Character Design

(Creating Character Concept Art)

Lessons:

Concept art for character design is the initial visual exploration of a character’s appearance, personality, and role within a story or world. It involves creating rough sketches, designs, and mood boards to explore different looks, outfits, and expressions, helping to establish the character's identity. Concept art serves as a blueprint for final designs, offering a creative foundation for animators, illustrators, and other artists to build upon in the development of the character, including outfit layers, jewelry, accessories, hairstyles, and other design details.

Through a series of detailed sketches and color explorations, you will craft a character that evolves; reflecting their environment, background, and purpose.

WHERE TO START

Artists creating concept art for character design have to carefully consider every aspect of the design. This could include:

Cultural/Regional Influences - Where is the character from? What kind of traditional wear comes from this location? What is the weather like?

Skills/Combat/Powers - Video games, anime, and other art styles offer a look into the fictional, with fantasy or sci fi elements. What kind of weapon does the character use? Is it associated with something like fire, water, lightening, etc? How does this effect the characters outfit? For example an archer might carry a quiver, or a swordsman might have a sheath.

Color Schemes - Just by glancing at a characters color pallet, an artist gets a glimpse into the personality of the character. Pastels may feel more soft and child-like, while dark, cool colors show a moodiness.

ONCE YOU KNOW YOUR CHARACTER...

After an artist has concepts of WHO the character is, it's time to put the "concept" into art. Many games or cartoons have a specific art style or template for how the character will look. This is to keep the art style across the medium. For example, to the right is a "base" body to build up from. This is often done in a "T-pose" from multiple angles to fully showcase every aspect of the character design.

You will be choosing one of 5 options as your characters "base" body, then building layers of the outfit, adding designs, colors, weapons, accessories, and more to build the character and bring it to life. As depicted below, this process can take many attempts until the character is just right.

ASSIGNMENTS

SKETCHBOOK: Character Design

In your sketchbook, start writing ideas about your character. Include things such as:

Where is the character from?

What are their hobbies?

What kind of weapon do they have? Bow, dagger, staff, spell-book, something else like a rake or a paintbrush?

What kind of powers do they have?

What does the character look like?

What is their personality like?

What colors could reflect this?

What other physical or personality traits does your character have?

Once you've brainstormed your character, create 2 rough drafts in your sketchbook. This art should be influenced by research of clothing from a specific place.