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WendiBones — Character Design: An introduction
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Published: 2013-01-25 20:29:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 145630; Favourites: 5225; Downloads: 0
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Arvalis-2012 by arvalis
What does 'Character Design' mean?
The character design is the process which comes after the characterisation and consists in defining the character through his/her physical appearance.
We need to consider a character as a little fictional creature, human or not, that aims to please its creator and the public as well.
While the basic characterization of this fictional creature (his tastes, his fears, his behaviors) may take a little mental effort, as it is a sort of list of emotions, facts and feelings that come and go in the life of a character, the process of visual realization of this creature may not be as simple. That's why many writers and characters creators prefer to rely on experienced hands.
Also many of the mental aspects of the character are not possible to gain by using 'static' visual medium. For 'static' I mean all the illustrations and drawings unable to tell a story, but that's the beauty of writing and reading, isn't it? Anyway there are also plenty visual media that can graphycally or spatially recreate the emotions of a certain character, his thoughts, his complex mental structure that makes our creature a simulacrum of the human being. I'm talking about cartoons and comics, videoclips, anime and manga art, where the design of the character is a real milestone in the realization of a story of success.
Which are the differences between a design for cartoons and a design for games?
The first one requires a simple shape, highly recognizable at a first glance. The second one requires a higher complexity, able to show the real power of rendering of the console (or the power of your video adapter). The higher complexity design works really well for concept art and trading card games as well.
Slugterra Development 6 by CreatureBox
Tips from experts?
- Take a sheet of paper and write down the psychological characteristics and traits that you want to give to your character. If the character is not yours but you already have a description of the author, the better.
- It's also important to see the character in proportion to the medium on which the character will appear and the target audience it should have: keep the design simple if it's going to appear on small media, use more structured design in case of larger media, use bright colors if the character is designed for children. In any case, the design must be strong and original to make it look interesting to its public.
- Now you can start sketching. Take inspiration from the world that surrounds you, from fashion magazines, from other original characters. Starts from a successful design and work on how you would change it for the better. Add items to its design and remove others.
- In cartoons, the consistency of the line should be the protagonist: use curved lines for good and sweet characters, use hard and sharp lines to present cruel and evil characters. You may also need to exaggerate the physical features that correspond to mental characteristics: thick arms for a strong man, thick lips for a seductive woman...
- Colors ay be really important. Dark colors, black and purple (and sometimes acid green) are used to identify the villains. Bright colors, white and pink are for vouchers. Heroes uses yellow, red and blue.
Oritental Enchantment by HiOutsider-Studio
- Add accessories to your character. Animals could work as accessories as well, but their symbolic meaning can be very vast and ancient. New items will help add personality to your character, or they'd give you ideas for their background story. Clothing is a very important accessory to identify the social class and taste of a character. A warrior will have an armor, a mage will have a stick or a scepter, one who wears sandals will not be a great walker unless he/she is poor...They say the clothing doesn't make the monk, but in Character Design the bow makes the archer and the sword makes the knight.
- Works a lot on your character behaviours and facial expressions. Is he/she the angry type? Or is he/she curious? Well, in both cases it will affect his/her appearance!
- Good designs are well balanced. Doodle many designs without planning but don't add too many oddities to the same character. Just one but a good can be enough. Try to work on the silhouette of your character, make it immediately recognizable.
- Develop your design both on your computer and using a sketchbook. The world is the best inspiration, especially when you can look at so many human types all together. Look at their make up, hair, facial features, clothing...Everything!
- Works on characters with different physical characteristics that can help identify the 'type' at first sight.
Some good design sketches
Items study and different races or types
Process: from the sketches to the final version
Some finished character designs
Sources:
Credits:
All the images belongs to their respective owners. Click on the image to see the fullview from the artist gallery.
English is not my mothertongue. Be gentle.
Related content
Comments: 196
this is so very helpful and informative.
thank you so much for sharing!
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Just what I was looking for
Thank you!
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Might be the most useful helper of its sort that I have read online. Wonderfully phrased and very simple rules. Thank you so very much for posting
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BEST. THING. EVER!
so many great artists and so inspiring!
Thanks for this
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This is very helpful and you have provided so many examples to drive your point straight home.
Thank you for creating this article
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thankyou this is really helpful and interesting
I love concept art do much!
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I'm Impressed, this resulted very significative, thank you so much for sharing this, it means a lot, Right to Favourites!.
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Woow this is awesome stuff ... Really helpful tips and stuff thank u
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This is wonderful! Thank you!
I have been looking into character design for a while now, it's something I would love to do.
I'm not very good yet, mostly because I need to learn human anatomy a better.
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Wonderful stuff. It's all so detailed and stylish...I feel like it's over my artistic head.
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Interesting concepts
I think I've seen some on different websites before.
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Thanks for posting this! It's really thoughtfully done!
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This is actually really helpful for me as I'm doing a character design brief in Uni 
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uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....................video? xD sorry im just that type of person.
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Incredible stuff here! Thank you very much for this submission!
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This is fantastic stuff and extremely helpful!
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They thanks for using one of my pieces as an example, considering the caliber of work here I'm pretty darn flattered.
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You're very welcome! I'm an admirer of your works, as I said on Anipan.
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Oh wow! I haven't been on Anipan in a while! I always gravitate back to tumbler and DA, but thank you so much!
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This is really helpful ^^
thanks for sharing~
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Thank you for sharing this!
Plenty for me to learn from this article.
Cheers to you, sir!
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This is so generously amazing, haha! Thank you so much for this knowledge! This is something I'm considering going for my BFA in Illustration.
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Really well written, and a great helpful resource! Thank you so much for taking the time to make this!
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Great article but, with all due respect, I prefer Scott McCloud take on character design, since I'm more comic-oriented but this is a great article, with a lot of great insights and don't let anyone tell you different.
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Wow, this was a great read not to mention all the different examples and features.
Though its hard for me to not argue the 'video game characters have to be complex' line. To me it seems the visual style of the game is more important. Like 'Journey' for example which employes a very simple Player Character design despite being on the PS3.
But then again, I'm hardly in the business so maybe I have no room to talk.
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"The second one requires a higher complexity, able to show the real power of rendering of the console (or the power of your video adapter)."
What the heck is that supposed to mean? You probably want to switch that last word to GPU if you're into game character design...
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I call it Video Card, but it's also called Video adapter ([link] ).
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That article is in serious need of an update... Like stated by Wikipedia as well. I suggest you stick to graphics card or even better, GPU. Most laptops or low performance desktops run the graphics on the CPU instead of having that extra graphics card, that integrated unit goes by the name GPU.
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You are awesome!Thx for sharing this!!!
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First step to second step of the first picture;
First you draw an outline...then you draw all this. Ta dah!
Haha, I'm kidding. This was actually very helpful, as I've been trying to get out of the habit of always using linearts and bases and go more freelance, and in my own style. ^^
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I'm sorry, I don't find much of this to be that helpful...
I find it to be too basic, and I think a few extra sections could have been added. For example, what makes a good character design, or a bad one? I looked at some of the ones you linked, and while I could tell they were well-designed, I couldn't tell what it was that made them so, and I think that may have been a good thing to add.
If others have found it helpful, though, that's great; I just think it could have been made more useful.
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Very helpful info! Especially that part about the difference between the design of game characters and cartoons.
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