Every good character design starts with the basics - proportions and shapes. Proportions help with consistency and shapes are used to construct the character. 

This article covers good character design practices for beginners and is Part 02 in a three-part series of character design articles. You can find the other articles in the series here:

• Character Design 01: Researching the character
• Character Design 03: Finalizing the character sheets

Creating the rough design

Character Proportions

Before starting, think about what style of character you want to create. Are they cartoony, or more serious and realistic? Maybe something in between? Use this to decide the proportions of your character. 

A character's size is usually recorded in units of "heads". Use these guidelines to keep the character in proportion:

Standard character A standard character is usually about six heads high. This type of character design is a bit closer to the proportions of a real person of average height.	Cartoony, cute or short A short or cartoony character is often three heads high (but can be more or less) due to a short body or a very large head. A large head results in fewer heads to make up the height. This results in a funnier, more cartoony or cute stature.

Drawing with shapes

It’s a good idea to start every design with basic shapes. A character with good shape structure will look more solid and is easier to redraw in paperless and hybrid pipelines. After getting down the shapes, you can start adding some details in rough to flesh out the character. 

Simple Shapes

Simple shapes are exactly what they sound like - Circles, rectangles, triangles etc. You can start with these shapes and refine as you go. If you are creating a character who is soft, try rounder shapes. If you are creating a hard-edged character, use shapes with more pointy and straight edges.

Forceful Shapes

It’s a good idea to use as many forceful shapes as possible in your design as you refine. A forceful shape is a shape that includes both curves and straight lines and tends to be asymmetrical. These are more pleasing to the eye as they have variety. Of course, it is not forbidden to use simple shapes, but a forceful shape will always be more appealing.

Adding dimension to your shapes

Use curved lines on your shapes to give a feeling of dimension, feature placement and depth. This will help round out your shapes more and make your character feel more fleshed out before you start adding detail.

Refining the rough design using silhouettes

After refining a rough draft of the character, you can take some steps to improve the design before finalizing. You can do this by making many variations, and by using silhouettes to see if your design is recognisable as a solid shape. 

Silhouettes can be used in two ways: 

• On many variations of one character to see which variation is the most readable.
• On many different characters to make sure you can easily tell them apart.

Either way, a strong silhouette is important in good character design. You should know exactly who each character is just from their silhouette. 

A bad silhouette will be difficult to decipher, whereas a good one will clearly show the character’s form and will show exactly what is happening in the pose.

Cleaning up the design

Once you’ve decided on the rough draft you want to use, you can go ahead and start to finalise the design in the 3-quarter view. This involves doing the clean lineart and filling the character with colour. It’s important at this stage to take note of the art style you want to achieve when it comes to line texture and colour palettes.

Character variations

If you are creating your own project and you are happy with your design, you can skip this step. However, it is good practice either way to do some more variations of the character. This includes changing the hairstyles, clothing and colour palettes. This is important for studios that have multiple approval stages. 

Once you’re ready to finalize your character and create the character sheets, move on to Character Design 03: Finalizing the character sheets.