Tips for Better Character Designs

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[carmenkat]

Personally, I struggle with character wardrobe. I find it hard finding styles that suit the characters and their surroundings. The only ones I find easy are modern ones, or designed based off modern clothing, anything from a different era or world/setting though? pure struggle

[domithepotato]

Besides my lack of knowledge on fashion and same face syndrome I think a main issue for me is that I always have that one character in a story that I hyper focus on, like their entire personality, backstory, interests, all of that. Most of the time it’s not even the main character of my stories 😅 Then I struggle to match the same energy I had with the rest of my characters so I feel like they end up being boring.

[TuesdaysArt]

When you mentioned the visual shorthand thing, I KNEW you were going to bring up the "nerd wears glasses" trope. Where's our dumbass with glasses representation?

[rinarina]

I remember on one stream you told me my villain looked like a nice guy. I'm glad I know how to make him look evil now but I ended up just actually making him a nice guy 😅

[desert_to_glass]

These videos are like special podcasts to me. I’ve never even worked on a comic and I don’t plan to but there’s something so nice about just listening

[atakji_art]

especially the part where you said "How would they wear their uniform differently from other characters" is such a good thought! Like, they can all wear different colored shirts AND they probably wear them all differently - one might wear it as a crop top, one tucked their shirt in, one might wear it 3 sizes too big, one tied a knot in the front, another one drew on the shirt...
so many ways to give them more personality, I really love that "thought experiment"! I'm just sitting here, thinking about how people can just wear one piece of clothing in different ways 🤭 gerat video❤

[Frickity_]

I struggle with re-drawability from the perspective of I don't always want to draw, and I don't know how to be satisfied with anything less that a fully lined, shaded and highlighted portrait

[jraqn]

i struggle most with dressing my characters. I have a hard time striking a balance between simplicity and complexity with outfits. When i draw an outfit from imagination, i usually default to a simple pants and t shirt, and i struggle to add visual interest and personality to their outfits, but when i do look up references or ideas I end up making them so complicated theyre hard to replicate. I want each of characters to look and feel unique but but not too unique if that makes sense

[harrietmfofficial]

Oh MAN, trying to get my friends/family to critique character designs is the worst. I always show them and they always say, "it looks good!" and when I ask them to elaborate or tell me anything to improve on, they just say, "no, it looks great!" ._.

[kttylvvrs]

my biggest flaw is diversity if im being honest. usually my characters have similar noses, face shape, body sizes, and ive also realized i kinda draw the same hair over and over again.

i want to stick to a more cartoony-leaning style, while also having my characters not look like the same person over and over again LOL, so i tried tweaking little things. her lips are smaller, make her chin more square, their noses are bigger, make those characters eyes little circles, and make the others have normal eyes.

i wanted to have some traits belong to certain characters to show relationships yk? like maybe they have the same hair, nose and eyes cause they’re related, maybe those three share similar motifs cause their pasts are connected, things like that yk?

but in doing this, i feel like it all makes my style look SUPER inconsistent?? and that little thought just annoys me when im trying to make every character look a little different while also all connected

[my_girl_seraphine]

I am a blind writer who wants to make a comic book, but the problem with those things is I have no idea what human faces look like so trying to picture a person in my head is almost impossible. Half the time I’m imagining an anime character, orange, An animal, because those are the things I know.

[cecilbrews]

I second the recomendation of Araki's book XD
Personally I think he is crazy, the amount of details he imagines for his characters, even for those that maybe appear or just one episode or two is insane XD
But it is a very good read, super inspiring and even if one won't apply all his methods you still will learn a lot.

Also, I personally struggle with my characters clothes and style, I try to get inspiration going out and watching what cool people wear because I'm very basic and my characters usually end up wearing the same lame clothes than me XD

[erinray]

1. Visual design should represent their personality
2. The style choice for the overall story
3. Shape and color language/association
4. Motif(s)

Once you have the design, how to evaluate it
- Get someone else's eyes on your character (a few people, preferably)
1. Ask their impressions of their personality, role in the story
2. Then give what your goal with the character was, and get more feedback with that context
3. If you make any edits, take the updated designs back to your feedback partners

Draw 4 quarters
- Do they all feel like the same character?

Compare to rest of cast
- Body type, height, costuming, colors
- Want them to be from the same world but also diverse


Ask, can you push their design further?
- Without going overboard
-- Ex. "Trait" amped up
-- Ex. If the cast all were to wear the same uniform, how would they style it?

Question visual shorthand
- Creates more realistic worlds
-- Ex. Glasses on nerdy characters
-- Ex. Initial drafts always white and thin

Inspiration
- Travel
- Different media
- Detailed backstories (relationships, viewpoints, etc.)

Finally
- Pull back and simplify your design
- You will be drawing them over and over again

[pokichuuuu]

With character design something I struggle with is coming up with ways to make a group of characters cohesive while keeping each character unique. I have come up with some solutions but they’re all really one the nose.
For example one of my stories involves a group of five main characters on a spaceship, and they’re “uniform” is a jacket. They all wear it differently. The main characters are all different species as well. Two of the characters have four arms, one of them ripped off the sleeves and some below while the other cut holes below the sleeves for the second pair of arms, as an example of how they wear it differently.
But again that is very on the nose and I feel like there is more I can do to make these characters’ designs fit together even more, while keeping them unique.

[juliarose]

Age, body type, and ethnicity is def areas I struggle in character design. Absolutely a reflection of the media I grew up watching/reading and also how homogeneous my surroundings have been for alot of my life, def something to work on and improve. I find body type esp hard as someone who is not tht great at drawing ppl (I'm a writer first and foremost, artist 2nd), alot of resources on how to draw ppl is just kinda this one body type with averaged or very small proportions, and alot of my characters have been with me for a long time and reflect my limited and flawed teenage worldview lol.

[notmaycody]

recently, im truly learning that less can be more. 've always made art ppl didnt get. that was work to get. and, almost snottily, i thought that was the point of art. to pour over it. realizing that's, at least, not how you get things out there. maybe one day ill be some artistic master, but its true - work in the 'classics, ' whatever that is to you, first. less can simply mean fewer ingredients. sometimes the 'ingredients' of a work isnt what u think it is. thought of this when u brought up color and shape language. all that to say, some old adages are right: less is more. thanks

[Lonely_Raven_]

My main struggle is that i tend to make them be just one thing (one color, one element, ect) instead of making them more complex. Like jojo has characters whos name is diamond and they are made of gold and usd electric energy and that wear purple and green (thats not accurate to the show im just using that as an example) whereas i have characters whose name is Asher Rubis who wears red suits and has red hair and red scars and a reddish tint to his skin and fire powers of course, the list goes on

[fernmist]

12:47 what if they're not from the same universe? 😭 my world is built around multiple characters from different universes

[mintytrash]

My favorite character design that I made is a punk aesthetic character. His unique clothing choices show him being an oppositional force to the status quo of a relatively conservative town where he lives. Not to mention the high contrast of his pale skin and dark clothing/hair and his asymmetrical design adds a lot of visual interest and makes any image of him incredibly satisfying to look at. I struck character design gold with him imo. I even managed to sneak a few pop culture references into his design like Green Day, MCR, even a Persona reference.

[endgame]

I remember in one of my early concepts for a character she was literally monotone (black and white filter basically) because she was trapped in a place called the void and in the story, she had the color literally drained from her but whenever she'd get emotional she would flash color kinda like how color pallets add mood. So whenever she got mad her color pallet turned red and vibrant to visualize how emotional she was, but I scrapped it cause it got a little difficult to keep that character design especially with all the details so I simplified it so that just her skin was monotone and sometime in like drawings with alot of expression or action she would have these spikes of color going off her (the story she's in is dark fantasy so I thought it'd be cool)