Character Notes

Character design encompasses many elements including a background story.  Story will drive the shape, gesture, attitude of your characters.

To add credibility and life, it helps to have believable proportions, articulation of the character's body forms regardless what style or genre.

I've created some notes to keep in mind when developing your characters.   

To create subhuman or superhuman characters, it's important to know what the normal human proportion is.  From here you can distort and see how different relationships create different impressions of the body to the head size and body parts to each other.  Hope this helps in your explorations.   :]

Gesture - The big relationships of the forms of the body. The Gesture can be described as a flow of line through it's parts relating one part to another.

Iconic shapes for female and male figures helps simplify the genders in character concepts.

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Shapes and Creature Design

Visually grabbing characters have a strong silhouette that reads instantly.  To distinguish and contrast your characters from each other it helps to think in terms of the big shape.

Shapes can be broken down into big, medium and small for interest.

Notes on Reflective Metal for Nikia

Hi Nikia, didn't forget about you.  I have been thinking and working on this in between work duties.

Basically,  reflective surfaces reflect the environment around them.   The shape of the object determines the image warping on its surface.  You have the under plane which reflects ground and you have top side reflecting sky and other objects around it.

In this example, basic no ref chrome like surface colors, I just think of basic dirt for ground, sky for top and the darker center is distant landscape, maybe mountains that all warp with the shape of the object.
Then add a specular light or hilight - the sun that is directional or brightest at one end of object.

Easy way is to use references to give us a big clue as to how the image wraps around the form.

 In a more complicated form, like a human you still break it down into smaller basic egg shapes, or organic shapes with corners.

Notes for Oliver

Hi Oliver,

I was able to create some notes on these 2 creatures and thought I 'd post them as I consider the others.

Most of the notes are on integrating the forms through the big gesture and creating variations in spacing of the forms.

For this one,  I think exploring bug references and then riffing off of them - Exaggerating the shapes,
streamlining and integrating forms, variation in shape sizes and checking the overall big flow or gesture can push initial ideas.
Look at the mandibles and see the practical design they have to carry, cut, defend.  Incorporate them into your designs.  Same with body.  Shell, passive defense  in armor.

Once the process begin with references, it gets to be fun to redesign your critters.   :]

Little Bit on Posing your Characters

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd post a few guides on balance, stance and posing for characters.

In terms of attitude, poses work better, look more natural when the weight is shifted unevenly.  I found some nice examples of a relaxed, yet, non static poses in these actors and some fashion models.

Andrew Loomis on Composition

Character Design Notes

There are distinctions in character types that help separate your lineup.  A good place to start is with understanding male and female types.  It’s very important to understand your characters construction.  What is the body type as well as individual qualities? What adjectives come to mind - Heavy, lumbering, light, long, curvy?

Whatever type, they ALL have construction. This construction is going to be valuable in posing your character and adding attitude.  

Creating creatures is easier if you start with big basic shapes first.

 Begin with these and then combine 2 of them for head and body or modify one of them by cutting into the big shape with smaller shapes.  Just remember to keep it simple. 

Examples by Melissa Van Der Paardt, Nico Martet

If you're having trouble coming up with designs,  combine animals, maybe 2-3, but, make only one animal element dominant. 

If you are going for more realistic designs, than construction is super important.   Consider how the character or creature will walk or climb or fly.  Use animal elements and deconstruct how the limbs or wings work in real life. Afterwards, simplify your shapes!  It will only make your designs more solid and interesting.

Remember those simple forms?  The concept of flow directions, like the human abstraction forms can be used for critter design as well.

Examples of great shape design by various artist.  The best way to learn how these character designers did such great designs is to deconstruct their forms.  What's the simplest forms they started with, how did they break these up, etc? 

Stacking Forms - Head/Face

Hi everyone,

I've used the head to show how stacking forms work.   The 3 main forms can be pulled, stretched and combined to create types even before you drop in any features.  This is where the strength of any character lies - In it's shape and silhouette.  Features are mostly decoration.

Applying this idea can help design a characters qualities.

The different facial characteristics can be simplified into basic face shapes.  Square, Triangle, Circle and combinations of these. Any character you start with has a type.

The Reilly Abstraction is an advanced form of this idea and uses rhythms to relate the structure and muscle forms across the face.