Vivek Rai was sending me by email a pretty cool picture from a school task he had about creating characters. He asked me some tips about: How to generate ideas to create Character design?
The whole idea is to make interesting features pop out. How?
We need a story.
A good story gives his characters specific role and personality for each of them.
This is where we get all our inspiration from to “translate” them visually.
You can find a great book about How to write stories like PIXAR.
This is not a coincidence that Disney, Pixars, Marvels… use animals attributes to their movies.
To create a hero, you need find ways to illustrate his personnality visually.
And it happened that we can find a lot of inspiration in nature.
For example:
A vilain could be inspired from an alligator. His features are sharp, thick skin, dangerous…
However, an innocent personality could be found in an innofensive animal like a puppy.
TIP: Try to apply this to product design!
What expression, personnality would you like to give to your product creation? How it will influence its attributes?
I share with you the full response I have sent to Vivek below. I hope it will be also useful to you too ! :)
CHARACTER DESIGN ATTRIBUTES
If your ideas looks “too simple”,
your proposals may be too common and need to be spiced up!
Each member has its own features.
- The dad is strong, proud and a lovely daddy.
His physical features: He has a big chest, he’s huge, his face is squarish but also chubby. - The mom is responsible and wish having a normal life for the family.
She’s the only one who has a more common body- even though her super power of elasticity is very cool. She’s slim though and has hips. - The daughter is shy.
She’s slim hiding behind her black hair and her power is invisibility! So she can hide whenever she doesn’t feel confortable. - Dash, the little brother is fast, hyperactive, love sports, love competition, he’s spontaneous…!
His small and his main power is speed! Like the mouse Speedy Gonzales.
So everything will make sense, and the story will be easy to understand for your audience.
My tip is: Before drawing anything. Ask and find the MAIN attribute first. Think of your character personality. What was his past story? Where does he come from? What does he dream of ?When you are ready, start drawing many doodles exploring different alternatives !
WEAKNESS?
Any hero is lovable because he has a weak point. No one is perfect. So people can relate more to the hero.
We somehow feel a reflection of us to them.
Heroes are no perfect!
However she’s smart, courageous, ressourceful, and has a strong sense of justice.
Ratatouille.
And they use his super sense to detect poisonous food.
Everybody will wonder. How is that possible?
Because he’s not perfect, he’s adorable, and will live plenty of unpredictable situations!
Chou-Tac”
Even though your major may be product design, open your field of discovery to architecture, animation, video games, movies… and so on. Inspiration can come from anywhere.
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Nice! I think this idea could be used not only for characters but for everything we draw or create.