NEW: Character Design with Storytelling

1. Intro: Hello and welcome to this course. Today you want to speak about can we fix? My name is Stephanie boom. I'm a character designer and illustrator and I'm specialized in characters for my journey started ten years ago. Since then I've worked for a wide variety of radio, role-play and board games. At the beginning, all my focus bands into techniques like learning perspective, anatomy, rendering. But this time I realize it's about more than flawless trunk muscles and pretty faces greater than something. Prove it. We want to relate. We want to feel to have a personal connection. We started in this course. I wanted to take you with me on my part. I will show you techniques and tools like silhouette, shape, language, proportions. You will channel your inner actor and create a legal maneuver. Those techniques are universal and can be used with all techniques and styles. In Humana if you have just started out or if you've been turned into wine. At the end of the course, you will be able to create characters that interesting, engaging. Let's go to work. 2. How to design a Character: Okay, We will start with classical task, designing around arrow keep all this year very simple. It's just for demonstration. Propose to make a point. So I will just put all the possible cliches into this. A lot of armor, everything in different shapes, spikes to make them look more dangerous. Maybe you are also scaled so we can also add some batches. Like today, I was capable to make a fire by myself. I'm a ridiculous amount of weapons. And of course you need spells, a lot of them because somehow he has to carry all those stuff around with them. So like, what is it, What is it like? The weapons, of course, and potions and magic books and tomorrow, daggers and Ninja start a helmet. But you know what makes a helmet and a hat and feathers because we are in a generous mood. And of course he also needs a cave. And some of those unnecessary pieces of clothes where nobody really knows what they're good for. I guess just decoration. Okay. Well, I have to convince it looks less she didn't eyeball. If we give them some open glass and it could be an overambitious cost player. Actually, it's nice. Okay, well, the, honestly, it does not work as a serious Raja design, right? So what does it even more dignified design? Well, does not really work either. But how are we making a character design that is neither too confusing or borrowing? As always, there is no simple answer to this question, but there are a few points where we can start working with silhouette. Shapes, potions. Study language, well selling. These are more will be topics in this course that will help you to improve your character design. So it's going to, it. 3. Silhouette: So a cigarette. This the first thing that we receive when looking at a person or an object or whatever. So let's make a little test. Go on. I'm in no squint your eyes at it. And then look outside for people. Because it's just people who are far away. We often see not more than vague shapes and silhouettes. And yet they already say a lot like age, fitness level, emotional state. We understand a lot even with less information. By the way, the woman on the far right really does exist. She goes a walk close to everyday. Before goose in the stroller. She also has a dog. He's only allowed to sit on the wreck. Okay. In character design, we use silhouette as a tool for two things. Variation and clarity. For yourself or for a client doing where variation is always Good idea. I, I have a book recommendation for you. It's the skillful hands man from Scott Robertson and three of his students. It's a concept art book. So it's exactly what you could expect. It's a lot of it will break my waist and disposition. It's okay. It's a book full of exploring ideas for characters, creatures, wrappings, landscapes. And of course they're using. It's really nice. I guess you can't even see it very well, but yeah, it's cool. So silhouettes as a nice way to let your creativity flow and find some awesome original ideas. And this is what you want to do now. It's always good to use really ****** paper. So there's less pressure involved than when you use the good, expensive material. So yeah, yeah, just absolutely paper. It is mainly about quantity rather than quality. It's more about thinking in as many different directions as possible. So just put all your brain and just do it. Okay, here's a story from the book, art and fear. It's about Arabic teacher that divides his class into two groups. One will be rated on quantity, the other in quality, while wrong group shopper to use as much work as possible, moment and equality, the other would only need to deliver one piece that therefore is perfect. In yen, the group graded for quantity, not only delivering a huge body of work, but also the pieces of the highest quality. Why are they experiment and learn from their mistakes? The quantity crew was moved busy theorizing about perfection. Rather than doing anything. We often start with the things that we already know. That's the moment where perfectionism Hansen, he tries so hard to do something nice that you're too afraid to try something new. But in order to be creative, it is necessary that you relax and let go. Okay, so allow yourself to experiment. I mean, that's the message here. And of course, it will also create a lot of junk that maybe also some really cool and original ideas. And don't worry too much if you don't know what this or that marks should be, just trust in your brain and it will come up with something. Because our brains are really great and making sense of things were in fact, that is not what is already difficult than other life. But here, it's coming really handy. After you've made several sketches, you can show us the most interesting one, and we'll get out from here. So I will now scan my page and continue drawing on my iPad. Clarity is especially important for animation. Because here, movement happens in friction of seconds. And in order for us to understand what is happening, it is very important that each key position is as clear and readable as as long as we see the drawing, we understand what's going on. But it's no longer the case as soon as we see only the silhouette. The clarity of his position is therefore not so good. Here. On the other hand, it's much better and we understand that immediately. Here's another example from spawn top. Again, the scene as understandable as drawing, but not as a silhouette would add to this is the question of intention. The left image, he is holding a gift, but we don't know what he intends to do with it, whether it is for himself or for someone else. On the right image. And only the pose and silhouette become clearer, but also intention behind. As long as we don't do animation, we don't have to be quite as strict as they are here. So it's good to keep an eye on how to push a pulse to get more clarity. So next time, check if your character stands the silhouette. And if not, then see how you could improve the resign or the position in order to gain more clarity and readability. Make a rarity of silhouettes for one character. That can be a while We're or any other profession, like a party this year, a garden or whatever. Really. If this is too complex, you can choose option to what is making variations of an object that this person might use. Because of course the same that is counting for our character. We can also use for objects and objects and disregard can have a personality to do as much as possible. I mean, six should be the minimum. But I would highly suggest you move something between 1020. This is done. Ask yourself, what are the most interesting sketches you came up with? And why do you think so? Another question would be, how would you describe their personality? Or in case of the object, what does this object tell us about the personality of their own? Okay, Then go to work. 4. Shape Language: I'm sure you already done this at some point, but let's say not and this is your first time. Okay? So which associations do you have? When you look at those three basic shapes? Let's start the so-called bad. I bought. It's playful, happy, and lighthearted, sweet. But if you try to lean on it, it rolls right. Not exactly reliable. Now the square, solid, Scrum, resilience, trustful and you can lean and rely on it whenever you need. But mostly of triangles, you will get two times. One stable and one is when we think of it mostly in a dangerous way, fast, explosive temper. Seriously, you don't want to mess of it, but there's also a superpower to it. Intelligence, confidence, energetic, a true leader. It shows us react to. Each shape has both positive and negative properties. There will be a PDF that I provide to get out of this course where you will find a list of more possible properties that we associate with each basic form. Of course, these are just a few suggestions and you can add more if you want. Those are characteristic curves. There are universal and deeply rooted in us. This is why we can just use them wonderfully for our character design, namely in the form of shape language. This is a great example from when the bishop on how to apply different shape languages to one character. And notice how the same character can fears so different based on the form that we are using. I remember his beak shape language. We mean not only solid forms but also line quality. For around it would be curved and organic lines. Trade and power layer for a rectangle. Diagonal and sharp angles for triangle shape. We can find this different line qualities. When we go back to the chef again, look at the shoes or the ears. It's really great to see how Randy applies a different shapes and every detail. So just take a second and observe it a bit. But be careful to not be too literal. Just because the left chef insist on a rectangle doesn't mean they can't be curves or diagonals too. It's not about representing a form, Absolutely, but about using and adapting its quantities. Okay, but how do I know which shape language to choose? I mean, we already learned that certain shapes are associated with certain characteristics. Some are physical, some psychological. So I guess it's just a good idea to have a look at well-known characters and how their characteristics are reflected in their shape. Language. Can we design is very simple. He only comes up circle. What makes it especially soft and cute, looking perfect to speak to a very young audience. Superman type of group is only a notch older. H02 is based on so-called, But he has design, has more complexity. He looks friendly and kind. But things to the now edit rectangle, also a bit more skillful and strong, reliable. Someone who wants your plan while you're on holiday is or can be asked for help when you kitchen pipe breaks. Principle miles mainly for kids. So next target, young teenagers, thanks to his proposal later more about this and circular design, he is still simple and kids friendly, but idea was to give them a more cool. What is mainly due to the use of spikes and pointed shapes instead of circle and rectangle like this. Now you'll see a combo of circle and triangle. What makes him fast and HE, but also with a good heart, again, where you Team Mario or sonic. For me, it's definitely sonic. Even though I never made an elastic. I would like to try this again today. Everyone's at least my song cuckoo shows a combination of all three shapes and spoiler alert. You will see this a lot, especially with Japanese based heroes. He has all attributes of a circle, is funny, friendly, optimistic. The triangle shapes of his hair gets the extra energy boost, like we already saw ultrasonic. And he is a classical leader with a clear goal in mind. Someone who knows the direction and don't allow others to step in his way. The rectangle shows that strength, physically and mentally. He has a strong sense of justice, can easily take it and is there when you need them. So reflect what are your characters traits and how you can express them visually. And now it's already time for your next homework. Find three characters and analyze their shape language. And what does those shapes say about their personality? And if it's helpful, get inspiration from the list. 5. Proportions: The, you know, the feeling that all your characters look more or less the same just with different clothes, hairstyles. This is because you stick to the same shapes and proportions. For a line of characters, we want a significant different types, shapes and proportions. And the more you don t have to stick to reality, the more you can go crazy and wild. Everyone who watched or read one piece knows what I'm talking about. But let's go back to the fundamentals. What's our proportions? To give you a definition, let me read a text from Ashley Hearst about it. Proportion is largely about the relationship of the size of one element when compared to another. When drawing or painting realistically, propulsion is important. If the proportions are incorrect, then the resulting image will look less realistic or abstract. There are amazing books existing on how to draw anatomy like this one here. And then you'll also learn how to construct proportions so they fall into idle dimensions. And as little tip, if you don't want to get a copy of yourself as a website where you can read all the classics for free. But back to proportions. A classical tool for that is the height to hedge ratio. During the phase of growth, the body size changed significantly, but by comparison, the size of the head has not changed too much. Therefore, it is well suited as a unit of measurement. Thanks to this method, we can not only create believable proportions which age, but also gain helpful orientation points, like the position of the chest or belly button, the crotch area, et cetera. Let's see how this could work in practice. I already made a rough sketch of this character concept okay, for what I want, but I'm not sure about the proportions. To check this, I low-carb many times his head fits into his body. What would make 6.5? Be quiet okay. For a woman, but it's a bit short for a man. So I want to extend the whole thing by at least one head. As reference, I use 7.5 model from Loomis. That will help me later on to find the right distance. Now let's get my drawing to match the new dimensions. But that alone, for sure. I still have to check the proportions within my figure and to know where what should be. I orientate myself on my reference entranceway all important box. Now I know the correct distance for the knees, the belly button, etc. Since my figure is not frontal, I adjust these lines in perspective. It's quite easy with their perspective transform tool. And when that's done, I can start drawing the basic framework of my character. Apart from genetic predisposition, our body says a lot of what interests and activities we pursue. Even though all those women are Atlas and therefore beautiful fits and powerful bodies, the differences are great and say a lot about a required strengths and qualities that go along with every discipline. Of course, also aspects of our personality, our showed in our bodies. Therefore, again, we can use proportions and body shapes for our storytelling. Let's take a look how this can be realized using Big Hero six as an example. Okay, let's start on the left with fossa. Remember again the second chapter and psychological meaning of shapes. In the case of a sub E, the use of S career, solid, immovable, both physically and mentally, a very lawful by the book kind of person. If you look down on proportions, we see that the biggest empathizes on his upper body. They present a strings and his material art skills, but combined with soft lines, they represent his kind nature. Anyway, he's a bit like a tree, realistic and crowded. Google is a more, HE carried out with a strong focus on sportive activities. So therefore, it's not a surprise that her main weight as on the legs to show this strengths that she has there. In general, if you look at kids or young teenagers, like with those two characters here, you find a more narrow rectangle for their torso shape. And if we look at hurt and we see a more defined and female body shape showing that in a way she is the more independent and matured character and this group and you live in is extremely slim and tall, giving you an expression of lightness. What is also found in her character. Her lines are in general, less HE, but more fluid and soft and her total shape is closer to the one over teenager, what underlines her childlike nature. The same could count for Fred, classical teenage body shape, even though through his hand backpack, he gets a few triangles that are underlying his enthusiasm. But otherwise he is a very HLS body. Once again amplifiers his friendliness, but also that he is less skillful than the others. Hero, the youngest wrong. So that's not a surprise that we found is boyish torso shape also on him. His main focal point is actually his head, or is not only showing his age, but also his status as the young genius. Perhaps you have noticed that just by using a different torso shape, our perception of a character can change a lot. So just playing with debt can create interesting results. In general, we can distinguish between for ground types, the shoulders are wider than the hips. They are more narrow than the hips, or both have the same width, which is the case with a rectangle or an hourglass shape. Again, we found is that a character concept only with a shape of the torso and see how you could turn them further into characters. So this is what I will do now. So far you learned a lot in a short amount of time. So this is the moment to just lean back, relax, and just watch me drop it. Good. And now it's on you because this will be your next exercise. Draw a bunch of different shapes and develop characters out of them. 6. Body Language: Okay, we are emotional beings. That means we want to make a story out of everything. If a, C, a character is said, we're excited, we feel with them. A character shows emotions is not reliable to us. We can engage the connection. When do we want to know what is the story? So we want authentic characters. In order to draw them, you have to find them with in yourself. Think by eons, being an illustrator but being an actor. So what I want to do now as a little experiment with you, I will guide you through different scenarios. And you have to protect yourself as good as you can into these situations. While you're doing this, pay attention how your body and how your posture is changing. What is the position of your shoulders? What are you doing with your bag? Are you rounding up, crunching in yourself? If you trade up your position, what are you doing with your hands? How is the position of your neck to your p.sit? Stiff, do feel relaxed. Things like this. Okay, so because I've come for table, has two eyes. Now imagine you are in school. You really don't like the subject and the teacher called students to come forward. Security. Of course you don't know anything about it and you are afraid that he will pick you. How does that make you feel? And how does your body behave? You pull your head a little closer to your shoulders, like your total. Do you round your back and curl up to avoid being seen? Take a moment to observe your body reactants. Now get up from your chair and walk a bit around. Imagine the lesson is over. He did not pick you, but now you feel drained from all the stress and fear. You walk down the hall, protect yourself into the situation. How does it feel? How would you want? Suddenly you see the person you have secretly a crush on. Your heartbeat goes up, your nervous at funnily that's running in your reins. How does this change your position? And why you're still thinking about what to do? The person turns around, looks directly at you and smile. It's such a ****** day. And now it's the best day ever. How are you fear? What are all the little changes that express the joy in your face and body? What has changed compared to your first walking so-called. Welcome back. I hope you enjoyed this lecture. So you see like an actor has two amplifiers with a character and what are to play them? We have to do the same in order to try them. I kill wherever I please and nothing can stop me. What is really essential is that you have a story to protect yourself on. If there is none, then I could just happen at a client is just coming to you and say, Draw me characters in scenario x epsilon, so you have no story, no personality, no nothing in these situations. I found it very helpful to still come up with a story by myself, even though it is not relevant for the game and decided you, nobody will ever get to know about this. There's so much more helpful for the design process and also for your own motivation. Giving each character personality and background star helps me a lot to come up with ideas for individuality, signs and expressions. I believe that history gives a character richness and believability that is visible to the viewer, even though they don't know the story behind it. In order to come up with ideas, I asked myself a few questions. What is their role in the story? How is their relationship to others? What is their motivation? What is that special strength and what is their weakness? And often enough, in trying to fight answers, your brain will automatically crank out the story to make sense of it all. Now where we have more insight about our character, it's time to move them. And therefore, I would like to present to you another tool. It is useful to give you a figure, a basic structure, something that sets the flow of the poles and holds it together. The line of action is an imaginary line that describes the direction and motion of a character's body and is a leading force of his action. Mostly it is a single line and form of an S or C cough, often along the spine, but that is not mandatory. This one is especially important for animation where warm poles is flowing seamless in one another, but also single illustration and less cartoons diodes will benefit from it. A character based on a straight line looks mostly stiff and a bit boring. But compared to the same pose with a curved line, looks much more dynamic and interesting. You probably know the Christmas Carol adoption from dismay, there's a blockage sustain called the flowing of the block. I hope I pronounced that right. What does in any way and excellent name. So and the artists behind ME, diverse studies. So he took screenshots from the movie and paint the line of action on top of them to see that dynamic. It's just wonderfully to see how the line of action comes into work. And it's really helping to just tell the story in the scene. So I would highly recommend to check this out. So the line of action is actually a great foundation. It's normally the first thing that I tried to build everything else then on top of it. So I make my line and then I mark the most important points, like shoulders, had hips, feet like this. And then I add the volume and finally the complete trolley. And again, imagine this line not only as a line, but as a force of energy that flows through the body. And not only the character itself, but everything that is also on the character, like the hair, cloth bags, as well as to everything. The first character shows a lot of enthusiasm. This energy is outgoing and flows in all directions. This is clear not only from the poles and the facial expression, but also other details like hair and begs follow this driving movement. The second pose shows the exact opposite. Exhaustion, push everything down in this pose. The same downward energy can also be shown in details like the dropping head, eyelids, and lower jaw. The last poll shows a scared and intimidated energy ran the first pose, everything is directed outward. Here, everything goes inward. The body becomes stiff and tricep press everything against its. Think about an action and draw the same situation but with different moods of your character. The quality of the drawing is not important, but I want you to focus on the use of line of action and that your character really transport affiliate. Okay, then good luck. 7. Worldbuilding and Costum Design: Let's say you want to make a character that is based in 18th century England. Of course you have no clue what it work then. Of course also another good choice or history books. I have this long history of costumes and nice one. I have one about uniforms and another one from my man. Also about history of questions. So that's nice. You can find that books just in your local library. But what are you doing if your character is not based in real-world but in a fictional. Here is a little star retirement. Ten years ago, I went to against convention with my portfolio and I tried to learn my first job as an illustrator. I was super nervous and shy and afraid. It nobody would like to hire. I target, especially the companies that were so small and so ******. I mean, not the company is, but the artwork that I saw they were associated with next to them. My work is looking like a sparkling unicorn. This is a sorry, Hawaii indeed lend my first job. I mean, the payment was horrible. But by the way, this is me, just after a stroke. I was supposed to make character illustrations for a role-playing game. And I panicked a little bit because I did not know the world. I had no clue which kind of costumes I could put those characters. Luckily, the brother of my former boyfriend at this time was a passionate leader, RBG player. So he could give me some advice that triggered some great experience and r0, and this is what I wanted to share with you. Briefly summarize the topics you should look out for our geography with different ecosystems, whether clima, wildlife, and everything else that is related to the planet. The next big topic is society. Considering of culture, politics, history, science. Especially in cultural, we find many subcategories that can be very interesting. Then there is economy. We have infrastructure and manufacturing and resources. Although the first to use and create by society, they are highly dependent on the environment in which they live. We could also add mythology and cosmology and magic if those are relevant for your world and story. And yet again, the list is not complete and not every aspect will be important for you. But it just gives a good overview. The more we think through those aspects, the more believable our world will become, and therefore also the characters that live in it. Now I want to show you how all those considerations can come together. I guess the setting is familiar for most of you. Otherwise, just imagine post nuclear war world where the environment transformed into a desert and close to no natural resources are left. And a few people that survived fight about what we minds. Okay, That's a setting. And now let's have a look at the main antagonist and his costume. He owns most of the remaining resources and has built a phonetic code around them. Like most, he suffers from tumours and other disease. And to ease the pain, he covers himself and white powder. What is creating a very specific look that can be easily mimicked by his followers. So we see a consequence of the environment, disease because of nuclear war. And the consequence of this illness. The white powder that is now originally trademark and connection for him and his group. Now about his clothes, he really is transparent or more, which is decorated with service metals so that even without knowing his past and story, we understand that he is a man of war and military. The AMA hold and protect a certain body, but it also makes them look more stronger than he actually is. We have a rope that is underlining his role as a cult leader. And a gas mask is another reminder after problematic environment, plus also his privileged position in it because he has access to resources that others don't have. Costumes don't always have to be extracted. I guess it's the way we German way to pronounce this. Nor do you have to add details. Often it is enough to just add a few items to create a recognizable. For example, how we put on with his combination of classes and scar or his house representing scarf that can be even mimic from a baby and we would recognize it, or layers hairstyle. But let's look again at Mad Max. All antagonists are crazy. Designs are meant to be strange and scary. But if you compare now the heroes, there are quite simple basis of what they were. You could also find in your own closet just dust and less shredder and the heart, the blood, but you get what I mean. They appear more real to us, more reliable. We can easily identify with them if we look at them as a collection. The first we notice that they all seem to come from the same world, the same environmental and social circumstances. After that, we are collecting information to find similarities and differences from which we can form groups like clan leaders, followers, The five wives. But there are other connections between groups. If we look at for your SAS makeup, which disappears over time, it is not unlike that of the War Boys, shows a connection to immortal Joe in her clothing, she has several pallets to Max and the fabric of the top is not unlike the one Use Benefit wife's clover, not only functional. They give us hints about the life and history of a person and his relationship to others. For an interatrial reward that there are unique enough to stand out from all the others in the group. We want to see how they relate to each other. And as a whole, despite all their differences, we want to have the impression that they are all coming from the same environment. It's like in school, you have a big group of people within. They have different interests like sports, music, science. And based on their interests, they could find new groups, like a basketball team or a punk band. These groups are highly homogeneous. They dress alike, they speak alike. Even though those groups seem to be very different. Indian, they're all coming from the same environment, the same city, the same country, the same moment in time. So now we know what matters. Personality and function must be reflected in a character, as well as the world and the circumstances in which they live. For this, it is important that you know as much as possible about the world and can extract consequences for life in it and how its residents make use of it. This will be your task. Build a world, brainstorm about a possible setting and a civilization that lives in it. Start by choosing the environmental circumstances like desert island underwater, the world about gravity, what ever basically, what are the challenges that are coming with this kind of environment? And how could this society that listen it, deal with those problems? What resources are available? And what can you conclude from this for clothing, architecture, and transport in a PDF is attached to this course. You will also find the map that I showed you at the beginning of the lesson. Use it as guidance and inspiration for your brainstorm process. And if you really want to impress me, then design a character that lesson as well. 8. Tell a Story: In the end, it is as simple as this. If you tell a story, then your picture will be immediately better. Mostly simple things are enough to tell a story which tie you tell us basically not important. I mean, not that important, as long as there is one. So if there's only one thing that you can take away from this course and instincts tell a story. With this, we are at the end of this course. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned a lot or at least a few things, or at least you felt well entertained. I would be amazed like arrays, if you would share your work in progress and your final results, rivers in the project gallery. And if you have any questions or suggestions, then let me know here on Skillshare or right medium on Instagram. Today, of course, we can follow me if you want to be at today. What's happening? Me and so on. So uh, yeah. I thank you very much for joining this time with me and see you next time.