatever clothes you want. It is not like I actually set myself restrictions. If I weren’t such a coward, I could have also drawn Darkness in no clothes at all. Free will and such.

TL;DR: Once again, I mostly did whatever.

Conclusion

And this is it for the most part. For another minor improvement over last year, I now draw on blank printing paper and can properly scan everything in, so the final images should look a bit nicer… if you ignore all the smearing. I still didn’t bother to buy drawing gloves. And like last year, here are some of the better drawings:

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I am still playing with the idea of properly redrawing some of them digitally and maybe even color them in, but only in the same way I play with the idea of actually buying a drawing tablet and actual drawing software, which is to say… maybe someday.

I am not sure if I will do another one of these next year. More than ever before, I noticed how my motivation to draw just plummeted as the days went on and on. Considering I do the whole thing in the first place to get myself to draw, it is probably in my best interest to simply get myself to draw on a semi-regular basis and draw when I want to, instead of forcing myself to do it literally every single day. But who knows, maybe I will change my mind at the end of the year again.

If you are interested in all one hundred drawings, they are once again available on my Google Drive.