- Because words inspire visuals, starting with a story
ignites the first ideas for developing characters.
Once you have some basic descriptions or ideas
about your character and the world they come from,
it's time to explore who your character is through drawing.
When Nick Kole is developing a character,
some of his favorite moments have come from
talking deeply with writers about their characters
to better understand the motivation
and purpose in a story.
When sketching, he generally starts with a face
as the focal point of a character.
He feels that getting a sense of a personality
through expression and facial features
is his guiding star for the rest of the design.
In these sketches for television animation,
he tries many different head shapes and expressions,
and leaves the early stage of his drawing
loose and expressive before his final color finish.
For him, the first step of any design after that
is understanding the character's context
or environment, and gathering reference
that provides the most elegant solutions.
This example, from the web comic "Dawngate Chronicles"
shows a series of loose sketches,
referencing a fish for the costume.
Nick refines a sketch further to clarify
the overall shape, then adds color to finish the look,
still referencing the color of coral for the fish.
Notice he takes note to remind himself
of certain characteristics of the costume
that are important to the character's personality.
Carlos Grangel does a lot of note-taking
when discussing a new project for an animation
with the director and producer.
His process starts by sketching very rough shapes
in pencil, then using black ink or color
to finalize the figures.
When Carlos goes deeper into the characters' details,
he retains the overall shape, and further
fleshes out the personality of the evil, pompous genius
by exaggerating specific facial features
and costume details.
His expression tells us instantly that he's up to no good
in this example of Dracula from "Hotel Transylvania."
The proportions of a large chest and small feet
suggest a puffed up personality
resting on a less than sturdy base.
Notice that Carlos, like Nick, make notes all the time
of the details he's considering for fleshing out
the personality of the Dracula he's developing,
testing facial shape, variations in costume,
and body proportion.
For Lesley Padien, the majority of the time
the script is in development stage
when she's brought on to start designing.
So she reads the character analysis
to understand as much about the character as she can.
The lead character drawings from the animation pitch
for Ben E. Banks shows that she starts out
with many small sketches, focusing on
the physical attributes of the face.
Notice that she tries different body types
for this character, as well as hair style,
head shape, and costume.
She explores options before settling on the one
that feels right and bringing it to a full color finish.
Starting with the back story or descriptions
and understanding the context of a character
is a great place to start.
Playing with variations in proportion, costume,
and overall shape are key to good design.
Keeping your sketches loose and full of expression,
and making plenty of notes before settling
on your final design, is absolutely essential.