Character design is one of the most important aspects of creating a high-quality animation. That’s why we go through several stages of design work—refining characters and getting feedback from the client. Characters are the central focus point of an animation, and the entire video usually revolves around them, so it’s important to develop them correctly.
We start out by creating some initial designs, drawing the main character in varying styles. This example, taken from our Bespoke Financial Newcastle series of animation, shows how we created four distinct styles for the main character based on the client briefing, which specified they wanted something clean and graphic. In this case, the client opted for Design #2, which you can see in its final form here.
Once the client has chosen the design style that they like best, we begin to develop the character design further. This often involves changes such as eye and hair colour, as well as more subtle adjustments to make the character more appealing. This example, taken from the Action 4 Equality video we created for the Glasgow City Council, shows the iterative changes made.
When the character design has been finalised, we create a turnaround. This shows the character from several different angles, usually front, back, left, and right. The turnaround helps instruct the technical animator, who is responsible for rigging the character, and maintains consistency throughout the animation.
Once the final character design was approved, we began work on any additional costumes and props that the character might require. This example from our own 7 Wonders of the Ancient World animation shows the main character in different costumes that are worn throughout the video.
Often there are more stages and iterations of the designs. For example, projects with multiple characters will need designs for each. If you want to find out more about how we work, or if you want to see your own brand or story told through
