What is Character Design? And What Does A Character Designer Do?

You interrogate your wants and introduce inspiration from a different anime, which still leads to a character concept. As in the example above, the artists had already chosen a shape and construction for the small girl and has added hair and clothes. In addition, the creator has also tried out different facial expressions to bring further life into the concept and the very temper and mood of the character. This brings us to the next important step, which is making different views as reference materials. References are absolutely crucial when it comes to character design.

Research other characters

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. Other inspirations include ceramics – an organic texture and muted colour palette stop his work feeling too clinical – and folk costumes. 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. 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.

Step 3: Know your audience

Design the character's facial features based on their traits and background. The eyes, nose, mouth, and expressions should align with their story and role in the narrative. In this article, we will offer a complete guide on how to design a character. Myers says that you can learn to tell stories visually by observing people. She studied, briefly, at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where they would bring in dancers and children to model and neither group would stop moving. "It forces you to focus on the feeling more than anything," the artist says.

Research the target audience

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Myers and the team put Fei Fei in a line-up with her mum and dad ("a good way to see how they play off of each other"). Myers picked out little moments from Over the Moon's script and illustrated them. She drew Fei Fei riding her bike or hugging her pet bunny, for example. She wanted these images to look dynamic, to say something about Fei Fei's character. If you have any questions or comments, or if you want to get involved, either as a programmer or an artist, email your request.

Give your character a backstory

His upper body is much larger and more muscular compared to his legs. This is something that creators usually do for more masculine characters since the upper body strength is a symbol of that masculinity and exaggerating it makes it more distinctive. It’s important to keep in mind the concept of color psychology and the emotions that color communicates as a tool of conversion. Dynamic characters require more energetic and joyful colors such as orange, while more collected or dark and mysterious characters usually sport neutral and royal colors such as black and purple. On one hand, you need to see what makes the eagle distinctive from other similar birds.

This research will help you infuse authenticity and depth into your character's design and story. More importantly, your design should also consider the experience of your target audience. Myers didn't just work on visualising Over the Moon's main characters. She designed minor characters too, and did what’s known as "crowd work" – animation's version of the background actor, the extra.

Or if the project is a 2D animation the character design might go to storyboard artists for practice, or to visual development artists who might create more details for that character(their home, car, etc). "When starting out on your character design, don’t get caught up in the details," says Pernille Ørum. Creating a thumbnail is the first time a character designer starts to put their ideas onto paper (physical or digital). This is a safe space where artists experiment and create loose sketches to get an idea of what direction to take. Character design is the process of creating and visualizing fictional characters, each with their own unique traits, personalities, and appearances.

It is important to understand that using reference images for inspiration is not cheating (provided, of course, you are not creating exact copies). Whether you like it or not, your art is subconsciously influenced by what you’ve seen, including other artists that have inspired you, and collating references is how you consciously control that influence. In addition, researching the work of other artists on similar concepts or designs for similar audiences can also help you see what is common and how your character can be different. There are a number of brainstorming techniques that can help you develop your character profile.

When starting a new project it's best to keep an open mind – inspiration can come from anywhere so keep your eyes peeled. Your main concern at this stage should be the pose, so take the time to sketch a few options that show off the character’s personality. If you are designing a character for an animator, you will also need to create a handful of orthographic T-pose sketches. These display a front, back, and side view of the character standing with their legs together and arms outstretched, and they give the animator a neutral view of the design on which to animate. T-poses can also be useful for figuring out clothing detail that may get lost in a more expressive pose. Silhouette, palette, and exaggeration are three fundamental components of good character design.

You can take in an incredible variety of inspiration to shape your cyberpunk character. Best of all, you can even drop comments on the pages of characters you admire. You can reach out to creators who have inspired your creative spark and leave them a sincere thank you. Once you have your character design finalised, you will be ready to start thinking about what colours you want to use in your illustration. When designing your characters it is helpful to understand some of the key differences between male and female proportions and shape language. Character design has always had a key role in the concept-design industry.

But think about the fact that the characters existed before you even created them. There needs to be a reason for why your individual characters are who they are. And because of this world and how they interact with it, they are who they are. Commissioned and custom illustration work might be more restrictive, but it’s no less creative. On the contrary, it’s the way you execute within certain bounds that creativity comes into play. Although it may feel like your client is calling the shots, they wouldn't create a product without knowing their market.