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how are you supposed to actually start
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designing characters experienced
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character designers seem to pull
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incredible ideas out of thin air how do
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they even do that how did they even
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think of these it seems like magic
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doesn't it is it possible to develop
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this ability for yourself and how do you
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get better at it well don't worry
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because it's definitely not magic it's
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something far more boring than you might
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expect some of you might know how to
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improve your drawing skills but you
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might not know how you're supposed to
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improve your design skills so I'll
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explain what exercises I did to improve
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my character design work and how I
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managed to go from this to this before
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we begin let's do a quick recap what
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exactly is character design isn't it
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just making up pretty outfits well
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designing appealing outfits is part of
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it but it's not the entire story
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although character design is about
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visual
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communication it's about how much you
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can tell about a character just by
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looking at them it's telling telling a
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story with no words now how do we begin
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do we start by Conjuring up all of our
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creativity to think of the most original
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Super Duper unique idea that's like
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never ever been done
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before that's not necessarily true many
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people think uniqueness is the most
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important trait of a design but just
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because an idea is unique it doesn't
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mean it's good for instance someone once
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shared an idea for a character that had
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living toenails that moved as snakes
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that they could use as Weapons that's
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certainly unique but is it good maybe
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I'll let you decide instead of that
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let's start with a short and unoriginal
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prompt perhaps some kind of angelic
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night pretty boring right you've seen
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this done a million times in fact this
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is something that I've done before 3
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years ago this is one of my first ever
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character designs I'm going to try
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redesigning it to see how much my
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character design skills have leveled up
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instead of worrying so much about
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uniqueness we really should be focusing
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on the execution how well it tells a
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story even a boring idea like this
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competently executed can turn into an
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amazing character design let's start by
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looking at our prompts starting with the
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word night in order to visually
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communicate the idea of a night we have
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to know what they look like then once we
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have this information we can use the
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elements that we need to communicate
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what we want about the character so how
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do we get this information obviously by
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researching but not just any research
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how you do the research is super
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important we'll start by looking up
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night on Google Images right away one
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obvious thing that all these Knights
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have in common is that they're all
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wearing armor of some kind great that's
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a lot of reference images let's try
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designing this is how I did my research
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in the past but I found that when I
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tried to design armor of my own I kept
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running into two problems problem one
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sometimes my armor would just look way
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too close to the reference images it
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just felt like I was taking elements
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from existing references and putting
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them together problem too in order to
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avoid the first problem I would try to
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not look so hard at the reference images
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and invent my own armor but it just
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looked bad I didn't really understand
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why but it didn't really look like armor
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at all I think the problem was that by
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just looking at pictures I was gaining
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only a superficial understanding of how
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armor worked in in order to design
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something that looks plausible you need
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deeper knowledge even if you're planning
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on doing more Fantastical designs
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understanding how things work in real
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life is key to making believable
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character designs and notice that I said
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plausible and believable not realistic
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we have to believe that they could be
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real not that they actually exist your
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designs could be as Fantastical as these
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or as grounded as these you just need
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people to look at them and think yeah
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this could actually work so how exactly
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do you pull that off you'll need to do
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some more indepth research I'll show you
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how I did it to help with this I'm going
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to be using milanote the sponsor of this
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video milanote is a notetaking tool you
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can use to organize information for your
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projects personally I tend to get really
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lost in Long Word documents so I really
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like it of course you can use any note
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taking app you like but I think milanote
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has a lot of convenient features that
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makes the research process easier and
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more painless if you want to follow
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along with my my process you can get
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started with Milano for free with the
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link down in the description anyway
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let's begin our research with European
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medieval armor there's tons of different
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armor around the world but fantasy draws
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a lot of inspiration from medieval armor
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so it's a great starting point to start
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off we can break down a suit of armor
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into individual components the most
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important thing to learn about each of
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these pieces is how it works each piece
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of armor attaches a certain way and is
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used for a particular purpose so we're
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going to need more than just pictures
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for this you're actually going to want
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to take some notes I often find that
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museum websites are great sources of
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information for armor so I really like
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adding links to museum pages on my
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boards Millan note's pretty easy to use
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you can just drag in text Snippets and
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images but I also like using the Millan
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note web clipper extension for Chrome
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because it also includes the sources of
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the images and text that I add I find
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that pretty handy because going back to
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check the source can be really useful
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it's also important to do studies when
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you have time as well remember as visual
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artists there is nothing better than
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drawing something and deconstructing it
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to really understand how something works
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and once you're done with that study you
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could just add it to your board anyway
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we've done a ton of work so are we done
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here can we finally begin our character
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design is there anything else we need to
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know wait do you remember what the theme
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was it was Angelic nights we'll need to
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learn a little bit more about how angels
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are portrayed to communicate the Angelic
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aspect of the design but it's going to
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be a bit different from armor because no
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one's ever taken a photograph of an
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Angel but angels have been the subjects
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of paintings for a very long time so
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what we can do is research historical
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depictions of angels and the symbols
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typically associated with them but
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besides just the Angels themselves
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there's something else related to angels
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that I think will be very useful for
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this design angels are associated with
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religion and therefore churches and
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churches are often richly ornamented
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with beautiful carvings and in
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particular I'm interested in the rock
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period of architecture just look at
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these beautiful and elegant shapes maybe
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I can use some of these in my designs in
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particular there's a lot of beautiful
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and elegant scroll work delicate
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swooping spiral shapes we can use these
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shapes to help strengthen the Angelic
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theme of our design and of course angels
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have wings the first time I did an
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Angelic night design I based the Wings
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off a Secretary Bird I just think they
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look cool which is a valid reason to do
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something in a character design
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I just think they're neat so I'll be
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doing the same thing this time around
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perhaps at this point you'll be thinking
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this is way too much work for a single
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character design am I really expected to
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do this every single time I design a
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character that's way too much but here's
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the thing once you do this research and
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this practice you don't throw it away
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once you're done with that design you
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store all of this information in your
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visual library for later if you like
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designing fantasy characters you'll find
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that you often have to draw armor and
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all of that research you just did that's
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going to come in really handy expanding
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your visual library is one way you can
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improve your character design skill so
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none of this effort actually goes to
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waste by the way don't forget that the
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best thing you can do to get better at
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something is to actually practice it so
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how do you practice character design by
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designing characters of course with this
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information you just researched try
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turning them into Quick character
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designs as well the designs don't have
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to be clean or colored it just needs to
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be clean enough that you understand what
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the design is supposed to be
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but once in a while it's good to spend a
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bit more time on a detail design so
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let's go back to the Angelic night for
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now one last thing I'd like to cover
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before actually beginning to design our
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character if you look at our board so
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far it looks like they're mostly filled
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with photographs or older
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paintings but what about existing
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character designs Angelic Knight is not
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a very original idea so it's been done
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tons of times before we can definitely
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draw inspiration from these as well but
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remember to be careful when using other
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artists works there's a risk of
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accidentally plagiarizing a portion of
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the work even if you're not doing it on
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purpose to help prevent this instead of
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using these as a reference I create a
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mood board I collect some artwork that
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captures the feeling of the character I
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want to create to avoid the problem of
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accidental plagiarism I try to keep the
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images fairly small on the board so I
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can't quite make out the individual
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elements but I can capture the overall
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mood in any case this Reser stuff looks
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like a lot so don't worry you don't have
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have to do it all in one sitting I
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personally spread it over a few days
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sometimes I have my best ideas while I'm
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out and about so it's useful to jot down
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quick notes so I don't forget them
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fortunately milanote has a mobile app
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where you can access all your notes in a
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mobile readable format and you can take
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down notes and file them away later
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thanks again to milanote for sponsoring
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this video so now that we finally have
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all the information that we need we can
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finally start designing we gathered a
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ton of references for learning but now
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that we're actually drawing we don't
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actually have to be looking at too many
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of them at once in fact having too much
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reference can make your character design
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a bit
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unfocused so I make a smaller board with
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fewer references that I actually look at
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while I'm creating my character design
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when it comes to character design
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research is incredibly important but
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it's not the only step there are also
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other important steps when it comes to
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creating and refining designs but maybe
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we'll save that for another video for
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now we'll keep it simple we can start by
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doing thumbnails which are loose
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sketches to help you quickly generate
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ideas for your character remember that
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thumbnails don't have to look good
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they're just there for you to get ideas
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and once you get a thumbnail you're
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happy with you can start sketching out
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your design my old design had some good
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ideas and I felt like it was a pretty
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grounded design I more or less Drew
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realistic armor but added some fantasy
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flourishes and patterns on it and that's
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not a bad thing at all but this time
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around I want to try something a little
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bit different and I want to emphasize
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the Ethereal and elegant nature of an
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Angel so I use thinner and pointier
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forms and I try to make the armor look
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more Fantastical while still trying to
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keep her looking protected I also go for
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an asymmetrical design to emphasize the
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feeling of dynamism but mostly I do this
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cuz I think it might look cool I wasn't
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quite sure whether to line art or
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painting for this character design but
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in the end I went with line work because
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I wanted to make it more similar to my
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old design so when I put them side by
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side I could compare them more directly
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so here are some quick tips for keeping
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your character design interesting and
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appealing number one big medium small
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you want to vary up the sizes you use to
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keep things interesting this applies for
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a lot of different things but in my case
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I make sure that all the wings on this
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character are different sizes number two
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use repeating shapes and forms to make
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your design more cohesive in my design I
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use a lot of wing shapes and scroll work
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to give it that grandiose Angelic
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feeling and number three you did a lot
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of research so try to make sure that
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each of elements is there for a reason
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it's fine to not make things completely
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realistic all the time but you want them
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to at least make sense in the context of
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your Universe okay so after cleaning up
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and rendering the character this is how
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it hang on wait I kind of don't really
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like how it looks I don't know about you
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but sometimes I just finish a picture
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and I'm just not happy with how it looks
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I feel like this gold scroll work here
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is just so busy and way too noisy and
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and these values just aren't grouped
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very well but separated into these
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awkward chunks I liked how it looked at
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the sketch way better to be honest I
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think it was kind of a mistake to use a
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line art Focus style for this design
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with all these intricate shapes and gold
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patterns I'm not skilled enough to pull
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it off so I went again and tried to
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simplify and clean up the gold bits and
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refine the shapes just a little and
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after those Corrections here's how it
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looks to be honest I'm still not that
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happy with it but but I think I
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definitely at least got better over the
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last 3 years maybe I'll be able to make
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a design I'm actually happy with in
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another 3 years I have a really long way
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to go and I still have so much to learn
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so I'll keep working hard I hope you
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enjoyed this video if you did add the
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Subscribe button to your visual Library
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thank you so much for watching bye-bye
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so let's start I said the word so so so
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so we no wait no so so how we so so so
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and so
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so go to sleep
