DESIGN ORIGINAL CHARACTERS

Follow illustrator Chris Ables' step-by-step process of creating an original character design from start to finish

Character design, whether it be for animated films, television shows, video games, advertisements, publications, is the process of fully developing a character's physical characteristics, style, personality, behaviour and overall visual appearance. What this means is that every detail of a character, such as their shapes, silhouette, colour palettes, texture, details, and oftentimes, costumes, has been web media or print carefully chosen by the character designer and is overseen by a creative team made up of writers, producers, directors, 3D modellers, animators, art directors and production designers on any given production.

As Skydance Animation's character designer, I am no stranger to this s process. Having worked over the last ten years on projects for companies such as Netflix, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Atomic Cartoons, Marvel Studios, Axis Studios, IDW Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Studios, I have developed the technical skills and learnt the process for designing original characters. In this tutorial, you'll discover helpful and commonplace techniques for creating engaging characters, learn industry terminology such as 'A-Frames' and 'Turnarounds', gain access to my favourite Photoshop brushes, and you'll get an inside look into the step-by-step process that I take when designing an original, sci-fi, female villain character, from exploration to execution.

1 Character breakdown

On an animated production you're given an assignment of designing a character, but for this tutorial, I'll need to envision a character of my own. I'll think about not just their physical attributes, but who they are in terms of the personality traits, their ideologies and their motivations in life. In this case, I've come up with the idea of a female villain, whose attributes I've listed out above.

2 Reference board