Imaging and Concept

Character Design Step x Step

Overview

Characters are everywhere: television, movies, 2D games, and 3D games. For all these different delivery methods, the basic process of character design is the same: define, plan, propose and execute.

Guide

Define Your Character

What is the method of delivery?
- Are you designing a character for entertainment? If so, is it for game or animation? A character designed for a 3D game will be very different from a character for a Flash animation.
- Are you designing for an advertisement? If so, what's the product?
Who is the audience?
What is your character's purpose?
Who is your character?
- Give your character a name and various attributes. Consider context, including the world.

You may want to create a character defining spreadsheet, like these examples: Wheels Defining Spreadsheet and KCAD DM Defining Spreadsheet. Either of these documents can be copied to your Google Drive to get you started. You may not need all the fields, but this is a good way to start understanding your character.

Another method is to use Robert Cohen's GOTE Sheet method. The GOTE Sheet is an industry standard for acting, and will help you define who your character is.

Plan Your Character

Benchmarks

Find benchmarks that reflect the style in which you would like to direct your character design. Keep in mind the genre you are working in, and the method of delivery. Pay attention to the line quality (or absence of line), lighting, rendering style, and texture.

Sketch

Use a variety of shapes. Think about the character's motivation or mood, and choose expressions that reflect this. The pose should reflect what the character does in the world. Consider proportions, character contrast, action poses and expressions. The KCAD DM Sketch site is a great resource.

Character Design from Life Drawing

For more on drawing from life and character design, please check out this page.

Using 3D as a Reference

You can use a 3D program such as DAZ 3D or Poser as a reference. These programs allow you to change the height, gender and age of the figure, as well as the dimensions of each body part. It is common in game character design to use a frontal contrapposto pose (more on this later) with the character holding props that would be used in game. There can be emotion on the character's face to add to the character definition, and the character's stance should also convey character qualities.

Then, in Photoshop, draw your character base on its own layer. Leave this layer untouched so that you can work with iterative design, working through design changes.

Once you have a base drawing, add your costume design. Look for creative ways to make your design unique. Here, I have designed 12th Dimension Knights. What if Roman warriors jumped dimensions and needed robotic leg assistance, the shields had heads-up displays, and the century-style helmets actually held cameras in the front, had glass masks and were supplied with oxygen?

It is important to get the refined line design of your character approved before you move on to color or shading, so that you can work through anatomy and perspective changes, as well as any changes to prop or costume design, to make your design as strong as it can be.

Propose Your Character

Pitch the character to the client. Be sure to have both your concept art and character information.

Execute Your Character

Execute, in this case, meaning render. Not the other definition.

Once your refined line is approved, you can move on to value and lighting, color, and finally texture and special effects.

The Classic Pose for Game Character Design

The standard pose for character design for game is a contrapposto pose. Contrapposto simply means that the shoulder and hips are not parallel to each other; there's a natural sense of movement or action. You can find examples of this character design method in game design company sites like Massive Black.

Massive Black, Grimbold Character Design for "The Lord of the Rings" Online

Website

Shutterstock is a great reference for poses - Use images like these then add your character into the pose. These would be more appropriate for Game Design.These are action character poses where the artist was able to get the character to do something and feel something.

Try to get your model to strike poses that resemble these types of poses - sometimes it helps to say what you think the character is doing and what the character is feeling.

Action Poses for Animation Character Design

For animation, you need to find an action pose for your character. You can start with some standard poses, like the ones below. You can see these poses are more expressive, and contain even more action and emotion. They are allowed to be humorous if the animation is humorous.

Jac Taylor, Poses for Soldier

DeviantArt

2-Sheets for Animation

Characters designed for animation are typically presented with a 2-Sheet. It was generally two pages, when print was king, but it is intended to be short, so keeping it within two 11x17 pages is a good rule of thumb. Many of these live in PDF form now.

A two sheet includes:

• Show title

• Show log line

• Characters in action poses - Main character and then other characters interacting with them

• Short character descriptions.

• Characters in the environment.

• The Artist' name and contact info.

Character Design for Animation Examples

Please see our Character Design for Animation page to see student and professional examples.

Character Design for 3D Game Examples

Please see our Character Design for 3D Games page to see student and professional examples.

Additional Resources