I drew a character for my 3d modeler. The problem comes in, with the fact that I can't draw the same character from side view and have all the features match up. I'm pretty sure there are some tips or tricks that help with this kind of thing. I'll even post the picture here.

Umm, if you don't like how I draw that's fine. I don't need to hear that. I didn't ask for opinions on my artwork. Just info on how to make the side view line up.

Thanks in advance.

There's two easy ways to do it, or a combination of the two:

1. Buy a small (A4/letter or A3) drawing board or parallel ruler (one with a roller in it). Draw the front view, then use a mechanical pencil and draw feint horizontal lines at each relevant point - e.g. top of head, bottom of chin, middle of mouth, middle of eyes etc. Then draw the side view making sure each respective point lines up.
2. Draw both front and side view by eye. Scan and import into GIMP or Photoshop. Create rulers/construction-lines as before, and use the various tools to stretch parts of the side view to fit the front view.

GIMP: www.gimp.org/

Drawing board http://www.euroffice.co.uk/i/3n91/Rotring-College-Drawing-Board-A3-Ref-S0314150

Rollingr ruler: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000NM90EW/

This isn't a knock against your drawing, please read the whole post. I would suggest checking out some anatomy reference to decide on the 3D shapes (sphere, cylander, cube, etc) of certain details of your drawing to help decide how they would look from other angles. Keep in mind 2D illustrations are a depiction of a 3D world, if you look, everything can be simplified into simple shapes. Many painters draw a carrot shape (up side down cone) for people in the distance.

An exercise to help with deciding on the character's features in profile is to assign shapes to the difference parts. Take a tracing paper and use a light table (your window on a sunny day, etc) to trace over your character and loosely sketch 3D shapes to represent the major parts and the minor features of the character. These decisions will help to determine how the profile of the character should look. Use other drawings like yours to help this process as well. Since other artists will have nailed down some appealing shapes already that you can take and alter or just use.

An artist's most powerful tool is reference.

Wow that was a big turn out! You guys all have nice advice. I appreciate it, I really do. I'm going to take note of the options listed and put them in effect tomorrow night, if not tomorrow morning. Thanks guys! GameDev is filled with helpful people. So glad I made a profile here. (^_^)