NITTY GRITTY TIPS: Character Development

[NanettesClouds]

Hey everyone! Welcome back to a new season of Nitty Gritty Tips!

For those of you who are new NGT is a series of threads where we get together to share advice around a particular topic, especially advice that doesn't get shared as often!

There have been a lot of NGT threads already, and you can find them all in the link below - feel free to participate in the past discussions!

NITTY GRITTY TIPS Hi Y'all, welcome to Nitty Gritty Tips! This is the master-thread for all of Nitty Gritty Tips. A series of discussions where we get together as a community to share helpful advice, tips and tricks, around around a various topics. This thread is also where people can come to suggest new topics for the series and share forum discussions that can be considered honorary NGT's (any thread where we've all gotten together to share advice) NGT will be back soon with new topics,…

This season, we're focusing on persons-places-and things! Arguably the three most important parts of your comic. I would guess that every panel has at least one of these included in it.

This week we're focusing on persons!

how do you create characters that are interesting and distinct, both in writing and visual design. How do you make the design sync with the characterization and vice versa?

I'll start us off by sharing one of my favorite character design tutorials by Tato! Creator of I Love You Bambette

Character Design Tips

In my own character design - I like to think about the role that the character is going to take in the story, and I try to foreshadow important future plot points in their design. For example, in my comic - Skeletons in the Closet - the main character, Steven, has a very pointy nose, and over the course of the series his nose has only gotten pointier.

Part of this is because I'm sorta referencing Pinocchio as Steven does a lot of lying, but really it's mostly because I think it's funny. That said their nose also shares a lot of visual similarities with a knife, which uh... I guess spoilers but knives are going to play an important role in Part 3.

Now it's your turn to share advice - tell me all of your art secrets!

[skicoak]

Since the real estate I primarily work in is closer to the reality corner on Scott McCloud's triangle of communication ...

Character design is more like casting for specific roles than designing characters that have a narrative level of meaning in their execution or abstraction to define by form.

One of the primary pitfalls in developing a specific western style is character design has often been regulated to drawing characters in their ideal forms and then distinguish between them with different costumes/hairstyles. I've spent the last year really trying to develop distinctly different characters that didn't rely on costume/prop. How well I've succeed is up to interpretation

[NanettesClouds]

Character design on that end of the spectrum seems like one heck of a challenge - do you use reference photo's for the faces or do you just kinda wing it?

[Hel-Be-Praised]

When it comes to writing I have a character "creator" that I've compiled and put onto a word document. It has a lot of different things about a character that I try to come up with and then incorporate in some way into my stories.

It's a couple pages long and I feel like it really helps me give my characters some depth when I'm writing OCs.

[skicoak]

do you use reference photo's for the faces or do you just kinda wing it?

I've definitely learned to embrace the reference photo!

I usually cast using a few different people, famous and non famous and mix and match features until I have my basis. Work from there.

I'm working on more variety in body shapes as well.

[ble]

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[Domae]

My main character, Marcus, is chronically homeless. This means that his character design features the same clothes, and also unkept facial hair. My other main character is more privilidged, she her outfits change often, although they usually fall within a certain color palette

[dawgofdawgness]

I sort of winged the character designs when I first started Leftovers but when I got the story and characters going, they sort of naturally changed along the way. I.e. Frances (MC) has a short and round face with big eyes and a small nose. Compared to the rest of the cast she looks slightly less realistic and is noticeably younger.. I guess to highlight her childlike innocence? Wild pink hair - visually contrasts with the comic’s palette. You can spot her from a mile away.

Which is not only pretty useful in terms of art, it does kind of show her need to stand out, since her hair color is unnatural. As for Azzi (supporting)

She doesn’t stand out nearly as much. I actually changed her hair color midway through the story so she could blend more into the background. The only thing that really stands out in her color palette are her eyes, which are light blue. Why? I dunno.

You can also sort of see the triangle- circle thingy but that kind of died as I started making the art more realistic/anime proportions

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Mmm...I don't think I actually put a lot of effort into 'syncing' character design and development.

Character design is usually a pretty automatic process for me, it's just like * pop * there's a character now. And then their personality comes from whatever they look like. It's not uncommon for me to want a character who acts a certain way, draw them, and then all of a sudden their personality is different, or they start to take on traits that reflect the way they look. I can't deny the will of my mind's eye. =/

But it's fine for me because, as a writer, I'm good with pretty much anything. I don't mind having my plans disrupted or derailed in favor of an interesting new direction; it was probably gonna happen anyway. I remember admitting once that I changed a story to include more flashbacks because once I drew what the protagonist's face looked like under their mask, I decided it was too cute to only draw once or twice. XD Of course, by now the story has morphed and evolved so much, that reasoning from long ago is kind of irrelevant.

[mariusthered]

my characters are a mix of my own and my version of fairy tale characters with a twist. For instance I too have a Pinocchio based character, but I decided not to use that name and go with Woodboy.
As you all know my main guy is Marius the red (me) the guy in the bucket. I did consider changing his bucket to a real helmet or removing it but I decided that the bucket makes the character and he would loose a lot of his charm if I removed or changed it. so I decided to only show him without the bucket when he has sex (and that's only in the sale editions)
most of the time when i am making a character i only think why i need them in the story and develop the character a bit more later on.

[SleepingPoppy]

This is a hard one to describe, and I feel like it varies between projects and characters for me. Often times if I'm trying to think up a character I have some pre-existing features or elements I'm interested in (anything from prosthetic limbs to freckles), and there's some remixing that goes on. I may browse through photos of models or otherwise to help me complete the idea of the character.

Pinterest can be really useful for figuring out theme/aesthetic/fashion. I mostly go there for clothing ideas.

I don't really worry about them being distinct or interesting, I just focus on the visuals and characterization making sense together and in the story.

How do you make the design sync with the characterization and vice versa?

I feel like this just comes naturally usually? You put bits and pieces of a person together in both the physical and mental sense, and more and more you find it all coming together. Sometimes it doesn't turn out the way you first expected, though.. In terms of my characters, for HH there are three leads. Asoro, a fallen angel, who is very sweet and kind, is drawn with a round face and round eyes, his coloring is very earthy, with wings modeled after sparrow, rather than the traditional angel look. The other two characters, who are hell hounds, or more physically imposing, both with dark hair, and very simple clothing with minimal color usually. The hounds generally wear shades of grey plus blue jeans, and the angel wears off white with a touch of gold, and I'm slowly introducing more color into everyone's wardrobe as the characters get closer (there's also increasingly lovely flowers left on the kitchen table in the vase, which was originally empty, but no one has picked up on that ;D)

Admittedly designing an angel that looked angel-y but was also going to not loot weird in an Earthly setting was difficult. But the results are what they are at this point. I didn't really take him being a principality into consideration enough when designing things, which works fine for the majority of the story, but would have been a nice touch for a flash back/exposition-y bit.

I'm sorry this feels very rambly. It's hard to write it in a way that's useful advice for others.

[SleepingPoppy]

I feel this. I usually have to develop it, but character design for me often starts with some understanding of what I want already. And occasionally a fully formed character is just dancing around in my head until I find a place for them in writing and art. XD

Pop is a good word for it.

[skicoak]

Pinterest can be really useful for figuring out theme/aesthetic/fashion. I mostly go there for clothing ideas.

I do the same, along with following some particular stylists from the entertainment fields.

I don't like to generalize but I find that too many artists working in long form don't think about "dressing" characters over the course of time. It frequently ends up with the cast getting a Scooby Gang vibe of wearing the same thing over and over or just variations in the same individual color scheme.

Just my opinion.

[SleepingPoppy]

I don't disagree, though I think it depends a lot on the individual stories and what the creator wants. Personally I just really enjoy thinking about fashion and playing dress up. Mostly the characters in my comic dress similarly day to day, but there are in character reasons for that.

I think it's a good thing to think about, though, and it's a useful way to share information about the character over time, and give a feeling of time actually passing. =)

[NanettesClouds]

I relate to this a lot! With Gumtown, I didn't design the character in that comic, but so much about what that comic and the way that character acted was influenced by their design. I really really really hate the third page of Gumtown, and now that you bring it up I think part of what makes that page so awkward is I was trying to use the character in a way that they were not meant for, rather than letting them dictate how they should act in that situation.

[NanettesClouds]

On a similar note - haircuts in anime are usually significant of an important character change. I feel like the same should probably apply to character outfits. Through most of SitC Steven wears their puffy hoodie but in the recent scenes they were wearing a T-shirt and then later just boxers to make them seem more vulnerable. Likewise if I wanted them to seem more stand-offish I would probably add more layers. Maybe a scarf.

[SleepingPoppy]

XD I have a weird thing where I really enjoy a vulnerable character being barefoot. Asoro is the most vulnerable character in my comic (and the story revolves around that vulnerability in a big way) and he's barefoot 24/7.

And I very much agree with adding or taking away layers of clothing to show a character that is defensive or stand-offish verses being vulnerable. There's so many little touches one can make to show character progression or changes, it's a very fun part of design. =)