Character Designers

Something has been on my mind lately. Very few people in the field of character design have even the slightest clue of what they're doing. A lot of this I can understand. Most people who start their own comics and such aren't in a position to grab someone just to design characters, and they aren't going to be inclined to spend too much time on it themselves, because, quite frankly, they've got other priorities. Especially when you just have one person writing and drawing everything solo.

That said, it's something the world at large needs to work on. I actually know the name of someone who is extremely famous, solely for doing character designs, who has no clue whatsoever what he's doing, and that's a travesty. So, I'm going to give you all a quick crash course in thoughtful character design. Am I the most qualified person out there to do this? Dear gods no. I'm not a pro in this field by any stretch of the imagination. It's not even a hobby of mine. I have, however, put a decent amount of thought into it, and I can say with a fair deal of confidence that the following exercise will make for a serious improvement for most people if they apply a similar process in the future. So particularly if you're one of the myriad people out there starting your own web comic or something, enjoy.

A lot of this might overlap with something you've seen in a million art classes, but bear with me. What I'm going to do is give some blocks of brief character descriptions to you. Each block is for a single project, so they need a consistent look. For every character in the project, draw the following, and make sure to put some thought into it. Oh, and these are all black and white. No colors allowed.

Step 1- Draw an abstracted low-detail face. For instance, if I said "This guy is really gentle and always smiling" you'd probably draw something that looks like the traditional smiley face. Just a line or circle for a mouth, and two dots (or Pacman shapes, or half-circles, whatever) for eyes. You can fit a surprising degree of personality into a smiley face, and that's the goal here.

Step 2- Using that first face as a guide, draw an actual face in a style appropriate to the project. If we're doing something serious, go for an actual human looking face. If it's a wacky cartoonish sort of project, exaggerate the features a lot. You aren't allowed to draw anything but the face here. Nothing from the neck down, and no hair.

Step 3- Here's where it starts getting interesting. Next, I want you to JUST draw this character's hair. Attaching it to the face you just drew isn't allowed. Just draw hair on a generic faceless head. Not just the hair you feel like drawing either. Think about the setting for this project, the character's personality, their history, the culture they grew up in, and really think about the hair style they'd realistically have. How much do they care about how they look? Do they get it cut when it starts looking shaggy? When it's getting in their eyes? Never? Is it usually dirty, do they put stuff in it like clips and ribbons? Hair gel? Etc.

Step 4- Now we're setting all that aside for a bit and working on the body. Again, we're starting simple. Just draw a few stick figures. No detail on them at all. These are just to establish body language. One standing around, one waving, one sitting in a chair, one running, one upset, one sleeping. Anything else you can think of helps too. Again, think about this character's personality and background, and you can get a lot of personal expression out of these.

Step 5- Here's where people really slack off. Time for clothes. You don't have to worry about those postures you just practiced here, you can just throw everything on to the generic stick figure pose, maybe do a front/back if needed. Think about the setting, the character's personality, how much they care, how much money they have, what they do, what they like, and the biggie that people always forget, where they acquire their clothes. Then draw a few things they'd wear. What specifically depends on the project. Typically, you'd want at least some sort of work clothes/uniform if appropriate, something casual (multiple sets if it's going to come up a lot), something fancy for formal occasions, something for partying if appropriate, etc.

Step 6- Now throw everything together. Quite simple really. You should have a much better character design than most of what's out there.

Once you've completed a whole set of characters, here's some extra rules of thumb to make sure you did a decent job.

Did you rip anyone off? Blatantly or otherwise? If you took, for instance "a really withdrawn 14 year old girl who almost never talks" and you drew something similar to, say, Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion, that's bad.

Is everyone easily distinguishable from each other? If not, that's bad.

How subtle are the differences in characters? Ideally, unless a really cartoonish exaggerated style is called for, the more subtle the differences, the better. If you have "a really energetic girl" and "a lazy nerd" you don't generally want to have some crazy punk rock freak and a human blob with glasses. You'd just want someone who's fairly perky and someone who's a bit tired looking and unkempt. They should fit together visually though, and not be caricatures.

If you're doing several sets of these, are you recycling designs from similar characters in other contexts? If, say, your retired out of shape cop looks like your retired out of shape samurai, that's bad.

Final test. Find an objective person, show the results to them. First find out if they think you suck, and then, with no hints, ask them to describe each character, and see how close to your guidelines they came.

Now then, here's some character sets to practice with.

This project is some crazy cartoony thing set in 1930s France. We need a big stupid guy, a little smart guy, a lanky spacey guy, and an attractive but ditzy love interest for them.

This project is a generic fantasy sort of thing. So we need a dwarf fighter (male), an elf druid (female), a human paladin (male), a half-elf thief (male), and a gnomish priestess. Make sure to reflect the cultural differences between all these races somehow.

This project is set in a Japanese high school in the 1970s. Strict dress code, all the guys need a white button down shirt, black pants, brown shoes. All the girls, same shirt with a blue vest and skirt, black buckled shoes. We need a star athlete, a guy who comes off really nice and friendly but he's secretly a jerk, a slightly withdrawn average guy who isn't interested in the social scene, a complete dweeb with coke bottle glasses, a guy who's seriously into American culture, a smart cute girl, an ultra-feminine princess type, a female bully, and a couple characters who don't seem at all important.

This project is about a war between test animals. All the main characters are albino lab rabbits. Not anthropomorphic rabbits, actual, realistic looking rabbits. We need an older mother who lost all 6 of her children in the war, a shell shocked adolescent male, an aging male who's lost an eye, and a young innocent female.

Here's a real quick sample of what you want for each character, roughly if my descriptions were too vague: