Character Design: Wing It or Work It?

[HGohwell]

My new creator based game show! Coming never!

When you're designing a character, either new for an ongoing piece or for an entirely new piece, how do you do it?

• Wing it: You have a design in your head and you work them in with maybe a revision or two as you're putting them into the world or slowly over time. Or even you don't have an idea they just need them and have to throw them in, completely making it up as you go.
• Work it: You have idea but take time tor research the right fashion, either for their personality, period or both. You go through pages of rough sketches and pallets until you have it just right.
• Somewhere in the middle: Kinda self explanatory and where I imagine most people are.

Personally, it depends on the piece I'm doing. For a lot of my pieces I've imagined the characters and known them and their world long enough to know them and their sketch sheets are basically me getting the hang of them. I never really went through a design process for Val and very little changed as I sketched him out. It actually looks more like a reference sheet but it's not.

But for certain other projects I go through the long design process. For Boom Brilliant, the upcoming magical girl noir comic, my first design sketched for the main character started like this and carried on working for a lot of sheets. Partly because it's supposed to have a more vintage feeling and partly because I just really want to get it bang on. They're new characters and it's a oneshot so I want it to be as perfect as possible.

So! Do you wing it or work it? Share your characters WIPs if you have them, how have they changed, what're your design process?

[Jenny-Toons]

I lean more towards wing it. I don't throw things together, but I usually do draw my designs 3-4 times before I get somewhere.

[Klaustasya]

I think i wing it.
I draw a lot of character design without giving in too much thought though, otherwise it would feel forced to me and i could end up not liking the designs anymore.

[Kittosaurus]

I would say wing it for the initial design and overall feel, but then work it for the final design if that makes sense...

[deadaccountrip]

It depends but I usually “wing it” and let my characters develop themselves.

[Inspector_Spinda]

Somewhere in between for me. I usually have a pretty clear idea of what I want a character to look like before I begin. I don't tend to make a lot of changes once I get the concept done. Sometimes, I struggle with getting it to look good, but then I just do a few more sketches and usually I have a final design the same day or the next day from when I started.

They only exception is when I change the character itself or the story and need to redesign for it to make sense.

This is the concept art for my comic Plastic Teeth I did in late 2017:

This is the final designs from late 2017:

And these are the most recent designs:

[Rhonder]

Depends on the character for me. For major characters, I usually go through several revisions and just draw them a lot in general before I lock something in.

For minor characters I like 9/10 time just wing it xD There are like... 7 or so minor chars in my one-shot so far, and for each I just drew a suuuuper rough concept in the story boards and adapted them into a character on the spot when I got to those pages. Here are a few examples:

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[DruidPeter]

lol, I really should consider doing more than just wing it, @HGohwell. Your character sheets look interesting, and the second image you posted really shows how much well researched and thought out design can make the character really feel spot on. Alas, I'm definitely more of a wing-it character designer. This likely stems from my "hurry up and put it in production!!!" attitude, lol. Never really had time for practice and sketching. I always wanted to just get better going from finished product to finished product. P_P

Your characters do look quite interesting, though. I think I'll check out your comic. I like the expressions you have on the one you called "val".

[HGohwell]

Thank you! Boom Brilliant is really the first one I've done such major character sketches on but I had a distinct feeling I wanted from it beyond standard character design, specifically inspired by Film Noir and fashion through the 20s, 30s and 40s. Not something I've lived through and not the sort of thing I can get away with jeans and t-shirts as a go-to casual look.
I'm glad you think they look interesting, and enough so to make you want to check out my work. I've always considered Val one of my more beautiful characters, I've always been fond of him design despite it being one of the earliest winging it designs. Time hasn't made me love his design any less for once. And, like with a lot of my faves, it's not even at the point of the story where he appears yet.

I totally understand the rush it out attitude. Once I have an idea I often get very excited when I've got a new idea. I want to see it completed and in it's full glory and see my progress through that. In hindsight I do wish I'd taken at least a little more time on some of my older designs. Just a revision or two can make a lot of difference I'm learning now.

[silverraven0]

In the middle because I don't know how to work my brain and hands sometimes.

[rmdooley]

Work it. Especially if this is a main character. You will be spending a lot of time with them, know them well and be sure you want to spend time with what you have designed.

[nathanKmcwilliams]

Both. I can't really put into words why though. It's just the way it is lol.

[aqua03]

I tend to do both as well. I have a general idea of what I want the character to look like (I am a very visual thinker.) and then doodle down a basic idea, then further refine it. I tend to do a lot of spur of the moment character designs as well depending on how important the character is as well. (Recently made a super fast character design for the villain of Alpha Alpaca after a last minute change in the script.)

[Jenna_A]

I definitely wing it. However, I do have many advantages- 1. My story is set in the real world, so I don't have extreme looking characters 2. The majority of my characters are based on real people, so I already have a very clear picture of what they look like (no need for character sheets!), 3. My characters are all in uniforms lol. Kinda nice not having to design different outfits.

[Reign]

I wing it, at least I used to. I kind of regret it in some aspects. In terms of Tom and Shelldon, I really wonder how Tom would have looked if I made him a ginger instead of a blond. But because I never explored, he's a blond. I tend to be more careful with character creation when I'm making manga. Many of the characters within Tom and Shelldon come from spur-of-the-moment doodles and drawings. There are only three characters that are based off of real people: Tom's father looks much like my father.

Tom's small-time bully is based off of my younger brother. Then we've also got a superhero with a sentient tie (the superhero dresses fancy) who is based off of a friend.

[JeanGuillet]

yeah well...my characters don't wear the same clothes every day. and one even does some subtle shapeshifting and may be prone to reverse people's aging for a joke. so beyond bone structure i'm pretty lost. actually scratch that, even nailing down bone structure doesn't always work.

so I've got a general aesthetic for people. and a good idea of what they look like. gets easier after you've drawn them a thousand times.

[skicoak]

All kinds of winging it...

If I make all those design choices ahead of time, I have absolutely no creative momentum going into the storytelling. Took me a long time to realize that.

[baasinsimple]

Wing it all the way, baby! I plan literally everything else, so the groundwork for the character design is already set in my head. A story isn't anything until it's elements come together, rather than those elements existing as separate things. So if everything else has already been pretty much set in stone, than the character designs are pretty much a small amount of consideration for me in the first place.

[VibrantFox]

really thinking about it i gotta say work it. i almost always have some kind of rough concept but i almost always prefer to do more research and what not to make sure ive got a good design im willing to work with but also genuinely fits with their story setting. for my slice of life comic i didnt bother to much with givig a hoot about designs but for every other plot based story ive got in development i put loads of time into sorting hairstyles, clothing, and checking that it suited the setting/period its based in.

it could be because im secretly addicted to research or something but i love putting in a little extra effort for character designs since i worry that by winging it I'll have failed them somehow ;;;

[yondoloki]

I want to say that I wing it, but thinking about it I probably do work it more...

It's more a case of "Ok, this character will show up in the next page, maybe I should get around to that character design."

I usually have a clear idea of the concept in my head, but do a bit of research on clothing since my comic is set in Victorian England.

Wait, that does sound like winging it... Okay, a bit of both then?