4 Ways to Break the Character Design Rules

I’ve given out a fair share of neatly packaged Character Design tips in the past, but I thought it might be nice to look at a few concepts that break the rules, or at least, act as exceptions to commonly cited advice. Even advice I’ve given.

(one day late due to flu, look for future videos at 10AMEST Saturdays, twice a month!)

[a.j.morrow]

One of the things I enjoy about world building and character design, is that both concepts have the ability to inspire and build off of one another. Sometimes the world can flesh out a character's personality, sometimes a character can inspire a new place or area within the world.

[ClydeHomicide]

I used to follow the "disney" rule of Ugly being design shorthand for Evil and Beautiful being shorthand for Good.

Ditching that sentiment was the best choice I could have ever made.

[chocoholicbatloverstudios]

What I like to do when designing characters is give them a specific aesthetic that not only looks good on them, but also reflects parts of that character, such as their personality, backstory, etc. I honestly have not seen any artists give this advice before, which is surprising, because I believe that it helps a tremendous amount with character designing. Or at least it does for me, maybe I’m just speaking for myself right now.

[LePetitArtiste]

At the time, I didn’t know about the “character trio” thing where 1 character is round, the other one is more rectangular and the last one is sharper. I really couldn’t build good characters before learning the “character = certain shape = personality (sometimes)” trend, but now that I learnt it, I am much happier and my characters don’t look like a 6 year old’s drawings

[KarazolaYT]

One of the main characters in my story I'm working on, I realized that she has a trait that was very similar to Rey from the Star Wars sequels. She's an orphan who's mother suddenly disappeared within one night, and she has no idea why. She spends a good portion of the arc waiting within the city she was abandoned in, hoping that her mother will return. On paper, quite similar! However,

The identity of Rey's parents are a constant point of focus, and the story is focused on how much she is defined by them, and who they are (or aren't, in TLJ). I was wondering about what should actually have happened to the character's mother, because I hadn't really decided yet!

She ends up growing up as a street urchin in a busy city. She has to grow up without ever knowing why her mother went missing, holding onto a hope that she'd come back to find her. She's in denial about the situation she's in, because deep down, it's hard for her to imagine which possibility might be worse: That her mother was taken away and killed, or that she left her, completely out of the blue. It instills into two very important character flaws: She has very deep self-esteem issues, terrified of the idea that she's nothing. That she's not wanted. It makes her ultimate goal, to achieve importance in society and rise up from her remarkably poor upbringing. It also leads her to subconsciously seek out a maternal figure to fill that hole she has, something that will lead to her downfall, when finds that figure in a woman that she should not, and family within places she shouldn't.

So, I asked myself again, what happened to her mother? Where is her father? And it's simply not going to be a plot point. She is shaped into the person she becomes because of their absence, and the terrible uncertainty of why she was left alone. What happened to her mother will likely never be answered, even to just the reader, because the uncertainty of why they're gone is so much more crucial then where they went.

[kaleido]

Nuance and balance are definitely important. I am a huge fan of refinement and minimalism when it comes to quality art - but sometimes maximilism is what I want to make, and it's easy to overblow the scope. But as long as I remember the principles that I employ in my other art, making a big fancy project can still work.

[sylvanshroom]

The aimless iteration point is such a callout for me tbh, I find it's easy for me to think that if I iterate lots of times, surely it is doing the development of the design a service instead of it really being me noodling around an idea and not rly making decisions.

Awesome work as always brookes!!

[SirMasi]

I love hearing how to apply "textbook advice" under real-world conditions! This is a bit tangential, but I had to change my mindset before I realized how useful master-studies and style -breakdowns were. It felt like "cheating" or "plagiarism" to do it, but now I realize that it's more about understanding how other people solved their problems before trying to do so yourself. And it was fun to better understand why my favorite pieces worked so well.

[mintytrash]

Designing the characters and dreaming up their world is my favorite part of creating things! I need to work more on actually putting that design onto paper and setting the world up, though. Haha.
I'm more of a writer than a comic artist but drawing the characters and their turn arounds are still really helpful for even a work that is 100% words. Having the image next to you as you're writing about the characters allows you to visualize them better and go into more depth describing them or what they're doing.

[zenebean]

Been designing a ground sloth archivist character for my group's next campaign, and this is really helpful. The iterations trap has been a problem, but I think I'm getting close to what he should be

[Bealzabub]

One thing that I'll do regularly that I've been told is bad practice is cut apart some of my iteration sketches and Frankenstein them back together to see if I get anything interesting? It's led to some really interesting shape language that helps me push out of my comfort zone and more predictable silhouettes.

[AWE-Nessy]

Aibo are the creatures ever, and i do the aimless iteration a lot especially for some characters i do find myself throwing things at the wall and hoping it sticks hopefully future me will take your advice and apply it in the future

[aconithorn]

Loved the suggestion at 5:37. In my course we've just started studying shape and silhouette for character design, and I couldn't quite explain why I was not enjoying the exercises we were doing, otther than "it feels like too much brainstorming". This segment put it into words perfectly. It felt uncohesive and like my ideas were running away from each other. We probably need that brainstorming to learn at the moment, but now I know what to do further down the line. Great video as always

[bluedotdinosaur]

On your first tip, a common corollary to the advice "don't get bogged down in world building" is "world building should serve the story". World building isn't BAD. Even having a lot of it. Where people run into problems is world building for its own sake without purpose - this is where weighty cruft begins to accumulate. If world building serves the story, it's hard for it to become a detriment.

This dovetails with character design - where "design is the story". An inexperienced designer might spend time coming up with a list of things a fictional creature likes and dislikes or fictional words they use - which don't actually inform about the character! Just random attributes assigned to the design without purpose and revealing nothing ABOUT the design! Details that do not "tell a story".

Don't be afraid to world build when doing so tells a story about a character - this is how you end up with unique and non-derivative characters. A good example is the character of Omni-Man from the comic / animated series Invincible. Omni-Man, on the surface, is a purposefully generic reference to the Superman archetype. Even his name is as generic as possible! But why is he a good character design if he's so generic? Because of deep world building around him which serves the bigger story and tells a story about him. It makes him unique and all of it is essential in describing who and what he is - so none of it is cruft. (It would be a big spoiler to detail why he is not as generic as he first appears.)

[Story_paint]

Thank you for these. I’m always happy when you upload a new video. They’re entertaining, and i learn something.

[lasseel]

It's been awhile since your videos got recommended, perfect timing since I am working on a personal project of making my first two OCs.

[moms-pf]

7:08 is such a good tip cause most artists focus on the design and not the characters

[pinkinkNZ]

I always love when u post a vid and i hope ur doing well :)

[captainstroon]

Worldbuilding and iterating can both be endless rabbitholes. Very fun rabbitholes though. Rabbitholes I absolutely love to dig deeper and deeper into. Sadly all that digging can feel rather unrewarding and unproductive if my webcomic stays stuck on page 4.

[admiral_m_k]

I'm currently tackling some character design this week and so this is such a serendipitous video posted