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"A lot of my commercial project come out of my personal work. That's why I try to make my personal work so honest to what I like. I think it comes through to the viewer that I'm not just ticking boxes," says John Bond. The illustrator launched his debut picture book, NOT LOST, based on his Mini Rabbit character design. Whether you're creating a monkey, robot or monster, you can guarantee there are going to be a hundred other similar creations out there. Your character design needs to be strong and interesting in a visual sense to get people's attention. As well as knowing when to exaggerate, Ørum is also keen to highlight the importance of simplicity. One key aspect to consider when creating a character design is the line of action.
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Character Creator 4: Helping Artists Create Personalities.
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Create the right environment
"The best art is based on personal experiences. People can relate better if it's based on the truth," says Geppert. "It's not a made-up story, even though it's based in a fantastical setting." You can read more about Flavia's creative process as a children's author and illustrator in our interview here. Daily design news, reviews, how-tos and more, as picked by the editors. Question each element of your creation, especially things such as its facial features. The slightest alteration can have a great effect on how your character is perceived.
Research other characters
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.
Build up a back story
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100 Halloween Costumes for Women 2023 - Womens Halloween Costumes.
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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.
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.
Don't forget the hair
Aside from clean lines and easily readable features, there's knowing what to exaggerate and what to minimise, how to give a hint of depth and background and what to do to develop personality. While you can learn a lot from character design books, sometimes it can be daunting to get started, so we asked a range of leading artists and illustrators for their advice on creating memorable, unique character designs. "When starting out on your character design, don’t get caught up in the details," says Pernille Ørum. Exaggerating the defining features of your character design will help it appear larger than life and exaggerated features will also help viewers to identify the character's key qualities.
"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.
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Depending on its personality, a figure's emotions might be muted and wry or explosive and wildly exaggerated. "Even if you're not someone who works in 3D, you can learn a lot by converting your character into three dimensions," says Alexander. It's a key part of the process the students follow at the Pictoplasma Academy. "How to draw Hilda from behind without her hair swallowing her silhouette", how to draw her beret from above; a long and drawn out battle with how her nose should look… these were all issues Pearson had to deal with when creating his character. The technique of exaggeration can be applied to characteristics, too. Anna Mantzaris' hilarious Enough film (above) shows everyday characters in mundane situations, doing the things we've all dreamed of doing on a bad day.
Have an open mind
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.
This is what defines the direction of your character, as well as being a useful narrative tool and bringing a feeling of movement. Character designs aimed at young children, for example, are typically designed around basic shapes and bright colours. If you're working for a client, the character's target audience is usually predetermined, as Aussie artist Nathan Jurevicius explains. Cornelia Geppert, CEO of indie games studio Jo-Mei, is a huge fan of The Last Guardian, with its unique aesthetic and great video game character designs. "When I begin a project, I often start with the feeling I want to evoke," he adds. The process begins with the designer taking videos of himself as a reference, trying to capture something of the character idea's movement or posture.
The driving force behind a character's personality is what it wants to achieve. This missing 'something' – be it riches, a girlfriend or solving a mystery – can help to create the dramatic thrust behind the stories and adventures your character gets up to. Often the incompleteness or flaws in a character design are what make it interesting. "To choose effective colours, it’s important to understand the basic rules of colour," explains Ørum. Instead, see if they can pick up the personalities and traits of your characters.
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.
"You go back and forth, back and forth and there are creative decisions that also get changed by publisher's feedback." For Flavia, her concepts "never come fully formed." "The ideas come to you in different ways," she says. "Start by creating a large shape and divide it into shorter sections, while thinking about where the hair is parted and where the hairline is. Every line should help to define the volume, shape and direction of the hair." If your character is going to exist within a 3D world, as an animation or even as a toy, working out its height, weight and physical shape is all important.
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.
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.
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