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Ideas from industry veterans that will help you create outstanding characters.
Having a hard time creating unique characters with a strong personality. These tips from concept artists Laurel Austin, Claire Hummel, and Richard Lyons might solve your problem. The artists shared philosophies and ideas on how to create compelling characters from four very different perspectives. Let's check out some of the most important points.
Creating Character Based On Their Stories
Richard Lyons from Naughty shared his approach to building character based on context and diving into the story. The most important task today is to avoid stereotypes and create something unique.
Let's imagine you need to create a tough guy. You would probably make him this tall big dude, but that would be too boring. Try adding glasses and make him smaller. Does that sound strange? Unorthodox decisions are what you're looking for.
The artist used Stephen King's Carrie as an example. Using story points and adding context when designing characters is a great idea because the character's surroundings will help you generate a more organic look.
What does the character wear? What does he eat? Does your girl have different makeup when she has a bad day? What changed your character? All those questions will help you build a compelling character other people will remember. Try creating your character's mindmap that will define the character's look in different situations and see if there's something odd about his/her current look.
Anatomy for Sculptors Understanding the Human Figure
Check out a stunning book for sculptors with 3D models and photos of live models from various angles and body postures, overlaid with color-coded muscle diagrams. This is a must-buy book for all beginners willing to master anatomy. The book was created by a sculptor with more than 25-year experience and a professor of Anatomy in Arts Academy.
Visual Story Through Costume Design
Claire Hummel from Campo Santo showed how you can build better character by using clever costume design. The first step is to define your setting. There are several contrasting points you should consider. Is your setting stylized or realistic? Literal or symbolic? Playful or serious?
Sometimes you have a universe defined by your art director but you still have to do some research and
You want your character to exist within the context of your universe and your costumes are crucial. How would your character wear clothes if they lived in a barbaric sandy world? What cloth would they use in general? Does it make sense for him/her to have too many accessories? Logic is the only key here.
You can add character with strange colorful clothes, of course, but they would still have to look organic.
Expressive Faces
The character's face is your greatest weapon. Laurel Austin, Principal Artist at Bllizard, showed how you can mix different emotions to attract people's attention. Focus on facial expressions can really enhance storytelling. A well-put expression can tell about your characters' backgrounds, tell their story, and, most importantly, make them seem real.
Actually, psychologists have already given you all the needed tools, so you just need to learn how to use them. First, you need to learn six basic states: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, and surprise. Those states are pretty basic, of course, but they are extremely important when building more complex scenarios.
Impressions themselves are combinations of small movements that can be used as building blocks when building different moods. Let's break down happiness, for example: upward movement of corners of the mouth, nostrils pull along, lower eyelids raise. Then, by using these three building block you can intensify happiness.
You can break down the other five basic states using the same approach. Make sure to watch the full video if you want to study each in depth.
Did you master the basic states? Now you can start mixing them to get new moods. Make your character happy and angry at the same time to scare players or add some sadness to make them think about the character's background.
Creating Characters with Personality
This book explains how to create a distinctive character, then place that character in context within a script, establish hierarchy, and maximize the impact of pose and expression. It features practical exercises to help readers put everything together and make their new characters sparkle. The book is filled with lessons from the author, who designed the dragon Mushu in Disney's Mulan, plus big-name experts in film, TV, video games, and graphic novels.
Make sure to check out the pages of Laurel Austin, Claire Hummel, and Richard Lyons to learn more from the masters and study their works in detail.