How long does it take you to draw an avatar?

[Bag_of_Holding]

It takes me at least 2 hours to do a humanoid avatar, and it seems to take around 3 hours for more complex creatures. I consider 'em time well spent, but how about other people who's been on the field for some time?


While I was typing this post it just occured to me that people who draw the characters a lot would have various templates ready to be clothed. Dang, why didn't I think of that? :smallsigh:

[Lyinginbedmon]

Depending on the level of detail, typically about 30 minutes.

[Emperor Ing]

Depending on the level of detail, typically about 30 minutes.

I concur. It turns out that guns take longer to draw than humans. :smalltongue:

[Lyinginbedmon]

I concur, I spent the better part of two hours yesterday trying to make a staff look right :smallbiggrin:

People are easy, props are hard. Or so it seems.

[Quincunx]

I'd say about an hour of actual work, maybe an hour and a half if the pixel-by-pixel meddling is heavier than usual, but two to two and a half in practice, frequently tabbing out to more interesting programs. I am not a template user.

[banjo1985]

Takes me about an hour to draw one up, but I spend twenty minutes beforehand with a pencil drawing what I plan to do by hand, it helps when it comes to drawing the thing for real.

[Sensate]

It took me about two and a half hours to draw this baby (my first avatar). As I become more skilled at this I'm sure that period will drop to some hour and a half (though the complexity of the avatars I make may increase too thus increasing the time needed to make it).

[Kurien]

I'd have to say one and a half hours if I make it without any prior pencil sketches (because I am confident I'll get it right the first time, since I use MS Paint). If I feel the avatar will be difficult to draw with a mouse, I'll do pehaps half an hour to an hour of pencil sketching, making several drafts until I am satisfied with it. Some avatars will take three or more hours to complete.

The line work of the avatar is the most dificult to do. I find adding colours and shading to be the easiest part. Afterwards I'll probably do a bit of tweaking wth the colours to get them just right.

[Dihan]

A few hours. I generally finish something, hate it, delete it, and start all over again. Rinse and repeat.

[B-Man]

For when I used to create avatars, it would generally take me between half an hour to 6 hours (combined, not in one session... that would be obsession :smalleek:) to complete an avatar. My current avatar actually took me a combined 4 hours to finish, and it still feels incomplete. These time quotes do not include the hours I used to spend just sketching the avatars on paper first. I would usually draw the avatar out in moderate detail in a manga-esque style, redraw a stick version of it right next to it, then I would redraw it using Inkscape. It's a wonder why I stopped drawing avatars. :smalleek:

[Dallas-Dakota]

Lying and Rand's posts are seconded.

[Bayar]

about 2-3 hours. That is when I actually get my lazy ass to draw something. I suck.

[Brickwall]

Ever since I made a file with the basic shapes for male and female sticks, it's gone faster. I still have to fiddle around with the vectors and colors a lot, but less. Including distractions, it takes me less than two hours.

[Szilard]

For a simple one, 10 minutes, that's with a plain one color shirt, no shoes, and easy hairstyle. For a complecated one with lots of detail like my Githyanki and Mindflayers, a couple hours.

[Tiffanie Lirle]

I'll take me anywhere from 10-50 minutes, it really depends on the level of detail I put into it.

[Maulrus]

For a simple one, 10 minutes, that's with a plain one color shirt, no shoes, and easy hairstyle. For a complecated one with lots of detail like my Githyanki and Mindflayers, a couple hours.

QFT, though it can take a lot more time if I try to shade it.

This is in Inkscape. In Illustrator, a lot more time, but only because I'm still familiarizing myself with it.

[Goats_o_Mjolnir]

Just did this little guy
http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/Galager_war/elf.png

in an hour and a half, and its only my third request I have done, all in all it depends on the level of detail you need and how simple/complex of what you want to draw in.

Thise one took three hours, I wannted the Jalpenos on his trunks to be just right

http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb192/Galager_war/kahuna.png


:smallbiggrin:

[Madmal]

so far, my first avatar on Ikscape has taken me a combination of about 7 hours...seems i kept on playing with the nodes...and i'm still missing some stuff, like shoes and a possible shord...

[Bitzeralisis]

It's a lot easier to perfect things if you know what you're doing. Example: the pen tool is hard to learn, But if you know how to mess and meddle with the little anchor things, then you can generally get better details.

Anyhow, it all depends on what I'm drawing: a normal, random NPC would take about six to nine minutes: a circle, a square, some lines and hair. My avatar took up a horrendous amount of time, but that's only because I didn't know how to draw the cloak-thing right.

[boomwolf]

Depends.
2-10 minutes if its very similar to something I have.
30 minutes for a hybrid. (combining several avatars I have into a single avatar with aspects from each.)
An hour and a half if its a whole-new human avatar.
3 hours if its very exotic and nothing I even done before.

[The Extinguisher]

I have a large file full of all the avatars I've made. So it can take anywhere from twenty minutes to four or five hours.

[Flickerdart]

A forum avatar? Twenty minutes tops.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/5046/aang21li.png
This guy? Maybe an hour, with shading and trying to make it look good.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/cards/15044.jpg
This guy? 10 hours, give or take a few.

[NEO|Phyte]

Depending on how hard the fiddly little details are to get looking decent enough in my eyes, anywhere from 15 minutes for a simple splicing together of avatar parts I've made before, to 3 hours and a few "Boop this, I give up" attempts in a past for a completely original creation. The creation in question?
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/6433/barghestyl8.png
The main stumbling block was figuring out how to make the head not look retarded.

[Midnight Son]

I started making one about two years ago, so at this point it's taken me about two years. I expect it'll end up being longer, however, as I soon realized that I am a better user of avatars than I am a maker of them.