Decide in words before you draw
Drawing a character is less about one good picture than about building a design you can draw many times and still recognise as the same person. So before picking up a pencil, jot down in a few words what this character is like, what they do and where they live. Write personality and role together, say a timid but handy repairer, and pose, clothing and the tools they carry start to suggest themselves. Each time you decide on a feature, check it against this note and ask whether it shows the personality. That question becomes your design standard.
Recognisable in silhouette
A strong character can often be identified even when filled in solid black so that only the silhouette remains. That is because features that change the outline, such as hairstyle, hats, ears, tails or wide sleeves, carry most of the personality. Features that sit only inside the shape, such as eye shape or small patterns, vanish when seen from afar or drawn small. An efficient approach is to sketch many quick silhouettes of the same character, pick the most distinctive one and develop it. If you are designing several characters together, line them up and check that their silhouettes do not overlap.
What basic shapes suggest
Which shape you build the body and face around changes the viewer's first impression. These are not absolute rules, but many designers use the following tendencies as a starting point. Using one main shape with a little of another gives the personality more depth.
- Round shapes: soft, friendly and approachable
- Square shapes: sturdy, stubborn and dependable
- Triangles and points: sharp, quick and tense
- Contrast of large and small: the bigger the size difference, such as a large body with a small head, the more memorable
Choose a head count and keep it
Head count means how many head lengths tall a character is. Real adults are around seven to eight heads, but characters can be set much more freely depending on the purpose. A character shrunk to two or three heads is cute and shows expressions well, but complex movements with arms and legs are hard to show; five or six heads balances expression and action; seven or more looks realistic and allows a wide range of movement. What matters is that once you decide, you keep the same head count in every drawing. If the head size changes from picture to picture, it no longer looks like the same character. Even with simplified proportions, keeping the joints in mind makes movement look natural.
Practising faces and expressions
A character's personality shows most in the face. Draw a vertical centre line and a horizontal eye line across the face, then change only the brows, eyes and mouth to fill a sheet with expressions such as joy, sadness, anger, surprise and embarrassment. Emotion often changes more with the angle of the eyebrows and the corners of the mouth than with the eyes. Pulling faces in a mirror and watching how your brows and cheeks move helps. Even for joy, check your note to decide whether this character would laugh loudly or smile shyly, and the personality stays consistent.
Turnarounds from several angles
If you have only ever drawn a character from one direction, trying a side or back view often stalls because you do not know the hairstyle or how the clothes are built. To avoid this, make a turnaround sheet with front, three-quarter, side and back views next to each other. Draw horizontal guide lines at the crown, eyes, shoulders, waist, knees and soles, and fit every view to them so height and proportions stay consistent. Deciding now on things the front view hides, such as the back of the hair, bag straps or how a garment fastens, means you will not be confused later whatever pose you draw.
Start with fewer clothes and colours
The more decoration you add, the harder it is to draw the same way every time, and the key features get buried. Pick only two or three items of clothing and props, mainly ones that explain personality and role. Colour follows the same idea: start with one main colour covering the largest area and two or three supporting colours, and use a small accent only where you want to draw the eye. After choosing colours, switch the image to greyscale to check there is enough difference in lightness, so the shapes hold up when viewed small or printed. Generating several candidate palettes and filling them into the silhouette to compare is another good method.
Common mistakes and cautions
Problems that often show up with first characters, and points to know before sharing them.
- Drawing only the face: full body and pose complete the personality
- Always the same angle and expression: widen the range with turnarounds and expression sheets
- Adding decoration endlessly: if the silhouette blurs, take things away
- Tweaking an existing character and calling it yours: keep copying for practice separate from original work
- Using someone else's character for sale or commercial purposes: always check copyright and terms of use
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