Learning Outcome 01

Appraise the issues relevant to character design in various contexts.

Designing a character is a process that goes through many stages and requirements. A character has to aggregate ideas, history and personality to form an individual person or thing. It also has to fit to its requirements and to the context in which it will be included: a comic book, children’s animation, game, etc.


One of the first steps in a character design would be to define who this character will be in the story context. To be well-designed a character has got to show much of its history and attitude by its appearance. Knowing the history of the character, where it comes from, what its function is and the importance of it in the role in the story can give lots of content to explore during its development.


Another very important factor in a character’s design is to know about its physical and psychological conditions. Defining colour, race, age, gender, lucidity, how aggressive it is or not will also change much of its development and looks. Resuming, having in consideration the characters life, such as his past, maybe future, and some of his physical and mental condition, can help a lot in its concepts.


As important as these factors are another very relevant issue to consider is to know which media this character is going to be used in and also the public which it is aimed at. Nowadays with the advance of technologies, the only limit faced on a character conception is the imagination of the artist, although many times it is not the complexity of a character that will make it suitable for the work. Children’s books, games or animation, for example, usually require characters with simple lines and colours and short on details for easier comprehension and charisma. On the other hand, developing a game that is aimed at a more adult public will completely change these requirements. In this scenario, most of the time it is the complexity of the world and character being explored that will catch the attention of the spectator. Games such as “God of War”, which are aimed at an audience of 16+, are famous for action scenes and also for the immense size of its scenarios and characters through the game. Gigantic bosses full of history and details where scenes of gore and almost nudity are constantly present might be factors to be considered in this kind of games.


In conclusion, there are many issues to be considered when it comes to a character design. However, having these backgrounds defined makes it much easier to start the work on the concept of these characters. As most works, designing a character is a process, and the most you can define before you get to sketch something, the easier it will be to get it right and have a rewarding outcome.