Designing a character is a tricky task. It requires great detail and focus. If you are designing an existing character, it won’t take a long time because you have all the details available. However, when it comes to designing a character from scratch, with no reference or details, you have to put in extra efforts and long hours to complete it.
When you look at some of the popular characters, like Mickey Mouse, you might notice how their design is simple. The character designs look simple because they are developed in a way that to save the production time. They may look easy and simple to draw, but their design idea took long hours to be developed.
When you need to design a character for a game, cartoon or any visual material, you need to design a character that looks simple and won’t take a long time to be drawn again and again. For this, you must develop the concept of their design first. The process of character designing doesn’t start by sketching. It rather starts with research and studying the details. Here are the steps by step guide to developing the basic concept of character design.
Researching
When you are creating a character from scratch, you need to find some inspiration for that. The best source of inspiration is nature. For example, if you are creating a tiger or some character like that, you must know everything about them. You should start your research by observing the real thing, instead of going to the books.
Study
Part of your research should be to study the character. In the case of a tiger, if you want to create a character based on that, you must also study the anatomy of a tiger. To create the design, you must have a complete understanding of the underlying structure. By studying anatomy, like facial structure and other parts, you can create the character from any pose or angle.
Draw The Character
Once you have a good idea of the character, now is the time to start experimenting with the design. Start drawing your character in different poses and with different expressions. Don’t settle for the design unless you are sure that the character you have designed goes well with its story setting and the world it will be part of, even if you have to throw out hundreds of sketches for that. Don’t forget that the final design of your character is simple enough to be drawn in a relatively shorter time to save the production time.