Character design - The millions of steps to make something simple.

What most people don't know is that creating characters is never easy. I, for one, have a degree in Visual Arts and have taken many courses in character design. After all, my first dream was to work in the gaming industry, creating worlds and characters (I think I was only 17 years old).

When creating, we use many tricks to communicate everything in the simplest way possible, using shapes, sizes, and colors. Today, I'll talk only about shapes and character design for comics.

1 - Silhouette - A character needs to be easily recognizable. Their silhouette should already show who they are in the comic, avoiding confusion in the story (and oh, how many times I've mixed up similar characters...). The first decision is their size, which must be different. For example: Fern is small, Rowan is medium, and Blaze is large.

2 - Proportions - Size isn't just about the overall height, but also each part of the character. Fern's ears, for example, are the smallest, but her tail is the longest. Rowan has big ears (and other big parts too), while her feet and hair are quite small, and her tail is medium. Blaze, on the other hand, has medium ears and a short tail, but long hair.

3 - Shapes - A design rule says the rounder something is, the friendlier it looks. On the other hand, the sharper it is, the less friendly it appears, and the more "square" it is, the more serious it looks. Knowing this, we can already determine each character's shape and personality. Fern is more "square" but has very round ears. Rowan looks like a little ball because she's so round, but her tail is very pointy. Blaze is almost all pointy but still has curves.

This is the foundation for starting a character in any visual content. When it comes to comics, a character needs one more thing: they have to be easy to draw. After all, a comic consists of many small illustrations in sequence, meaning there's going to be A LOT of drawing.

You might be thinking that creating characters is difficult, but with my experience, I say it's not. No matter how many courses or degrees you have, a character only works if you like them, if they have "soul" – and that's something no course can teach.

Pink.