A First Look at Character Design

The wonderful world of Twitter decided the destiny of this post. Yes, you heard right. How does Twitter decide what I write about in here? Well, it's quite simple actually. I posted a small snippet about how I was trying to think of new blog post ideas and within minutes had 3 prompt responses with all good ideas. These were from people I had never heard of, but it's nice to know there are people out there willing to help.

I ended up choosing an idea from @gilabot. His recommendation was based on his most recent post called Top Character Design #001. This won't be focusing too much on Darth Maul, but he is one intimidating dude if you ask me.

Now, since this is just the first look at character design, most of the characters I will show are extremely well known. You have to love Disney and the other big name creators for providing us with our many childhood cartoons and movies. How did they do it though? Just how did they think up and develop such strong characters that moved and influenced us so much?

Let's take a look at some of the well known characters that we have been introduced to throughout our years. Notice the time it takes you to recognize who it is and how they are feeling. Not long at all! Hence, great design and development.


I could really go on for days with the pictures. There are countless characters that are so distinguishable because they are created so well. That is the power of animation in general. The ability to put life and emotion into a drawing and make the audience believe it has a mind is something that will be cherished forever.

Stay tuned for more posts on this topic, including comic book character design, movie characters, and the steps to developing a lasting character.

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