Designing a character is difficult, and can be overwhelming . One can’t even begin to think clearly with so many different variables. It helps to break it down a bit and go through a certain process in order to achieve a character who is unique and creative. While I won’t be going over the exact process, I’ve done a quick study on one element that one should be aware of in creating a character, broken down into several pieces and examples.
Background Story
If you’re designing a mascot, it may not seem all that important, and more like just a fun thing to do, but in reality, having a background story is one of the most crucial base parts in creating an effective character or a mascot.
A background story gives your character a motivation for existence, and oftentimes, that drives the elements of every aspect of your character design, from posture, to appearance.
Let’s go into a couple elements when you have a background story:
Personality
Look at this silhouette below, and guess who it is.
It should be pretty obvious who this is. All you had to go by was his posture, and his hair, really, but yet he’s easily recognizable as the legendary L. Personality plays a huge part in this here. L is legendary because he’s basically a super genius. His background story is solving unsolvable cases. With that, it lends itself to the idea that super geniuses are also eccentric, and quirky. That quirkiness is brought out in L’s posture pretty much at all times. Now, compare that to this:
Notice how L is standing straight, and is pretty much a normal featureless guy, save for those dark eye bags. If you’ve read the How To Read volume of Death Note, you’ll know that when L was first designed, not much background information was given to the artist, Obata-san. He didn’t really have much of a choice but to illustrate L in this sort of unidentifiable manner. Most of the time, L was actually standing around, never hunched over. L doesn’t show much of his quirks until near the end of volume 2. He still holds items like a normal person until that point. After that, L is almost always hunched over, and always holding his items like a dirty dish rag.
L breaks one rule of being unique through his appearance. Almost all of his appearance consists of a plain white shirt, and blue jeans. You can’t get more generic than that. His ONLY unique physical feature are the dark eye bags. What makes L unique then, is his posture, his personality. Anytime you see a good L cosplayer, he’s usually hunched over.
Quirks and other Physical Appearances
Sometimes, logical likes and dislikes also help build a character’s quirks and physical appearance. L loves sweets and nothing else. Maybe your character is a pervert.
[pro-player]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftAMtTH6mKQ[/pro-player]
Can that kind of personality be illustrated strictly through the character design? Most certainly!
So what is there in a background story that drives the character’s personality, and even appearances?
Say for example, your character is a mercenary of a task force team created to obtain an ancient relic of a legendary sword that claims will grant unfathomable power. In his greed, he obtains the sword for himself, and kills all his team mates, only to learn that the sword is actually cursed, and now he must find a way to remove the curse. How would this affect your character’s appearance?
He might be some really gruff unshaven guy, with black hair to reinforce his greed and scars to show veterinary experience. Maybe a huge burn mark or deformed hand from which he held the cursed blade. The sword itself could have a very different appearance from say, a sacred sword. Maybe he wears something on him to illustrate his motive for obtaining the sword – like maybe he was hoping that the sword would bring his lost love back to life, so he carries a locket with her picture in it.
Here is what I would consider “poor character design”. She’s a drawing I did some years ago. By simply looking at this character, what can you tell me about her?
Other than how she looks like a Lineage II character, not much else. Maybe a warrior of some sort? But that’s about all you can tell. You could say she’s not very smart because she’s blond (kidding!) and is wearing very little armor to protect her vital organs? And maybe she’s umm… magically strong because she can carry a sword twice her height? I think you get where I’m going with this.
Here’s what I would consider strong character design concepts. Another drawing I did several years ago. Two different designs for the same character.
With these two designs, you can tell the different personalities right away. His frail thin body shows that he isn’t a man that works at the docks, but his facial expression shows that he means business, and knows how to get it. The hunched over version shows him much more sneaky, while the other posture is one of power and confidence.
When you have a good background story, and interesting personality traits, it brings a logical appearance to your characters, and communicates to your viewer what the character is about without even saying a word. Don’t just put a mask on your character just because. There has to be a reason for it. Vega doesn’t wear a mask “just because”, and neither should your characters.
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I had no clue who that first guy was; I was gonna guess he was some Final Fantasy character or the dude from Hyakka Ryoran Samurai Girls (and I probably could’ve guessed a couple hundred other games and anime which featured spiky-haired males). I like the girl in the bikini armor, though; she looks like she’s got sass.
Hmmm… that’s a little bit disappointing. I’d have thought anyone who’s into anime and at least knows of Death Note would have figured it out… I guess familiarity does play a part in this too. I guess the focus on the spiky hair throws it off a bit. 😐
I kinda figured you’d like the girl in bikini armor. 😉
I’ve been watching anime for around 25 years so I suppose you could say I’m into anime, but I’ve never seen Death Note and know nothing about it so I probably wouldn’t have figured it out. Looking at both pictures of the character (whose name I didn’t know until you mentioned it), I can’t tell anything about him – the first one suggests he might enjoy looking at things on the ground, or perhaps that he likes moving his bowels in random places, but I can’t deduce anything of his personality from it. Likewise with the second; he’s introducing himself without much emotion, but that’s pretty normal; I can’t say that I get very hyper or emotional when I say “hi” to someone. His clothes are nondescript, his hair and body build resemble about a thousand other male characters in anime, and pretty much the only unique thing about him is that he scratches himself with his foot. I think the only way you can tell anything about his personality from those pictures is if you were familiar with his personality already.
With the chick in chainmail, I can guess that he’s confident, maybe even a bit cocky. She’s comfortable being looked at, and possibly enjoys it. She’s obviously a fighter, though I can’t guess much about her personality from that since she could easily be either a bloodthirsty barbarian or a bookish warrior monk. The smile and pose suggests she’s more of a sociable type than an introverted wallflower.
It seems that my post article hinged entirely on people having seen the Death Note series. 😐
I did mention that L was a special case in the purest of form, that all his unique features come from his behaviors such as his posture, and the way he holds things, and not his appearance.
The second pic with L scratching his foot was deliberately used to illustrate how he lacks features entirely, with zero personality. His character was not yet developed at that point, so he was pretty much entirely featureless, which you too have observed in your comment. As the story progresses, Obata starts adding quirks to him. His personality completely comes through and you end up recognizing him for those quirks.
The way L squats hunched over at all times, even while in a chair, shows a sense of eccentric introversion, while the way he handles all objects like he’s holding a dirty dish rag is also a very unique trait unseen anywhere else. These sort of personality quirks is what makes the character unique, and not his appearances. Hence why I used the silhouette illustration to make the point.
I should have written the article assuming that my readers haven’t seen Death Note in order to illustrate my point more clearly.
In terms of the warrior girl, all you can tell from her is potentially her occupation, and nothing more, which was also my point.
You’ve definitely given some top notch character development advice :). Only a fool would ignore the wisdom in it. In the past I recall falling under the problem of making characters that lacked life or some form of motion or emotion…maybe a sense of being? Now I realize what was missing in the puzzle :).
I suppose you could further this concept by not only including characters but also the scenery or landscape design. Think of the possibilities when you combine a character with said back-story next to a locale with another back-story. The number of possibilities are astounding :).
I think of your last post on this blog on ‘Optimizing myself’ and I think about a comment I saw where you mentioned that what the character is in, or pilots, a ‘thing’. Essentially, she could be a pilot in a mech, a fighter pilot or what she is in could even, for whatever reason, have been an escape pod. All of which to me could have been valid stories with the proper back-story for the scene. Although I’d doubt the whole escape pod one due to her expression and situation haha :).
No doubt great advice that I will definitely put this advice into practice! Like Tier, though, I couldn’t figure out who the silhouette was. Probably because I’ve neither read or watched the Death Note series. Although what I could decipher from the pose was that he/she (yet again, was uncertain 😉 ) was one who either thought a lot on some matter(s) or plotted. I also thought that he/she could have been either very shy or very much separated from society or the world in its entirety (Whether physically or mentally).
All in all, a great addition :). Until next time, keep it up and take care buddy!
-Jason
Glad my tips are helpful! 🙂
Yes, it can definitely apply to backgrounds. For sure! Sometimes, an environment is very much a character unto itself. Most often an antagonist against the protagonist.
lol you know, that pilot painting is what I would consider “bad character design” as well. There are absolutely no distinguishing features about her that make her special or tell you what she does. She could be piloting a futuristic race car for all we know! Well, I suppose that’s what happens when all you wanna do is just sketch something quickly. ^^
Both you and Tier’s response does give me an idea for a future blog post. Stay tuned! 😀
I suppose that if the pilot was a ‘bad character design’ then you could use certain elements from that character to construct one that is a good design :). What I mean is that my initial response to the image in all honesty was that it looked like concept art :). Essentially something that could be used to further an idea later down the road.
I have several buddies who draw concept pieces in like 3-5 minutes and draw several of them at a time. They’ll spend like 30 minutes doing this–first deciding what they want to do within the first 5-10 minutes and then spend the rest of the time on the concepts–then they pick from what they think has the most promise and then work on a longer piece using the concept for partial reference. They of course add things in and remove things from the original idea, but that’s all to present a better character in the end 🙂 .
I imagine that you probably do (or have done) similar things either now or in the past hehe. I’ve never actually tried the idea before, but I’ve seen quite a number that have turned out nicely.
There’s more I could add, but I figure I’ll keep this comment as short and sweet as possible 🙂 (Even though I epically fail at that haha 😀 ).
I’m waiting in anticipation to what this future post will be! Maybe I’ll question you about it on MSN when you’re available sometime ;). That is, unless, you’d like to keep it as a surprise :D.
Take care!
-Jason
Maybe bad character design is a bit strong of a word. She’s “underdeveloped” (not in a dirty way). If I had thought up a background for her first, and maybe even imagined a scenario for her, then it might have turned out better. That’s not to say I can’t do that anymore of course. 🙂
I like the idea of doing quick thumbnail sketches to get some brainstorm ideas out. Ideally though, you’d still have a base background to work with, with keywords like “muscular”, “evil”, “magic” etc. Actually, I’ll talk about that in a future post.
I’ve done lots of concept art when working in the games industry. It’s a very specific process of back and forth.
I do like to keep my posts a surprise. You’ll just have to wait and see! 😉
Just a quick comment this time (Promise :D. If I ever make a short post, this will be it!).
You touched on the part I omitted in the previous post ;). I was going to speak about keywords (although, I call them aspects or character traits). I can’t wait for a future post on this topic :).
And I figured you’d like the blog updates to be a surprise :). Not that I mind, just makes Wednesdays not come soon enough haha!
Talk to you later! Oh…and I did actually managed to do it! 😀
-Jason
A background to a character is important but I notice that “flashbacks” of the character are often shown later so I wonder if it’s because they already had a idea of it or just wanted to put it in for people viewing it to get a closer feel of who the character is today because of something that happened in the past.
Well that goes into story elements, and conveying said story to the viewer. This post is more focused on the process of designing a believable character. Writing a background story before designing the character is more of a foundation to start for designing. Typically, a story is written before a character is designed. Very rarely is a story written around an already designed character.
Oooh, that’s a useful tip. I guess sometimes it’s not all about just being pretty. A memorable character design/ mascot needs to be able to ooze personality without much outside support.
Glad you found it helpful. 🙂 Hopefully, I’ll be able to write more posts like this in the future.
Such helpful tips! I’ve always thought that the face was the only one which matters the most.
haha yeah it’s definitely way more than just the face.
Very interesting post and quite inspiring if im honest!
I think i can take more than a couple of things away from this to try and use myself c:
Really appreciate this post!
You’re welcome! I’m glad you found it useful! I’ll definitely make more posts like this in the future. 🙂
Great post, yes, I wholeheartedly agree that a background story is one integral element to putting together a character design that many artists often don’t pay much attention to. It definitely helps to know SOMETHING about the character, particularly if you are starting from scratch, so that you might be able to define some distinguishing visual traits. Something as simple as “Hey this character doesn’t like stupid people” can lead to the inclusion of a semi-perma frown or anger mark on the character’s face when in the presence of a ditsy looking character (or just all the time, can depend on how high and mighty this character is supposed to be). Or, you want to go with a happy-go-lucky, easy-going character, so you might draw the character with their eyes mostly closed or half closed with a wistful smile.
On a tangent note…
It’s like me and games, I need the story to be compelling enough to draw me into that world and get me into playing it. It isn’t enough just to have pretty graphics. If I cannot draw a strong connection between the visuals and the story, the game will not do much for me.
I need to practice what I preach lol. My previous post was an example of an underdeveloped character because I didn’t create a background story for her. The only thing I had in my mind at the time was “pilot”. I guess that’s why the equally uncreative subtitle “Girls Like It Fast” came up. 😛
I’m like that with games too. Even if the character fits into a troupe, I’d still feel more comfortable with the game than if the character was compelling.
It actually reminded me of this process posting by Jin: http://saejinoh.blogspot.com/2009/08/work8-process-works.html
Yeah I remember that one. 🙂
He did spend like, 40hrs on that painting tho.
Personality is probably something that a lot of artists don’t consider, especially looking at all of the generic bishoujo illustrations out there. I don’t think it’s necessary for a good illustration though, there’s plenty of good artwork using characters in simple poses and average clothing.
That’s true. Though there is a pretty important difference between an artwork piece and a character though. You can make the most generic looking characters look amazing with good art skill, but it may not convey enough about the character in question, just the situation they happen to be in at the time.
I’ve seen a lot of beautiful artwork with beautiful looking characters in it, but they don’t “tell a story” you know what I mean?
A very helpful post! 🙂 I will definitely have to think deeper when I design OCs in the future.
awesome post radiant. Actually I thought that silhouette at the start was rourouni kenshin but I haven’t see Death Note either :s *goes to watch death note immediately*
I was thinking that also, a recognisable character is totally helped by context. If your warrior girl with the sword was silhouetted along a line of characters from Namco – Soul Calibur people might draw more attention to smaller details (like a quiff in the hair, or a slim neck etc.) since many other characters have swords.
The K-on girls all look the same but silhoutted and side-by-side most fans could pick them out based on tiny unique features like each girl’s posture and their comparative heights.
I’ll definitely be looking at my characters like this more to gauge their strength of character! thanks for the advice 🙂
-Christopher
Hmmm… you make a great point about familiarity! Seems like a topic that I will blog about in the very near future. Thanks for reading!
Visually inclined, but still quite serviceable to someone who develops characters in prose. I try to keep what you’ve said here in mind when I write, due to the meager concepts of good storytelling I’ve gathered in scraps over the years. It’s all very Chekhov’s face-paint/hair accessory; how superficial character details should be explained to provide depth.
My only fear is that Chekhov’s device won’t be enough, with how other character traits might cause the character to fall comfortably in a character trope and then really further define that with actions that adhere to the trope. I mean, trope-y characters have just about become conventional; the characters of my anime experiences, the ones I base my own on, are far-detached from the dynamic characters of the grand narratives. An example is one of the more recent characters I made, which I’m trying to subvert all-encompassing character tropes with. I’ll email the outline to you, since I’ve probably always wanted to show somebody.
But hey, great post man, it gets my juices flowing.
Seriously though, what’s with all the people who haven’t seen Death Note :/?
Sweet! Just read the bio that you emailed me, and I see what you mean by chekhov’s device. There are definitely visual tropes (and all this time, I’ve been wrongfully using the word “troupe”!) that would fall into that description. Select quotes from your email:
She wears a pair of sunglasses on her forehead at all times, which she would unconsciously put on whenever she had to deduce something
CSI Miami.
with a warped autophobia that emerges when she’s not engaging in violence or some form of dominance.
Visually, she seems like a person with long black hair, with a look similar to Bayonetta. She might even wear glasses too. Yes, a trope, I know. But that’s exactly how I visually imagined her based on your description. I know you’ve deliberately tried to keep her personality as non-trope-y as possible. It’s amazing how quickly and easily one’s mind can comfortably create a visual that fits neatly into a trope!
it gets my juices flowing.
Just thought I’d point that out. 😛
That was a great article, I my self coming from a Dungeons and Dragons background, (yes I’m a DnD nerd) have always created a background for any character that I’ve written out on paper or drawn. I would always narrate to my self his back story and reasons why he prefers to use this weapon over a more advanced one. And I think using L was a great example he is one of those noticeable anime figures in a long time.
Again ty for putting up these articles they are very helpful and get the creative gears turning! ^^
Hey no worries! I’m glad you found the article useful! 🙂
Ah, lovely post! I’m currently creating a doujinshi manga my self, so this post has given me a clearer direction on how to design characters.
I have to mention this though; you have a beautiful web design for your blog.
I’ll definitely be visiting your blog all the time now, Radiant!
Glad the post will be able to help you! Be sure to check out my other posts on art and character creation! 🙂