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If you're after more design inspiration, check out Rafael Sarmento's Procreate character design masterclass. For a prime example of what not to do when creating a character, check out the hilarious Godzilla character design flaw that people are only just noticing. If you're planning for your character design to exist within comics and animations, then developing its back story is important. Where it comes from, how it came to exist and any life-changing events it has experienced are going to help back up the solidity of, and subsequent belief in, your character. Sometimes the telling of a character's back story can be more interesting than the character's present adventures.
TikTok Encouraged Me To Make A Pinterest Board Of My Friend And It's A Perfect Character Test - BuzzFeed News
TikTok Encouraged Me To Make A Pinterest Board Of My Friend And It's A Perfect Character Test.
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Create the right environment
Hilda has changed over the years, from book to book, but Pearson explains that no one has pulled him up on it. "I like to think it means the design is strong enough to withstand being pulled in all these different directions," he says. In the same way that you create a history for your character, you need to create an environment for it to help further cement believability in your creation.
Have an open mind
Props and clothing can help to emphasise character traits and their background. For example, scruffy clothes can be used for poor characters, and lots of diamonds and bling for tasteless rich ones. Accessories can also be more literal extensions of your character's personality, such as a parrot on a pirate's shoulder or a maggot in a ghoul's skull.
Make it personal
Above you can see Wallace's new take on well-known festive figures, created for a Hong Kong department store. While inspiration needs to come from somewhere, the aim is to create something original. So Robert Wallace – known as Parallel Teeth – suggests not having the reference material right in front of you as you work.
Create clear silhouettes
Another good way to make your character distinct and improve its pose, says Ørum, is to turn it into a silhouette. "Then you can see how the character ‘reads’ and if you need to make the gesture more clear. Do you understand the emotion of the character and see the line of action? Can things be simplified? Try not to overlap everything, and keep the limbs separate." "If you look at something and then you try and hazily remember it in your mind, that's when you end up making something new, rather than a pastiche of something," he says.
Don't forget the hair
"I think it's fun with animation that you can push things further, and people will still accept it as real," she says. "With live action it would look absurd. You can also push the emotion further." "Not only will this help your art, but it is a fun activity that I find is a great way of breaking up my day," she adds. "I try to stick to my original drawing style, because the instinct is to try and clean it up," says Laurie Rowan. "I don't like to feel like I've created by characters; I like to feel like I've kind of just encountered them." In the Character Design Crash Course workshop at Pictoplasma 2019, Jurevicius and Rilla Alexander asked attendees to sketch their character in poses held by other attendees, life drawing style.
Isabel Armitage suggests creating your characters a playlist of their favourite songs. "This can be a great tool to help you understand the emotions of your character and begin revealing their likes, dislikes and guilty pleasures, all of which will help you layer on a good narrative," she says. Creating a new character can often be an exciting yet daunting task, but a great way to refine your ideas is to put yourself in the shoes of your character. Visualising your creation can be a great shortcut to nailing down those distinct features that make your character unique.
It's also worth considering the balance between stretch and compression. "Even a neutral pose can lead the eye by applying these two approaches, resulting in an effective character design," says Ørum. At one point one of her team members had to say to her that their Sea of Solitude design was looking a little too similar to The Last Guardian. She looked back at her initial artworks, and it brought back the feeling she had when creating them.
Choose colours carefully
When devising The Simpsons, Matt Groening knew he had to offer the viewers something different. He reckoned that when viewers were flicking through TV channels and came across the show, the characters' unusually bright yellow skin colour would grab their attention. Other inspirations include ceramics – an organic texture and muted colour palette stop his work feeling too clinical – and folk costumes. According to children's illustrator Flavia Z. Drago, it's important to embrace all your ideas – even the ones that might not work – in order to move forward.
Light colours such as white, blues, pinks and yellows express innocence and purity. Comic-book reds, yellows and blues might go some way to giving hero qualities to a character design. It's also a good idea to look beyond character designs when hunting for inspiration. Although many of the well-known characters from cartoons, advertising and films look straightforward, in actual fact, a vast amount of effort and skill will have been exerted to make them so effective. (To start making your own creations, you'll probably want some software – get Adobe Creative Cloud to get cracking).
The world in which the character lives and interacts should in some way make sense to who the character is and what it gets up to. Depending on what you have planned for your character design, you might need to work out what it will look like from all angles. A seemingly flat character can take on a whole new persona when seen from the side if, for example, it has a massive beer belly. Geppert's Sea of Solitude video game is an exploration of her experiences of loneliness. Intensely personal though it may be, the game hit a chord with audiences because it deals with an experience that is so universal yet still strangely taboo.
38 Easy Book Character Costumes for Teachers & Kids - Good Housekeeping
38 Easy Book Character Costumes for Teachers & Kids.
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"Previously, I used to view working out all the details and directions of the hair as a tedious endeavour. Now I think of it more as a large, organic shape, which like a flag in the wind indicates and emphasises the movement of the character or its surroundings. The drawn lines of which your character design is composed can go some way to describing it. Thick, even, soft and round lines may suggest an approachable, cute character, whereas sharp, scratchy and uneven lines might point to an uneasy and erratic character. And most agree designers agree this is often where the essence of the character is captured. So when you're working up your design, make sure you don't lose that magic. Expressions showing a character's range of emotions and depicting its ups and downs will further flesh out your character.
This is key in cartoon caricatures and helps emphasise certain personality traits. If your character is strong, don't just give it normal-sized bulging arms, soup them up so that they're five times as big as they should be. You might have too many ideas floating around in your head (or none at all!). When starting a new project it's best to keep an open mind – inspiration can come from anywhere so keep your eyes peeled. Typically, dark colours such as black, purples and greys depict baddies with malevolent intentions.
Find who you think is the suitable or ideal audience for your work and get feedback specifically from them about it. Having decent software and materials to work with is useful, but not essential, when it comes to bringing your character to life. A lot of amazing characters were successfully designed years ago when no one had personal computers and Photoshop CC was just a dream. "When you know the basics of drawing a face, play with the expression of the character," says Ørum. "Use a mirror to read your own face and notice the subtle changes. Push and pull the eyebrows to show emotion. Avoid giving the face symmetry. The mouth will always favours a side and it gives life to the drawing. And give the head a tilt to add nuance."
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