Tips to Make the PERFECT Reference Sheet

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One of my best pieces of advice for making a reference sheet is as follows: "The point of a reference sheet isn't to look perfect, or introduce their lore, it's to visually organize information about their looks."

I’ve seen a few people have multiple poses to show off markings from different angles and it may be helpful if you wish to buy commissions and want the artist to understand what your character looks like! It is something I’ve began to use even for myself as well

Don't forget to DRAW THE F-ING BACKSIDE, so many times have i tried drawing someone's character at a more complex angle and have simply not been able to get the character's design right because they didn't draw what the back side of the character looks like, please, draw the back end.

As a fursuit maker, ALWAYS SEND YOUR MAKER A T POSE. The amount of times I've almost missed a marking because the ref had a pose which covered some things. Having a separate 'fursuit friendly' ref sheet is incredible when commissioning parts!

The labels on ref sheets are a god send for me. I always like to make a character look as similar to the ref sheet as possible, but sometimes I cant tell if somthing is a feature, or an artstyle choice so I apreciate it when those things are labeled.

I've seen some artists include hex codes for their OCs' colors as well as labelling what the colors are for, that's not something I see often

One thing that helped me with figuring out how to make clear and understandable ref sheets is studying character model sheets from animation studios (moslty Japanese ones called settei) since they are made by professional they are very well… professional, something I’ve learned from those is to include detailed drawings of of items or parts of the design next to the character themselves Another thing which you have mentioned and that is indeed very important is to prioritise clarity over aesthetics, ref sheets are meant to be guide on how to draw a character correctly, it’s ok if there are a lot of notes, random drawings of the character’s eyes or head floating there even if it looks a bit messy And another thing which is honestly up to personal preferences but I’ve learnt over time to prioritise visual designs over personality in ref sheet by that I mean, keeping the character’s likes/dislikes, their personality and whatnot to note somewhere else and I can use the free space I get by removing that to add more intricate details about their appearance for instance their body language or height, etc. Great video Qwizz ! I am glad I discovered your channel

Fun fact: this pose 1:47 is called an "A pose". That's because the arms are a bit lower, making the shape look more like an A than a T, while a T pose has the arms stick straight out from the side. The Y pose is also a thing but it's not as common as a T pose or A pose (at least I don't think it is? I think most 3D model software for example defaults to displaying models in T or A pose depending on program but I'm not an expert lol).

One thing i hate is i got commissoned once, and they had a LINELESS ref. i get doing lineless art but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE have diffrent colors and not only one color in different shades

Your tips are really good tbh. Everything i learnt about ref sheets i did slowly by doing art trades and seeing that artists were misinterpreting design elements i didnt make clear, or being sent a ref that felt more like a collage of random doodles that didn't feel very readable or succinct. Which is both long and painful because i feel bad for the absolutely dire material i used to send artists 😅 And learning that ref sheets can be "boring" or have a drawing that i think is meh but works well to showcase the design is okay, i used to be so scared of that for no reason

my general rule of thumb is that a ref sheet's level of detail should fall in line with how detailed the character is. Take Kirby for example. He has a very simplistic, easy to comprehend design, if he was a character that I made, I would make sure that his ref sheet specifies his facial expressions (and i suppose posing, given how hes just a ball with nub limbs) as well as how his hands and feet look, since at times I see some folks draw him with ball hands and feet rather than the egg-like, nubby shape they actually have. A simple turnaround, and a couple of faces! Sometimes though I've had characters so simple that a turnaround isn't even needed! Versus someone like Link (lets go with botw, base design link) sure he isnt as complex as lets say, Master Chief, but there are key details in his design that, if missed out on, can change the language of his general design. Link (especially his BOTW iteration) is intentionally designed as a sort of vessel for us the player, so he is rather androgynous in his design to suit that. Even in older iterations, he is made to look young, and agile as it stood as a way for him to stand out from the average male hero beefcake, something he actually shares in common with Popeye! (and his obvious inspo, Peter Pan!) If these aspects were changed, it would be a whole new guy!

this past art fight i had SO many problems with bad ref sheets for some reason. lots of jpeg artifacting, tiny images, bust shots only, and shading (there was one person that was like 'i see a lot of people adding the darker patches, thats not a marking its shading' in the character description. this is why we dont shade our ref sheets) I personally recommend a solid color BG, as your background being transparent can make it hard to copy/paste directly into art programs (as the BG will just turn black) IDK about other artists but I try to avoid saving images to my computer when possible, and when drawing someone else's guy I'll just copy/paste the ref. What I do is have a solid color with lighter blobs under things like text and images to highlight them.

The biggest "DON'T" of ref sheets for me is too much text info - just huge huge walls of blurb. I lean towards the "show don't tell" rule and ideally I like the refsheets with no text info best, but minimal text is ok. But when the ref sheet is basically an encyclopedia entry with sporadic drawings here and there or even when the text takes up ~50% of the sheet itself, then it puts me off.

This is actually REALLY helpful, thanks!!!

If you REALLY want a pose in your ref make a really small somewhat simple design of your character that's posing, it can show off a lot of personality too lol.

I sent this to a friend who couldn't make reference sheets, i do shade on my reference sheets though but i also pick the colors out. I should totally remake those reference sheets lol.

If I ever do art trades, I frantically sketch what my oc looks like and hand it to the person 😭 I needed this video, ty

Thank you! This was a great video! As I’ve recently redesigned my sona to be way more complicated, making a ref sheet will be nice! Love the vid! Love your art!

Who still uses JPEG?! Awesome video. I found it very helpful.