What part do you focus on most? Does the body or the theme come into your mind or does it slowly flow onto the canvas?
For me it's typically the head, I try to give each of my main OCs a very different hair and face from another character
it randomizes for me. Its either clothes first, hair first, or face first
hmm almost always i make character designs based on a singular trait i really want to see (for example, "ah i want to see a character who has a harness with wings on it" "i want to see a character dressed like a nun" "i want to have a character with rabbit ears") and basing the rest of the design around what looks good paired together with that "core concept" so to speak
If I’m designing a character for my stories then I usually think of a personality first, and then I dive into the designing based around that personality.
If I’m just making a character design for funsies, I usually let my subconscious do the deciding. I just draw, and a character suddenly appears.
Wacky characters and groovy patterns
Response to What is your approach to character design? 2023-11-23 00:09:14 (edited 2023-11-23 00:10:35)
I went over my general design philosophy, but I'll explain how it specifically applies to characters:
"Conceptualization, Clarity, Cohesion."
-Present ideas clearly: Designs in some way communicate the purpose, abilities and personality of a character purely through visuals. A design is not just drawing for drawing's sake; if anything superficial needs to be verbally explained or sends the wrong message, that's an area of weakness within that design. The trademark of an unsuccessful design is when the designer feels the need to pair their designs with paragraphs of exposition.
-Connect all coherent concepts within a character's design to their broader context, meaning to their environment and to other characters. Let characters exist in a world that suits them and matches their design language. By the same token, environments ought to feel lived in by the characters in question. Let one's design inform and deepen the designs of everything else.
For example, I've got an ensemble of characters that are part of the same military group; their uniforms are all similar, but I bet you can accurately (more or less) detect differences in rank and specialty without me telling you what they are.
When it comes to world building, those shapes and motifs need to be carried forward somehow. If each of these characters has their own personalized fighter jet, those jets should say something about their pilot in a way that harmonizes with the character design. It all needs to flow together.
For me, the easiest way to draw a character is to get every their entire body drawn first, then colour it in later. However, I favour realism, so I tend to choose colours that fit the character logically (like human skin colour).
Typically I try to think about the design in my head. Then I draw it out and iterate over time. Sometimes I have trouble committing to a trait and have to remind myself that I can do whatever I want with it.
For my characters its usually one trait, typically their headwear, and I design from there. I try to keep my designs simple enough to where if I wanted to draw them from memory I could.
I always think of one aspect of the character to shine through, specifically something to make the silhouette
For example, a cloaked character or a character with wings, something that defines their physical shape. From there, any other aspect I add is for the purpose of segmenting the character or drawing attention to specific features. For example, giving them a scarf to draw more attention to the head area
I generally stick to simple designs and try not to go beyond more than 3 or 4 major features to a character. So I usually end up with something for the body shape, some kinda accessory, something to draw attention to the face and something extra I think would look good
Depends. If I'm designing a character for the purposes of just the one drawing my decision-making will be entirely based around filling the space in whatever strikes me as the most fun manner. If it's a character for a setting I may have a lot if creative work done before I ever get around to designing the character in question e.g. this character is this species and works/lives here so they should be approximately this shape and wear some variant of this, after which point filling in the space with whatever fits their vibe is usually simple enough. Sometimes they'll just pop into my head mostly fully-formed though.
pettanko rights activist
yo, like, look at my wizards, my dudebrah, they could be cool or something iunno
Response to What is your approach to character design? 2023-11-23 15:23:32 (edited 2023-11-23 15:23:46)
For me, it would be the face. Since it's the first part I draw when I do a character.
Check out my stuff.
At 11/22/23 03:12 PM, VanVeleca wrote: What part do you focus on most? Does the body or the theme come into your mind or does it slowly flow onto the canvas?
For me it's typically the head, I try to give each of my main OCs a very different hair and face from another character
Typically I like to focus on my characters' personalities and then make their physical appearance give off the same feelings that their personalities do.
I don't usually try to base them off of real creatures other than cats, rabbits, or snakes. If I make a character with a more unique personality than essentially it's "species" will be more unique looking.
T H E 1 9 9 0 ' S
For me is usually a concept that morphs itself over the way.
Take for example Kinbari.
When I created her, it started as a simple fairy so I had an "easy" excuse for bondage situations. However, when I began to add context to the comic she first appeared from, she looked like a psychopath, so I decided to go that way with her design. Some other things happened and she ended the way she ended.
Being 100% alive means taking a 50% of actions and having a 50% of perspective
Face and hair first. If the hair and face alone are easy to memorize then I think it's a success so the character will still feel and look the same even if you change the outfit. I do want to make the default outfit of the character be memorable too of course.
Look at him spin
I like me some consistency since I'm gonna use them for my webcomic so first I create a template based on lore. Afterwards I tweaked it depending on their character then finally their physical appearance so I can tell them apart.
I usually focus more on my head, it might be simple, yet I always ruin it, so I had to make a perfect head for my original character.
The face and hair (mostly short) is something that really catches my attention and it is my main focus, sometimes some features in the body, such as tails, ears, horns, or other stuff like earings and glasses.
For clothing I always take baddie teenager-like clothing, jeans is a thing that I love to keep in the designs!
I just doodle random shit until I see something I like. then doodle that one thing over and over again until I it looks really cool!!!
GRR <-- that's my signature
Pretty ironic how I draw cowboys even though I'm First nations ;)
I either make them cool, cute, or a mix between.
I often stick with big heads and stubby proportions, because I like adorable little characters. I love to give them unique and odd clothes, hairstyles, and accessories.
One of my key rules to design is to avoid a character looking generic if they don't have at least one thing that makes them stand out in a crowd it's a scrapped design.
I take way too many liberties lots of the times and I usually end up with some pretty abstract looking creatures that have no descript species.
But I guess little whatchamacallits is my niche.
I usually first focus on the color, especially if the character is supposed to be in a dynamic with someone else.
For example, I use similar colors to show alignment of characters, for example my characters Sarah and Red both share orange color in their clothing to showcase that they're aligned.
Other times I use dynamic opposites for characters, my character Britt uses predominantly blue colors, hence his friend could use predominantly orange (a trick you can see in Adventure time, regular show, Amazing world of gumball, ect.)
Then there are characters that I just design as I sketch, most full armor designs by me are made that way, But coloring them later becomes a pain in the butt. I also try to make their silhouettes very distinguishable by giving them unique shapes, be it a cylinder head or a uniquely shaped skull.
A cool test you can do is placing their silhouette in a crowd and see if they can be easily seen and if you can tell which direction they currently face
I still struggle with more realistic human designs though, especially faces as I had come to drawing them very samey in my style, So i try using other methods to make them unique while i fix that problem.
