Written By Miguel Nogueira
After the wild and unexpected success that my other article on character design tips was, and how ArtStation even decided it was cool enough to feature it for the whole community to see, in their newsletter, I’ve gone back to give you a few more character design tips!
It hasn’t been apparent to me, but looking back, I now know a lot more than I did, not a long time has passed but enough for me to have worked with several AAA and boundary pushing creative projects, and as such, I’ve gathered enough inspiration and introspection during the design process, to have more to give back again:
Let’s start! This is Character Design Tips, take two!
Number one: Your work doesn’t live on an island.
Your work doesn’t live on an island; consider the surrounding atmosphere and environment to your advantage, amplifying the story or design. This could be as basic as not adding materials or tech to your character that isn’t present in the universe or the surrounding environment. It could also be as subtle and complex as incorporating details from the environment into your character.
In my Oracle Character Design here, my mind’s eye was playing with the idea that she lived and travelled a lot through the forest, therefor, I added subtle cuts on her arms, they are just surface deep cuts and bruises, nothing that’d hinder her abilities, and is more akin to depict that she bumps into trees and bushes, rather than… fighting them directly.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
Number two: Do your Research.
I mean it. This is akin to eat your vegetables. Everyone knows it’s good for you, hardly anyone takes it seriously, until they need it.
Google Images or Pinterest isn’t research. (Unless you’re on a deadline) - if not, do proper research, not just any research. Get intimate with the creative process, as if it's a relationship between you and the subject matter.
Copy-pasting images into your Photoshop canvas is hardly researching, it’s just… copy-pasting images into your Photoshop canvas.
noun
noun: research; plural noun: researches
the systematic investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new conclusions.
"the group carries out research in geochemistry"
work
engaged in or intended for research.
modifier noun: research
"a research student"
verb
verb: research; 3rd person present: researches; past tense: researched; past participle: researched; gerund or present participle: researching
investigate systematically.
"she has spent the last five years researching her people's history"
As you see here, research is hardly looking at whatever someone pre-selected on Google Images, or generated on AI, it is not a product of a pre-set or assumptions of what an idea looks like, instead, is fruit of deliberate analysis.
Number three: Have fun with the research process. Don’t forget to dance!
When preparing a character design, what I like to do is to find avenues to relate to the character, and see it as an opportunity for work-life integration, rather than work-life balance. Allow me to explain:
If I’m faced with a character like the above, a bartender NPC for an Old West setting, I want to relate to it, and go out of my way to see bartenders in their natural habitat.
How? My friends and I went coffee shop and bar hopping around downtown recently.
Again, there's a lot of talk about work-life balance, but what I find that what I like the most is work-life integration: I got to spend time with friends, go out of my comfort zone and talk to strangers (different bartenders), get a feel for their persona and what tools they use and why and what’d make their jobs easier, so I’m enjoying my time-out, and all while still studying the subject real-time, from up close.
Because I’m fortunate that I’m a quite varied person and I like a lot of different edges of life, I could go bar hopping in different café and bar themes, and check where all of these different people overlap on, what is it that they all agree on that makes them a bartender? And recognizable as such?
We went from a Mexican bar, to a biker bar, Hard Rock Cafe, and even a fancy Art Nouveau bar.
There is no such thing as work-life balance. It is all life. The balance has to be within you.
To emphasize: I wanted to check on the list of overlapping elements on any of the bartenders I'd encounter, icons or symbols that'd stay, no matter the setting. What were the props, attire, iconography or motifs that you could take away without taking away the job and role itself away from them? What were the fundamental ergonomics that needed to be there for them to perform their job well, and how can I push the function to make their job easier to perform, for themselves?
This, ultimately, adds believability as you're storytelling new work-routines for fictional characters. You're not just designing their personality or story anymore. There's a story inside a story here. There's more for the audience to revisit and add to re-playability of any game or film.
Some people may also argue that Google Images, Pinterest albums or even AI art generators would do just fine at generating reference. In my opinion, the bandwidth of the world is broader than your TV set or internet bandwidth, or any fully-rendered real-time simulation and digital manipulation of what the real deal looks like. It's true that these are good enough for a conversation starter, but if you focus on what's good, you'll only be to where you've ever been. If you focus on the process, you won't know where you'll land, but you know you'll want to be there.
Number Four: Extra ideas for you to think about
Think back about the time you went very literal on a design, where you were more focused on drawing the superficial than the deeper insight on your character, environment or atmosphere. Where could you have been more authentic to the process? Where could you have related and created a relationship with the product itself?
Here are a few examples of what it might look like; Instead of looking for reference online, consider the following options:
If there’s an abandoned house or site of any sort around you, go there and collect a bunch of lost items, things people left behind, anything that captures your fancy. Bonus points if you photograph, and bring plastic bags and gloves and take a few of those home with you to study.
Once you do, make a skeleton mockup with clay of what the character living there may look like, and just like that, you have a post-apocalyptic character that is unique, original, and whom nobody else will have access to online.If there’s a skater group in your town, and you need to make a skate project, say, something akin to “Tony Hawk Pro Skater” game; go there, sit and sketch them from a far. This will avoid you falling for poser or otherwise fake archetypes of what a skater may not look like, and alienate your audience. Bonus points if you’re shy or socially awkward, and you ask to join and teach them a trick or two. There’ll be nothing like being involved in the community in order to properly depict it from a love lens, illustrate them and the feeling they’d left on you, instead of capturing them like they’re some kind of alien race.
If you need to make horror concept art, be it prop design or character design; look for weird fortune-tellers in your town, ask them to read your future, and just like that, you have your main personality to draw from already in front of you.
Some may argue that these things take too much time and effort, but I’d argue that it’s better we set on a clear blueprint for good work ahead of time, than wasting time on countless amounts of revisions later on, that’ll just leave everyone frustrated and tired down the line, because we seemingly couldn’t nail the core of it earlier.
By failing to plan, you are planning to fail.
This post comes after some junior concept artists and students have approached me for design tips. So my thanks goes to them for the great question!
Miguel Nogueira is a freelance concept artist, designer, and storytelling strategist.
He’s also worked with studios to help to map solutions to reach their audience.
He’s been featured at Artstation, CGSociety and Behance, and also on Kotaku and 3DTotal. Furthermore, he’s also recently worked with EA DICE via Outsourcing Partners on the release of Battlefield 2042: Season 4, and an upcoming, AAA, unannounced MMORPG as Character Design Lead.
If you’re interested in having Miguel speak at your event, want to sponsor his content, or start a project, please send all business inquiries to: www.menogcreative.com
Miguel Nogueira
