There is no such thing as a good or a bad character design because whether a character design is considered good or bad is subjective as it depends on your judgement whether you like it or not. However, we can actually make our characters less boring and eye-catching! Curious and want to know how? Here are some things that you must pay attention to!
- Knowing what kind of character, you want to make
Before deciding what type of clothing your character is going to use or what colour you are going to use, you must know what kind of character you want to make. Knowing what kind of character you want to make will make it easier for you to design a character. For example: What is their personality? Where are they from? How old are they? What species are they? After gathering all the information that you need for your character, it will be easier for you to imagine how your character will look like. You can use it as the base. - References and rough sketch
After knowing what kind of character, you want to make, gather references as much as you need from various sources such as watching movies, read some books, going outside, and even talking to other people could help too! References helps a lot for triggering our brain to be more creative, so don’t be scared to look for a lot of references. After finding enough references, start making a lot of rough sketches. Right now, you are probably thinking why should you make more than one sketch? Can you just make one sketch? Yes, you can only make one sketch. However, if you make more than one sketch, you will be able to choose between one and another one! The more the sketches then there will be more options for you to choose which design you prefer more. - Colour palette
In my opinion, this part is pretty tricky but there are some tips for choosing the right colour palette for your character! The tips are to learn colour theory and to learn the psychological meaning of colours. There are 2 colour schemes that people usually use for designing a character and those 2 popular colour schemes are Analogous (side by side colours in colour wheel) and Complimentary (opposite colours in colour wheel). There are more than 2 colour schemes so don’t forget to do some more research. Don’t forget to learn the psychological meaning of colours too because each shade of colours has its own meaning. For example, the colour blue could represent both sadness and tranquillity, and the colour red could represent both anger and spirit. After understanding the psychological meaning of each colour, it could be easier for you to choose what colour to use to match your character’s personality. - Value
Colour value in a character also affects the whole design. With colour value, we could easily distinguish between the dark and the light colour present in a character. How to check the colour value is pretty simple, you just need to use the black and white filter to your character to see the value of the colour. - Silhouette
The shape of your character’s silhouette also affects how interesting and eye catching your character is. The more interesting the silhouette is, the more recognizable your character is. An interesting shape of the silhouette also means that your character has its own special traits! To check the shape of your character’s silhouette is to blackout the whole thing of your character. - Still recognisable after getting simplified
If people still aren’t able to recognise your character, that means your character lacks special traits. You are probably confused right now and wonder how to fix it; it is pretty simple! Add more interesting and memorable shapes. It could be the shape of the hair, accessories, face features, body shape, and more! With the special traits that your character has, it adds more characteristics and supports your character’s personality. The audience will also be able to identify and memorize your character if it has special traits. - Don’t be afraid to try something new and be free!
Maybe, while designing a character you might think that it would turn out weird if you add things that you are unfamiliar with, but that is actually fine. Be bold, try something new and be free. Just a little reminder that everyone has their own free will! And we must not waste it.
Other examples of the characters that I have designed before
It’s not a simple task to design a character, it will take a while and many trial and error. I, myself, always take my sweet time just to design a character. It’s either because it doesn’t really match my preferences or the design didn’t reach the goal that I’ve made. Usually, it took around 4 days at minimum for me to design a character.
Not only to design the character, but to get the ideas also could take a while. To find the ideas also not a very simple task too. We all often feel stuck while looking for some ideas, that’s why we need to get used to it by doing practices consistently. By doing practices consistently, we won’t struggle as much as if we don’t do any practise.To get used to designing a character also could take a while, how long it will take is depend on your skill and how often you practice. I learnt this by myself and it took a while to get used to designing a character, even so, I still have a lot of things that I need to figure out. You can also learn it by joining a drawing/designing class, there is a lot of drawing/designing classes nowadays.
Now you might be thinking that there is no benefit to learn how to draw and it makes you worry about the job opportunity, worry not! There is a lot of job positions for people who enjoys drawing/designing. You could work as a character designer in a game company, animation studio, and even a comic studio.
To wrap it all up, designing a character might be such a hassle at first but once you get a hang of it, it is going to be easier each time. So, to make a character’s design way more interesting is to know what are you going to make and don’t forget to do some practices. Have fun designing your character!