First impressions can be everything. That's where a character designer comes in.
An audience’s first impression of a character will be the moment they’re enamored or repelled by what they see of them.
A character’s appearance is crucial when it comes to evoking the desired emotion from your viewer. Developing that specific, right look can be a painstaking but necessary process.
Let’s take a look at what goes into designing those character appearances…
A character designer is involved in the creation and development of characters for animation, films, video games and comics.
Working with directors and/or writers, they’re primarily responsible designing the appearance, personality, and other visual attributes of characters to effectively convey their role and enhance the storytelling.
What does a character designer do?
A day in the life of a character designer can vary significantly depending on factors like:
But generally speaking, a character designer’s day looks like this…
Morning: Checking emails, attending team stand-ups, and reviewing character briefs and reference materials.
Midday: Primarily focused on sketching and developing initial character concepts, experimenting with different visual ideas.
Afternoon: Refining chosen concepts with details like expressions and clothing, creating turnarounds, presenting designs for feedback, and making revisions. Some time is also spent on administrative tasks and file organization.
Throughout the day: Constant communication and collaboration with the team, problem-solving based on project needs, and applying both creative and technical skills while meeting deadlines. The specifics can vary greatly depending on the project, studio, and the designer’s role.
The key component of a character designer’s job is to visualize and project exactly what a character looks like (and sometimes sounds like) based on whatever description they’ve been given from a writer, producer or director.
It’s important that whatever design you ultimately land on reflects not just the character but stands out as something viewers will remember.
Often you want your audience to love your characters. Other times, you’ll want them to feel differently about them (there are always those characters we love to hate).
Once the decision is made on how the audience should initially feel about a character, their design should start to take shape from their personalities. A character’s traits, characteristics and behaviors can serve as a clear guide in helping develop their appearance — who they are will reflect what they look like.
You’ll want to start by amassing as much knowledge as you can about the character you’re designing.
Ideally, you’ll be given a script or treatment that has some character description and often the writer or director will offer further details or guidance.
But research shouldn’t stop with the character. What’s equally important as the character description is the world (read: environment) the character is living in. The environment can inform many different elements about a character, ranging from the way they dress to how they move (more on both of these notions in a moment).
Visual references can not only help inform what the character looks like, but more often than not, can inspire the artist to spark some of their own ideas.
Keep your focus broad when looking for visuals to inspire you — consider everything that could even be even tangentially related to the world your character exists in. Everything has its own unique pattern of different textures, patterns and colors. You might want to consider how any of these (or variations of) could help build the visual aesthetic of your character.
You’ll never know what can really inspire true creativity so keep an open mind when you start your research and study everything you can.
You’ll want to design your character as something that matches the visual language the project is aiming for. Your characters’ contours and details should conform to that.
A Disney-type of character is a far cry from a darker, brooding look that may be necessary in other types of work, say like a Japanese Anime character.
Is the tone of your movie funny? Is it scary? Answers to these should inform the character’s look as well.
Your audience can be invaluable in helping guide the aesthetic you’re establishing.
Especially when it comes to animation, you’ll want to make sure that your character stands out from other members of the cast. In live-action dramas, it’s normal for characters to share a similar look, vibe, or grounded personality traits – especially when the filmmakers want to create a realistic atmosphere.
However, animation, anime, video games, and advertising thrive on contrast. They thrive on bold personalities, exaggerated speech patterns, and imaginative character design. Characters are expected to pop visually and emotionally, making them instantly recognizable and distinct from one another.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse serves as a more extreme example of contrasting character designs. Check out this behind the scenes look at how the filmmakers brought one of over 250 unique Spider-Man variations to life.
Think this through for a moment.
What does the character wear? And more importantly, why are they wearing exactly those specific articles of clothing? What colors are these clothes? Are they shaded?
Sometimes wardrobe is influenced by environment, particularly weather. Fashion sense is also something to consider.
Does your character care about the way he or she looks? Maybe they’re wildly conscious of their clothes. Or maybe they couldn’t care less.
The answers to these questions can greatly shift the aesthetic of a character. Keep this in mind as you start visualizing the look of the character.
How is your character holding themselves when they’re standing? Are they slouched or standing upright? How about when they’re sitting?
How are they positioned when they’re listening to someone speak? What about when they’re speaking themselves?
These are all questions to consider as each holds a specific definition as to how a character carries themselves and projects physically whether they’re moving or not.
Consider your character’s role in the overall narrative.
Are they a key player? Or are they supporting the key players? Are they in the background, and more there to add dimension to the visuals of the scene?
These differences are crucial and should directly inform the character’s manifestation.
It’s important to ensure your character looks as though they belong inside the world of the story.
Old school cartoon drawings look far different from computer-generated, modern animation. Make sure you have a clear understanding of your visual medium as you forge the look of your character.
A character who looks like they don’t belong will stand out and could potentially hurt the overall animation.
This is the true test of character design distinction. And there’s an easy way to test it.
When the colors, shadings and textures have all been dropped from the image, is the character still uniquely recognizable?
If the answer is no, there’s still work to be done.
It’s important for your more prominent characters to have signature looks (when the work stands out, so do you as an artist).
If you want to set yourself up for a successful character design career, here are some of the ways to break in…
Most character designers earn degrees in fields related to the visual arts, like graphic design, animation, illustration or art.
A degree also helps in getting formal training for character design software. Much of the industry relies on computer software so educating yourself on how they operate could prove to be tremendously beneficial when seeking out a job (it’ll help to diversify yourself in as many different programs as you can, as different studios tend to use different software).
That being said, a degree isn’t necessarily required to become a character designer. Your skills as an artist and visual creator are the chief consideration for the position.
But having a degree in illustration, art, graphic design or animation (or any combination thereof) certainly couldn’t hurt your chances at landing a job.
This means doing a lot of conceptualizing.
Here, it’s important to bear in mind that as you design, create and experiment, some work will be better than others.
You’ll conceive designs that are downright brilliant and others which will be abject failures. When you’re honing your character design skills, it doesn’t really matter. This is all about trial and error, discovering what works and what doesn’t.
Learning the process and how you work best in it is the real goal as you continue to generate product. Always be pushing yourself to learn something new and try out new ideas.
You’ll never know if you can or can’t do something until you take a crack at it.
A character design portfolio is far and away the best way to showcase your work. It’s rare that anyone seeking employment in this field would land a job without one.
Your portfolio should contain only your absolute finest work. Leave the experimental stuff out of it. Works in progress, no matter how good they will eventually look should also be omitted.
Let this be the most excellent display of your talents. Build something that will really resonate among potential employers.
Buying a web domain to be able to exhibit your material in one location could also prove to be helpful.
As with every other aspect of the entertainment industry, networking in the animation field is vital.
Find all the communities you can that specialize in the type of work you are (or want to be) involved in (Facebook and LinkedIn should have plenty).
Often these groups hold gatherings and mixers. These allow the chance to meet not just other artists and animators, but possibly producers, directors and writers as well (read: potential employers).
There are several programs designed (both free and paid) specifically for character designers.
It’s up to the artist to decide which works best for them. Sometimes it comes down to the project, and on other occasions, personal preference.
But here’s a list of the seven most popular digital tools:
If you’re starting out, you may not want to spend as much money as you would if you’ve got more experience. Higher-level work tends to get more complex and costlier than basic, introductory work.
The prices and specifications of some of the best programs currently on the market can be found here.
The average salary for a character designer in the United States is $59,349 per year, and can range from $54,000 to $100,000 per year1.
Character designers earn an income either as a salary — like if they work for a large company like Pixar, DreamWorks, or Nintendo — or they earn an income as a freelance, working with clients with varying budgets.
As mentioned, a strong portfolio is an ideal way to show off your skills. The question is, which work to showcase?
Let’s consider a few things when creating a display of your work…
Determine who (or what) it is you specifically want to specialize in creating. Whether that be ordinary people, animals, superheroes, mythical creatures, or anything else, know where your greatest strength lies and lean into that.
Once you determine your area of focus, build a variety of characters within that genre. Vary your range from body types to age groups to personalities to ethnicities. Push the boundaries in your work between the realistic and the stylistic.
Give every character you design a backstory of some sort.
Consider where they came from and what they’re currently doing in the story they’ve been created for.
This will help overall design as well as smaller details when building these characters.
Let them see how the sausage is made, so to speak.
Incorporate concept art, sketches and even works-in-progress that offers a peek into your working process.
This can give potential employers a peek into your methods of work and attention to detail.
Whether you’re showcasing digital paintings, 3D renders or illustrations (or any other medium), it’s ideal to provide examples of your diversity.
Structure your portfolio so there’s a logical flow as to what work you’re showing when. Not only will this give the portfolio an interesting flow, it’ll make deciding what goes where that much easier and efficient on your end.
Show your work to mentors, fellow artists, (and if you trust their creative eye) friends and family. Take nothing personal but listen to their suggestions. Outside eyes can offer insights and thoughts that don’t always occur to artists right off the bat.
As your work evolves and improves, be sure to include your newest and most relevant work. Replace the older pieces with newer, sharper designs.
Creating a character design portfolio is an ever-evolving process. You work will enhance as you grow as an artist and adapt to industry trends. Just remember to keep at it and look at every new step as a lesson.
Let’s take a closer look at these differences…
A character designer’s chief responsibility is a focus on the initial design and appearance of the characters. Everything from a character’s wardrobe to their physical traits to their personality to their most defining attributes. This phase typically involves many sketches and iterations before a final design is decided on.
All characters need style to define them. It’s one of responsibilities of the character designer to find, establish and execute that style. The (seemingly) smallest details of a character, whether that be clothing or facial imperfections are all weighed, measured, and heavily considered when building a visual look for a character.
Working closely with writers, directors and producers, character designers are heavily enmeshed in the creative process. Their input and collaborative efforts are necessary to reach a final creative decision on how a character should appear on screen.
A character artist’s chief aim is to translate the design conceived by the character designer into a finalized, fully-rendered visual representation. In essence, they bring the character to life.
Character artists take things into consideration many character designers don’t. Aspects such as animation requirements, rigging and polygon count are all utilized when creating the model of a character. A character’s real-time rendering and animation flow differs depending on the medium used, and these are all aspects an artist needs to take into consideration.
Using different types of software (more on these in a moment), character artists are able to define, sculpt and refine their character’s visual representation. These types of programs can enhance color, textures, and details to fine tune a character’s image.
