Sunday, April 28, 2024

How Shapes Make the Character Shape-Driven Character Design for Your OCs

character design shape language

One more factor which can make your designs more appealing and attractive is using the size relationships in your character. The road to good design is often paved with different size shapes, combined in an interesting and unpredictable way. The first example (a.) is of shapes, similar to one another, stacked up on top of each other in progression, which is a bit boring to look at.

SpongeBob Squarepants: Ideal Simple Shape Language Character Design

These are variations of organic shapes stylized or simplified. We all need a refresher now and again, which is why you’ll keep access to your course—and all the assets and project files—for the rest of your life. Come back to listen to exclusive interviews, review old lessons, and try out new techniques using your old assets. School of Motion courses are unlike anything you've ever experienced. School of Motion instant-access courses are unlike anything you've ever experienced. Shape Language, Anatomy, and Motif are all skills you’ll need to learn to have a solid foundation for your characters.

Conveying the character’s personality with a triangle

When you start with a new character or creature, it’s likely you will start with sketches determining the outlines and shapes of this creature. When you understand what your creature is about and what function it has, you can apply shapes to them that meet these qualities. If your creature is a deadly sea creature that’s extremely powerful, you may want to add square shapes to highlight its strength and triangles to display it’s deadliness. Companies like Marvel, Pixar, and Disney, heavily employ shape language in their designs, but so do experienced artists. These are some examples of characters that are likely very familiar to you and have a square-ish stature.

Shape language basics in art

Even in the most organic moment of sketching someone during a live drawing, an artist usually sees their subject as shapes, whether as simple as an apple or as complex as the human body. Humans have evolved to look at shapes and draw conclusions from them. What makes shape language so interesting is that by using certain types of shapes in a character we can make them evoke the same emotions we would want to evoke. This post definitely is a great sources for creating impressive characters. It’s a rule of thumb to use less triangular, square, and rough angles in the design, according to the age group of animation and the psychology of geometric shapes, and to use more curved shapes. Besides, adding larger claws for the character and reducing the width of the hand on the arm and forearm is more appropriate and more modern in terms of design.

character design shape language

The shape language technique is to specify the look and appearance of the background or character design by choosing a suitable shape for each one. You can make audiences understand the purpose of your design by using character shapes correctly and appropriately. Let’s start by looking at iconic character designs and understanding the shapes you can find. We’ll be looking at examples from video games and cartoons, specifically. Besides, circles, squares, and triangles don’t always mean one thing. There might be times when shapes are used to disguise the purpose or functionality of a character, object, or location.

character design shape language

Once you’re happy with the shapes you pulled out from the reference, separate and spread them out. Make sure you have references for ALL keywords in play, so for me it was House and Evil; both are crucial to the design. We should be asking, what is the idea that I want to communicate? What do I want the person looking at this image to feel at the end? There are many ways to communicate what kind of character people are dealing with.

Illustration Techniques

After I have my base sketches down I begin to refine them and add in more design elements, with more refined shape language. Triangular wings, head, teeth, claws… Then think about toothless from How to Train your Dragon. In my opinion one of the best designs ever for a deadly creature that can be very kind as well. Toothles looks pretty cute when he’s interacting with other dragons or his favorite people, but he looks a whole lot different when he’s angry or in fight mode.

Comparing Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch Art Direction - 80.lv

Comparing Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch Art Direction.

Posted: Mon, 11 Sep 2017 07:00:00 GMT [source]

In design, shapes give the character a sense of meaning and identity. So, if we assume one shape is better than the other, by definition, we’re saying one emotion is superior to the other. Shapes are best implemented we combine them to create emotions that make our design meaningful. Moreover, If you look at the protagonist, it’s obvious that the character has favorable personal qualities and overall happiness. This is often referred to as the “what is beautiful is a good stereotype” or “the halo effect” and is widely practiced in character design.

Impact of shape theory in characters’ personality types (UP animation)

She's worked with brands like Disney, National Geographic and American Girl. She has deep experience with character design and visual development, and won a student Emmy for her student film. When she is not drawing, she loves reading, exploring mountain meadows and watching movies with her husband.

Especially considering the fast-moving nature of video game characters, too much detail on an object or character will end up as noise. Small details should add visual interest to your major silhouette reads, not distort them. Details on the Rooster Monk are placed in areas where I would like to draw attention. Inspired by nature, fantasy and the whimsy of childhood, Emma loves to do colorful illustrations for book covers, picture books and magazines.

Let me walk you through one of the characters I designed around many of the principles we’ve discussed. Of course, Squidward has his rounded shapes, belying his role as a lovable curmudgeon. That and in animation, his long body bends, squats, and squiggles, almost as though the stiff, uncomfortable rectangle is a mask for what he should be deep down. The best character from the show, Squidward, contrasts nicely with SpongeBob and Patrick. He’s a real stick-in-the-mud, and his design reflects that in a long, straight rectangle that makes up most of his silhouette.

Chenpo, with his circular design, reflects a friendly, easygoing nature. These associations enhance the audience's understanding of each character and contribute to their overall personality. It is important to note that a character can also include a combination of these shapes.

The idea of Evil Tree needs to communicate through the line art of shapes AND the silhouette, I view them separately and decide on my favourite. Her feet are very smaller compared to her upper body.And then we have Melman, he’s a super nice but a little goofy! This is expressed through the use of soft curves and some angular shapes come across a little crooked in places.

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