Hello Steemians !
Why is my character so ordinary ? Why does he not stand out ?
Have you ever asked yourself such questions ? If you do, let me give some insights and some tips (especially from mentors such as Dan Cooper (The Lion King) or Efflam Mercier (League Of Legends), you should definitely check their work)
If you feel your character lacks something, like personality, charisma or looks like just a piece of awesome artwork, these questions might have popped in your head.
Old drawing from 2013
How do you improve upon them ?
To my (limited) knowledge, these three domains are the ones to study in order to add that layer of soul for your creation :
- Shape Language
- Levels of readability
- Acting
So Let's dig into it point by point.
Shape Language
Shape Language is a principle you are using through your whole design process. When you work on a character, or anything else you will draw a line, a circle, a square or a triangle. The question here is "Why". Why do you use a circle over a square or a triangle to draw the head for example ?
Shapes are used to convey informations to your audience. Each form has a meaning, mostly accepted around the world :
- Circles, round shapes tend to be calmer, meaning tranquillity and harmony. Also love and cuteness. (Just look at a kitten, or at Sadness from Pixar's Inside Out movie)
- Squares tend to be disciplined, honests, they are the order and the law, what is indestructible and immovable. Your average hero knight, the Dad from the Indestructibles movie, Anger from Inside Out.
- Triangles are all in pointy angles, they are the danger, recklessness and Evil : Scar from The Lion king.
Now, these are basic rules and should be known to be bent. So play with them ! What do you feel when you use a circle as a main character shape ? Or if you mix a Circle and a Triangle ? What if you scale one down a little bit ? If you add more spikes ? Or add more roundness to it ?
Levels Of Readability
To be honest I don't know how to call that one. This advice comes from Efflam Mercier at THU. Certainly one of the best I ever received on Character Design (but you can apply it quite everywhere).
It can be resumed as Level your designs. You want the viewer to understand it properly, therefore, prioritizing the informations you give is really helpful to communicate your idea.
Let's look at this character for example. What do you see first ? He is skinny with a big round head and a long body and long thin arms and hands. Definitely not the fighter type. We can guess is specie is some kind of really advanced and clever civilization where Strenght is not needed. So here the base shapes gives us a first layer of understanding the character.
What can be the second layer ? He is wearing a white blouse with some technological parts to it and a probe flying by his side. Maybe an scientist or an engineer ?
You get the idea. Keep the leveling readable for the viewer and no need to go over too many ideas. Find the most important one, the one telling the most out of your character and organize them.
Acting
Finding that little spark in a character, that little thing that gives them a soul is definitely one of the most important side to tell a story. It is conveyed through posing and studying acting and how people behave or react.
It needs one of your superpowers : observation. Give that little facial expression, or a specific pose or action to the drawing. What is your character doing ? This will tell a lot about their innersoul, what they think, what is their behaviour and how they react.
Ressources :
Dan Cooper : https://www.instagram.com/dethancooper_art/
Efflam Mercier : https://www.artstation.com/efflam
Cory Loftis : https://www.instagram.com/coryloftis/
Ami Thompson : http://amithompsonportfolio.blogspot.com/
Paul richards : http://www.autodestruct.com/thumbwar.htm
Here it is folks ! Thank you for your time and for passing by ! Keep in mind I am still practicing, I hope this can help you guys in many ways but also keep a critical view and do your research, cold email artists you love, practice and learn ! And please tell me if you have constructive feedbacks or if I am wrong I'd love to discuss with you about it =)
Cheers Steemit !!
It is really an eye opening for me @alcy. I am into traditional arts by the way and I specialized in pencil drawings. I haven't posted my drawings in steemit yet, but soon I will.
I was amazed with the idea that the shape of the profiles or faces of the famous characters influenced our interpretation of the nature of them. And you are right because I just realized that most characters with round or circular faces usually plays good or nice roles. And, personally, I have identified some like Doraemon, the cute Boy Scout "Russel" from movie UP and the smurfs. And what is common to them are their chubby cheeks and thus a round face.
There are also characters which has square faces which I remember to be brave and fierce in nature like no other than Superman, Batman and most superheroes I know. Oh! Oh! Mr. Carl Fredricksen, a stern yet brave old man from movie UP has also square-shaped face. One thing I notice that it can also be attributed that a square-shaped face adds masculinity to a character as most bulky people has that kind of feature too, as a relation. Woah! What a realization there.
And, for triangular shaped characters who might usually be evil. Uhm, I thought of witches at first and HIM, the red-skinned villain of powerpuff girls.
Fighters may usually be bulky and could really be identified by their getups. But, I just realized that some of the illustrators these days disguised some their characters to appear inappropriate and weak. In this way, people might get surprised and eventually liked the character. An example of the latter is the Penguins of Madagascar and One Punch Man. Who would have thought that those penguins do karate and fire bazookas? And a small bald man can finish off enemies with a punch?
What could the people may always remember about a character may refer to "acting". Some examples I have identified are the small flocks of curled hair of Superman, the thick eyebrows of angry birds and eye patches of Captain Pirates I know.
Your post has made me imagining. And, I agree with these pointers in character making. For all of you who are planning to be illustrators, keep following @alcy.
Wow, thanks for this comment man, I really appreciate !
As you said about artists trying to hide the real purpose of the character, the meanings of the shapes squares, triangles etc are the obvious ones, meaning if you use them, the viewer will easily understand the story.
But these principles can be bent following your story. Check at Bobby Chiu's paintings, he has some really rounded evil characters. In the end it all comes down to your story and how you want to communicate it.
Another analogy with colors for exemple where you can see green as peaceful, harmonious and calming color (miyazaki's movies for exemple) but it can be used as an oppressive one as well, like in the Matrix (when they get in the Matrice the color key becomes greenish). Thanks for your comment man ! Cheers !
I agree! The thrill starts when what was cute and cuddly turns to be evil or badass! Haha. There are really a lot of things that could be a cue to revealing a character but the element of surprise can steal the spotlight sometimes. Cheers!! @alcy
Very interesting article @alcy . I'm replying in the context of the comment challenge hosted by @danielsaori so I appologize in advance if I missunderstood any concepts you presented in the article.
Although I have no experience in drawing or character design at all, I can say that this totally makes sense from a viewer's perspective. It isn't something we are conciously aware of when we watch a show or play a game but I can totally see how even just using different shapes to build a character (or a set piece) would influence how we percieve the characters as being either friendly or evil/dangerous, etc.
One obvious example that comes to mind is mario vs bowser. Mario is so rounded, his nose, fingers, feet, ears. everything about him is smooth and round wherease Bowser is full of spikes. Then I notice their stances are very different, bowser has a really agressive stance compared to mario's bouncy, chill stance. As for the levels of readability (correct me if I'm wrong), I notice Mario is sort of funny looking, with a very commical vibe to his character (this would relate to acting as well), compared to Bowser's massive bulky, angry vibe.
This was a good excercise for me to really appreciate the amount of thought that has to go into character designs and how fortunate we are that there are people out there that are dedicated to getting all the little details just right so that we, the viewers/gamers can have the best experience.
Cheers,
DE
Thanks for your comment @digitalengineer, You're right about the first level for Mario and Bowser, One is the guenuine, innocent hero while the second is clearly evil. Also you can easily relate the story to the Round Table or King Arthur kind of, where the knight saves the princess from the dragon. And you can see that everywhere. Like in the marvel movies where designs are really informative (Thor vs his brother Loki is really, really obvious).
Thanks again for your time ! cheers !
Great content! Getting to know your characters is one of the most interesting things. I do that a lot. I'm sure the concepts you explained will help me going forward. Resteemed!
Thank you ! I hope it will !! =D
I enjoy this process very much, almost my favorite part in animation production x)
Yeah ? I guess animation is a lot about acting and goes way deeper in that skill right ? Can I ask what you are animating ? Feature movies or shows ? =DD
Animation was my major in university and now freelancer of animating and compositing work.
Animator is a kind of actor, not showing face on screen only xD
I chose this post for Comment Challenge ('u';)
Yeees, I saw that, I didn't understood what it was at first x) Thank you so much for your help !!
ooooh that's awesome, Animation is a beautiful skill, maybe one day I'll get enough time to push this skill (right now I just can't manage to draw every frame, I lack patience haha)
I've never been very talented at drawing, but what you say makes sense. My daughter loves to draw, she's still very young, but maybe if I can help her with some of these tips, she'll be an artist one day. 😊
Awesome !! She's really lucky to have a supportive mom ^^
If I can be of any help feel free to ask, drawing and painting are skills that can be learn, even more easily when you have passion and time =D
Very good article @alcy for your characters gives more shine to the eyes, so it calls more attention. Well, charisma and personality are given by the artist, he does what his heart dictates, how to see his interior and everything.
Congratulations!! This post is featured in this week's Steemit Comment Challenge.
You have an amazing blog @alcy. Keep up the good work!
Thank you Daniel Saori ! I'll do my best !
I love the way you explained this. The same way colors have a certain energy and promote different moods, shapes do the same thing. Your post has the potential to change they way a lot of people see art and life. Bravo @alcy.
Thanks a lot @knottygirl, This is my objective ^^.
What I see is a lot of awesome ressources now for artists, it has never been so easy to become one but at the same time, these ideas and initiatives stay within the community. And this is a problem I think as only aspiring artists who are really committed and know what they want to become can access to them.
Which is a problem for many young lads who like to draw and paint but don't know if it can be possible to make a living out of it and parents being worried that opportunities in the field is scarced, and their kid becoming the starved artist. I think there is a lot of pre-conceived ideas about this field and I want to show that it is not like that. (Still need to work for it though haha)
Thanks again cheers !
I love it when there is an educational theory relate in the articles and an open discussion able to generates more ideas to reduce the number of mistake in any attempt. yup, lets talk about the character in the drawing.. If it for one of the character in a game , i will try to see its abilities to support the game to be more interesting, its appearance will contribute to what its suppose to be in the games its huge hand was it able to smash onto thing or just some ordinary army to support the main characters in the game, well i see it that way..cause it seem like just a fence to cover the main characters and no gamers would care to kill it because its look so weak..why not put some interesting shine metal armor on its arm and and put a mark tatoo like to make it like the strongest enemy to put it down..A small skull as the head thats not such a good ideas at all it hide its identity . It should have been better to see details on its facial..a smiling sumo as a hints cause I love to see its last hope to survive and unleash the last greatest hit by holding its hand together and to generate the last action hit to reduce the opponent energy or life and thats able to fulfill the gamers addiction in the playing the games.
Thats all Thanks.
Yeah, I put this one here because of that, very poorly designed. Then again, it really depends of the purpose of the character and as you said, of the game it should supports. Thanks =)
Excellent write up. I upvoted and bookmarked it. I sketch and paint flowers but plan to do animals and people at some point. So far my attempts have fallen flat but you have some good tips. Thank you for that.
Thank you ! Good luck with your paintings ! It's a matter of perseverance, keep at it, improve upon each iterations and it will come =) cheers
I am not a good painter from any perspective you want to look at me, and I don't have any sort of design experience you can think of.
At school it wasn't a rare event that a drawing of mine would get a huge penmade black cross on top of it from the teacher.
But while reading your post, and the advices from awesome designers like Mr. Mercier, I couldn't stop thinking about all the hours I spent playing Pokémon in my childhood.
And I couldn't stop comparing in my head characters like this:
or this:
Glorious Pokémons from the first generation, with their smoking beauty and charisma...
To the new ABSOLUTE "GARBAGE" LIKE THIS ONE:
like this guy here:
or the ice cream:
or the drunktard dragon:
I mean WTF just happened in fifteen years?
What happened to humanity?
Where's the "little spark" in those characters?
Why the designers (and Nintendo) didn't consider the fact that we, first adopter fans, would have eventually grown up a little bit? lol
hahahahaha
Yeah I felt the same after Gold/Silver....Still playing the Blue version on GBC x) at the same time the shapes of those pokemons are still recognizable =)
lol yeah, I mean until the 3rd generation my brain was swallowing every kind of innovations in the game, even with heart fish pokémon like ludvisc or legendary toilets like registeel.
After that it became even, let's say...worse:)
Hello @alcy!
First of all, let me tell you that this compilation of advices is really on point for the subject. In any visual content, is fundamental to take in consideration what kind of message we want the viewer to get, what are they supposed to feel at the moment of seeing our creation.
The psychology of an especific element can change the meaning of a piece of art as a whole, and that's when the creativity of the artist comes into play, as you said it yourself.
As a communication student, I usually hear similar things but oriented to the design of advertising and in the whole marketing point of view, so it's actually quite interesting seeing how it applies to the artistic context, especially in story telling, where it really shows the whole potential of each of those things.
It's wonderful how our perspective is influenced by so many other details, with a majority of them going to our uncouncious. That's one of the reasons art is so interesting!
Of course, I'm not an artist myself, so I speak from what I understand, but I most say I feel inspired by your post :D
Keep up the good work!
Hey @corinablondell and Welcome to Steemit !
Yup, I think many principles overlap whether you are in art or communication. I find marketing and advertising deeply interesting as these fields are obviously focused on communicating an idea for a specific purpose and I think that expanding our knowledge to these fields (writing, marketing, design, painting or any kind of communication domain) will tremendously help one's skills to grow.
Btw I'd be definitely curious to learn more about what you know on communication !
Cheers !
Thanks for the welcome!
You're very right. It's fascinating how pretty much all disciplines and fields of knowledge interconnect with one another to construct something else.
So that's why learning about new things is so relevant to our lifes, no matter what we do.
In that case, maybe I'll post something cool about communication in the future ^-^
And I'll make sure to check your posts! I'm sure they'll be as good as this one ;-)
Thanks ! I'll definitely be waiting for that com' post ^^ Also for many artists it can maybe be eye opening in many ways =D
I consider myself an author more than an artist, but I really found your post useful...
I never thought about "Levels Of Readability" before... never even thought it exists. Maybe I should work on that in both my art and stories!!
Yep that was quite a revelation for myself as well haha And exactly that's waht I find beautiful, you can translate many knowledge to writing, painting, communication etc... Always useful =D
nice i can put the skinny man with big head and no eyes in my head and get to a story. The big head says to me he has got brains, he does not need eyes , maybe because he has long fingers and a great sensitivity in his fingers? When i look at his head, it looks with no eyes but it also could be that he can just turns his head any direction he wants to. But i have this idea : it is not a strong person, but has a mass of inteligence , he can use his fingers as sensors, to discover temperature, climate, amount of gasses in the air. Because this all will be in front of his, no face, his back is rather unprotected, you see on the back of his head still some hair to protect skull or maybe it is to camouflage in rocky areas ? The mechanic that flies behind him, will keep him informed from certain changes behind its back. I like to think he comes from Exosferium what makes him a exosferano . Nice to get me of in fantasy world for a few minutes :-)
nice i can put the skinny man with big head and no eyes in my head and get to a story. The big head says to me he has got brains, he does not need eyes , maybe because he has long fingers and a great sensitivity in his fingers? When i look at his head, it looks with no eyes but it also could be that he can just turns his head any direction he wants to. But i have this idea : it is not a strong person, but has a mass of inteligence , he can use his fingers as sensors, to discover temperature, climate, amount of gasses in the air. Because this all will be in front of his, no face, his back is rather unprotected, you see on the back of his head still some hair to protect skull or maybe it is to camouflage in rocky areas ? The mechanic that flies behind him, will keep him informed from certain changes behind its back. I like to think he comes from Exosferium what makes him a exosferano . Nice to get me of in fantasy world for a few minutes :-)
Thanks ! I'm glad you can imagine this much from my humble pictures =D Cheers !