Fundamentals of Character Design: How to Create Engaging Characters for Illustration, Animation & Visual Development

by 3dTotal Publishing (Editor)

What is it about the characters we see in our favorite books, animated films, and games that make us laugh, cry, and respond to them? How do character designers develop ideas that are unique, memorable, and captivate us as an audience? This book answers these questions and more, taking a comprehensive, visual, and analytical approach to discover just what it is that makes a character appealing. Understand key principles like shape language, proportion, and exaggeration, and learn from talented professionals who share industry secrets for getting the most out of anatomy, gesture, expression, and costume. Uncover ways to convey relationships and interaction between multiple characters, and how narrative fuels authentic and engaging characterization. With hundreds of lively illustrations to inspire and study, and tricks of the trade from celebrated artists, this thorough and insightful volume is an essential library addition for anyone interested in character design.

Genres: Art, Drawing, Nonfiction, Design

288 pages, Paperback

Published November 24, 2020

About the author

Originally a digital artist’s resource website, 3dtotal has grown into an industry-leading art-book publisher. Renowned for creating high-quality, inspirational, and practical tutorial books with some of the best artists working in the movie, games, animation, and publishing industries, 3dtotal Publishing sets the standard for modern art books.

Reviews

[kaitie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really helpful resource for designing characters that tell a story and how they interact with their environment, etc.

[Artù · Rating 5 out of 5]

Veramente un bel libro, personalmente nel disegno sono molto incostante ma questo libro è davvero ottimo.

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-assembled and reasonably comprehensive guide to the title topic. Particularly for aspiring sequential artists who are new to character design, the principles and practices outlined here will help get you off to a good start. The text was created by professional designers, many of whom write like designers (which is to say that the prose is often less than engaging). But the visual examples more than make up for weak spots in the text. If I could change one thing, I’d bring in a wider variety of graphic styles. Though examples clearly come from different illustrators, none of them depart too radically from Disney/Pixar styles. I should also note that borrowing this from Hoopla was a mistake. It’s set up as an eb00k rather than a comic, which makes the tiny type difficult to enlarge enough to make it readable. And the book features several galleries of suggestions for facial expression, body posture, clothing and the like. I wish I could hang onto those valuable references for longer than 20 days.

[Waffle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has useful information especially if your starting out in character design but I found the information surface level, I suppose? These concepts weren't super dived into. Also I wish each section had more variety in examples the libraries are a neat idea but it felt like many examples used were very cartoony and if you have a more realism style I'm not sure if they'd translate? Either way more examples of the concepts in the other artist's style would be good. I'm a bit confused by some of the principles mentioned in it.
But overall it was a nice book with useful concepts.

[D.T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a good balance of pictures and text (instruction/explanation). I was also pleased with the number of examples, the variety of art styles, and the diversity of characters (racial and body type).

I checked this out at my local library, and it’s ideal as a reference book due to its length. I don’t recommend trying to read this all-in-one setting. I couldn't read this straight through. Take your time and go through or skip directly to the chapters most relevant to you.

[Joelle Gebhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful reference for anyone designing characters.

[Oriana Tamiche · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excelentre libro para principiantes en el diseño de personajes ilustrados

[Reno Fernandez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this for my daughter, who is deeply in love with drawing and animation. We read most of it together; she read the rest. The things she has learned about character design are amazing!

[Elina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect source!!
Will get back to it sooo much