Relationships and story guide character design

February 22, 2010

Character design can be a real challenge at times, but it’s also really exciting when you can see the personalities developing in front of you.

I find that we get our best results when the designs reference a specific story point, or a particular relationship dynamic between characters. It forces you to make the designs function in a more practical way, instead of just being pretty pictures.

We’ll try and show this character design approach at work with more detail in a future post. Out of this group, the design that does it most closely is probably the two guys at the top. I like all the other design here, but the more direct link between these characters and their story gives me the most confidence in their design.

Bob Flynn

Fun set of characters, but best of all—they're all doing something. Even if subtle, because early signs of their personalities are showing through. You are dead-on about referencing a specific story point/relationship. The images are more engaging, but the result is more practical in figuring out who your characters are.

Mike Rauch

Yeah. I grew up drawing characters in my sketchbook in the stereotypical "facing-the-viewer-doing-nothing-but-smiling" way. Thinking of character design as based on relationships and story was a total revelation for me.

Of course character and personality guides design too, but that seems inherit in the name "character design". I think you discover who characters are when you examine them within the context of a story, or in relation to other characters.

Relationships and story guide character design

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