Character Design / Exercises

21/4/2025 - 30/7/2025/ Week 1 - Week 14

GUAN YAXIN / 0370687

Character Design / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

LECTURES

Week 1

artistic style

Is the style of art generally refers to the appearance of visual art works. Artists usually use distinctive brushwork and composition to highlight their understanding on the screen by artistic means and show their own style. Different artists' styles will leave people with different feelings. In visual arts, style is shaped by the environment, closely related to personal experience, history, culture, technology, tools, etc., and it is classifiable and recognizable, which can represent a person, a faction or even a period, etc. At the same time, it is also a visual language, which can show different emotions, perceptions, ideas and opinions of creators, and they are all displayed on the canvas.

Common styles:

realistic–semi realistic style

Japanese manga style

Super Deformation-Chibi

Animation / manga / manhua style

Stylized Cartoon style

Adaptability Artist skill

Adaptability is a useful skill for artists, because it is very important to be able to adapt and change their own styles accordingly. For example, some games tend to be realistic artistic styles, while others tend to be exaggerated artistic styles such as cartoons.

Week 2

World outlook construction

Is the process of constructing a fictional world view, including culture, history and so on. The set characters will live in this world view, and they can choose from favorite books, cartoons, comics, games and so on, or they can be set overhead, even if they look like the world we live in. The construction of world outlook is the basis of concept.

approaches

approach 1：Inside-Out Method

Suitable for existing role setting, theme or plot assumption, etc.

There need to be some premises, and the subsequent settings are based on these premises, and at least one or two key functions should be realized, which will affect the construction of the remaining elements in the world view. Start with the needs of the story, and then continue to clarify the setting and core.

approach 2：Outside-In Method

It is suitable for the time when a relatively perfect world view (including geography, culture, history, etc.) has been built, but the characters and plots have not been conceived.

With a general framework, further design is carried out on the basis of this framework to create more and more details (such as role setting, plot conception, etc.)

Key elements of world building

1) location/geography

Based on medieval fantasy

Based on modern Tokyo

Fantasy based on the future

2) character

race

dress

disposition

interpersonal relationship

Every world has some kind of political structure, which takes care of and governs people, shapes their way of life, maintains social operation and so on. This helps to determine the role's identity, behavior motivation and promote the development of the story and so on.

1) Government:

Power holders: aristocrats, churches, chaebols, etc. The group that holds the system power may control its government.

Political system: constitutional monarchy, federalism, corporate governance, consortium dictatorship and so on.

Legal system:

2) Religion:

Most cultures believe in one or two major religions and influence the overall cultural laws and social norms. Setting up religion can start with law, doctrine, style and so on.

social bracket

Different social classes have a great influence on people's lives and can shape a variety of people.

1) Division:

Classes are generally divided according to certain factors, such as blood, financial resources, magic and so on. Different classes may be mobile or fixed.

2) Food & Drink:

Food and drink, as necessities, can significantly reflect the class differences, which can be reflected by setting food types, food sources, eating habits, taboos and so on.

3) Professions:

By setting different occupational categories and showing the differences between them, we can show different occupations in different classes and show different positions, such as miners, mages, traders and so on.

4) Appearances:

Clothing is the most intuitive way to reflect social structure and economic differences, which can be reflected in materials, colors, patterns and fashion styles.

history

History can enrich the setting of world outlook and influence the plot and characterization of stories.

1) Traumatic Events:

Disasters generally cause direct damage and have a great impact on society and culture. Traumatic events are generally divided into man-made disasters and natural disasters. When constructing these events, we can consider whether they have an impact on the life, ideas, habits and so on of the characters.

2) Power Shifts:

The change of rights will generally lead to the division and reorganization between groups and affect the social structure.

culture

Culture can influence people's values, forms of entertainment and so on.

1) Power:

There is a power structure or power base in the cultural environment, which can be arranged from the aspects of race, gender and class.

2) Art and Entertainment:

Art and entertainment forms are usually derived from the influence of society and are one of the channels to show culture, such as music, painting, dance and so on.

3) Relations:

In a world view, there may be different cultures, and different cultures have different ideas. Setting different cultures to treat each other's views or designing conflicts can enrich the story and make the characters more vivid.

technology

Technology is also a common and necessary element in the setting of world outlook, which can reflect the level of science and technology in a certain area and people's living conditions. The difficulty of design technology lies in the self-consistency of logic, so its complexity is high, such as the power that technology relies on, who invented it, how to use it, what to do with it and so on.

magic

It is not a necessary element, but in some world outlook settings, it may be as high as using or dabbling in magic box technology. Magic has a great influence on life, class and so on. In the settings related to magic, it is generally necessary to consider the people who use magic, props, how to produce, how to use and how to express it.

Week 3

Role type

Protagonist: The central figure of any story, usually an advocate with an idea or a cause, can promote the development of the main plot. The story will revolve around the struggle of the protagonist or the protagonist group.

Antagonist: Generally speaking, one or some people who are completely opposite to the protagonist or an event or organization that struggles with the protagonist or the protagonist group (the force opposite to the protagonist) represents something or wants to achieve a certain goal, and often appears as the opposite to defeat the ambition of the protagonist (the protagonist group).

Symbolic Character: it implies symbolism from the aspects of name design or background story, and generally represents something, an idea, a belief or ideal, morality, ethics, religion and other abstract concepts.

Confidante: Generally, it will be used as a "tool" to explain a character's personality, thoughts or reveal the protagonist's heart, so as to help the audience better understand one or some characters.

Dynamic Character: There are great changes before and after the story. At the beginning, it is a type of person, and at the end, it may be another opposite person. Generally, it has undergone obvious changes and is often accompanied by growth arcs. Some events in the story will affect the characters and lead to some changes, and this change is generally permanent. This type of role often plays a useful role as a foil or implies tension and conflict.

Flat Character: usually a supporting role (or NPC), with few stories and relatively simple personality, most of them serve the plot (meet the needs of the plot) or set off a role or a phenomenon.

Round Character: Contrary to the flat character, the story is full of ink, and the general character is more complicated, with obvious growth and changes.

Foil: Generally, it is used as a contrast to set off another character. They can be allies or competitors, and play a role in the story.

Static Character: almost no characterization is a character who keeps a certain state. It is similar in the whole story, and there is almost no growth and change.

Stock Character: Generally, it is a stylized, typed and stereotyped character, which plays a role in attracting the audience. These tagged characteristics will make them easier to be recognized, or promote the plot, etc., which can be exaggerated in animation.

Role design method

Creative mode

Design the story first, and design the role on the basis of the story.

Design the role first, and then build the background story based on the role.

Step

Research: Conduct information research according to the relevant information of the generated ideas or designed roles.

Observation: Observe, summarize and sort out some elements to facilitate the subsequent role design.

Inspiration: Through the previous research and integration of some fragmentary inspiration

Mood board: Collect enough information or references according to requirements and integrate them logically and regularly. Visually, it often appears in the form of a collage, which helps designers to define the correct and consistent road and complete a better final design.

Silhouettes + Sketches: Draw a rough draft for the role according to the previous creativity or preparation, provide a concise visual presentation, and create a variety of character silhouettes.

Detailing: Refine the existing draft to make the whole character more refined and clear.

Design variations: Compare different design changes, and select the final line draft for subsequent improvement.

Color Studies: According to the original design, the colors are matched to meet the needs of the role background, personality, core and so on.

Pose Variations:Design different dynamics. The dynamic changes of roles can better reflect their personality characteristics.

Final design (final): Complete the detailed and dynamic final design.

Character Silhouette

Character silhouette is an intuitive embodiment of character appearance design, and excellent and highly recognizable character design can be identified from silhouette.

All silhouette figures can be reduced to basic shapes-circle, triangle and square/rectangle.

Function:

Quickly generate inspiration or ideas.

Increase the recognition of the role (improve the readability of the role)

Show the action and personality characteristics of the character (cute, mysterious, strong, etc.)

Week 4

Role design skills and creativity generation

10 Role Character Skills

1 Limit the Colors

Under normal circumstances, the color matching of characters with excellent design is generally within three kinds, which can improve the recognition and effectively avoid the confusion of color matching.

2 Be Inspired

For character design, there should be a theme or a clear idea, and the later continuous improvement (such as hairstyle, face, characteristics and posture, clothing and accessories, etc.) should serve these central ideas (such as the personality traits of the characters)

3 Give Your Character Distinctive Shape

Shape is a "visual clue" of character extension, and it is also one of the aspects to distinguish the characteristics of characters. Personalize their body shapes according to their personalities and main characteristics. Such as agile personality = thinner body, bulky role = bigger and heavier.

4 Keep Your Design Simple

No matter how complicated the character design is, we should pay attention to its decomposability and keep it simple. The character design should be easily decomposable, which is beneficial to the subsequent multi-angle drawing.

5 Make Sure You are Able to Draw Them Again

Draw different gestures and angles of the role to highlight the unique personality of the role.

6 Exaggerate Your Character Design

According to the personality of the characters, we can exaggerate their postures, facial expressions and so on, which can enhance the characteristics of the characters and make them easy for the audience to identify their key features.

7 Make Them Expressive

Facial expression is the key to convey the psychological state of characters. Expressive expressions can show a character's psychology or personality.

8 Accesorize! Put details on your character

Accessories on people are one of the key elements to supplement people's information, which can provide certain background information (experience, occupation, etc.)

9 Use Colors to Reflect Their Personality

The color matching of characters is generally consistent with the character or role orientation, but there are often contrasts.

10 Make your Character Unique

Emphasize the uniqueness and uniqueness of characters, strengthen their characteristics (facial features, body shape, posture, scars, etc.) and create a complete and special character image.

Role design process

Clarify the types of design roles-portray the characters' personalities-seek inspiration and find corresponding references such as posture, expression, clothes, etc.-draw sketches-determine the final design-refine.

Week 6

1.Foreshortening (perspective shortening)

Definition: It is a visual illusion technique that makes the foreground object bigger and the background object smaller.

Function: generally used to enhance the sense of dynamic and spatial depth.

Step 2 perspective

A little perspective: used in a direct perspective (such as a railway).

Two-point perspective: used for angle perspective (such as building corner).

Three-point perspective: used for overlooking/looking up at high and low angles.

3. Drawing suggestions on human perspective

Through the multi-angle (low angle/top view/side view) drawing exercises for the characters, the ability to control the human body dynamics is improved.

Use dynamic lines (C-curve, S-curve, straight line, etc.) to describe the human body dynamics, which can better show the figure's posture and increase the structural tension. We can try to assist the description of muscles and clothes based on skeleton composition.

Animation and comics generally exaggerate the proportion of characters in real life, but their proportion should be reasonable, so it is very important to refer to them. Observing and imitating from physical photos and dynamic composition is very important to improve the ability of capturing and depicting actions.

Week 7

Composition is an artistic skill to arrange various elements in the picture purposefully, so as to tell stories, strengthen themes, guide the line of sight and enhance visual aesthetics.

1 composition

The visual center of gravity and story focus are determined by arranging the positions of different elements in the picture. A good composition can express emotions, at the same time, it can reflect a certain sense of story and attract the attention of the audience.

2. Composition skills (how to reflect the sense of story)

A good illustration should be able to clearly show the role interaction, the location of the event, the overall atmosphere and convey certain emotions.

Common narrative forms: role relationship (such as the direct interaction between the protagonist and the villain, the battle between the hero and the villain, and the reaction of the onlookers, etc.), emotional expression (emotions), role ability and personality display, and scene introduction (such as the professional family photo of the game).

3. Detailed explanation of composition elements:

A. （Balance）

Symmetrical balance: the left and right visual weights are the same (often used for solemn and stable pictures)

Asymmetric balance: the left and right visual weights are inconsistent, but there is tension in overall coordination.

B. （Contrast）

Make use of the differences in color, light and shade, shape, size and material to create focus, so as to form a clear distinction between roles and backgrounds, and between primary and secondary characters.

C. （Proportion）

By adjusting the size of different elements or the proportion in the picture, the characteristics are emphasized or the exaggerated style is realized.

D. Rhythm

By using repeated visual elements (such as lines, colors, shapes, etc.) to create a sense of visual flow, the audience can be guided to a certain part of the picture, such as key characters or action centers.

E. （Rule of Thirds）

Used to enhance the attractiveness of the overall composition. The screen is divided into nine grids, and key elements are placed at intersections or lines.

F. （Leading Lines）

Guide the eyes to focus, and use linear elements such as roads, buildings and arms to give direction or emotional flow to the actions of characters.

G. （Golden Ratio）

It can create a harmonious visual effect, and it is a classic composition ratio in art (1:1.618), which is often used to construct the focus and make it present a natural distribution.

H. （Foreshortening）

Follow the rule that the near is big and the far is small, and enhance the three-dimensional sense and tension of the picture through the perspective drawing method of the front is big and the rear is small, reflecting the movement and showing the impact force.

I. （Color Theory）

Emphasize the principle of "background depresses saturation and foreground brightens". It is necessary to understand the relationship between different colors and improve the rationality of color matching. In the aspect of character design, different colors will emphasize the different personalities of the characters (for example, warm colors generally represent enthusiasm, while cool colors generally represent calmness).

INTRODUCTION

Exercise

Week 1：Draw the same figure with different styles

Week 2：Human body sketch exercise

Week 3：Character silhouette practice

Week 4：Role design exercise

Week 5：Character expression practice

Week 6：Human perspective exercise

REFLECTION

Experience

During the process of completing the exercise, I felt a clear sense of purpose and specificity. Their direction is clear and can help us improve our drawing ability in a certain part. So in the future learning process, I should also pay attention to thinking and setting goals and plans, clarify the theme, which may help me improve myself more efficiently.

Observation

These painting exercises are also necessary for us. They are themed, targeted, gradual, and closely related to the courses and tasks we learn. Students also need to take them seriously. And more painting practice can improve painting skills.

Findings

Sketching the human body is very important for grasping the structure, dynamics, and other aspects of the human body, and it is also the simplest and most effective way to improve one's ability to depict the human body. However, it is definitely necessary to practice more and improve efficiency.

Painting is not solely based on intuition, but rather has clear theoretical knowledge. Sometimes it may be similar to science subjects such as mathematics, but if these knowledge are clearly understood and flexibly applied, it can be very helpful for improving the level of painting. Once integration can be achieved, progress may be faster.