Designing with a Purpose - Mark Kennedy

This is a great post by Mark Kennedy on his personal process for character design. 

CONFESSIONS OF A LAZY CHARACTER DESIGNER – Mark Kennedy 

Character Design is an art and a discipline and I totally admire people who are good at it. So I am not writing this post to share all my wonderful knowledge or anything, but heck, I'll do my best to share what I've learned from my limited experience in this arena 
Here are the criteria I try to meet when doing designs:

1. It should be something I understand in three dimensions and that I can draw from any angle. It should look appealing from every angle.
2. The design should lend itself to expressive expressions and poses. Those expressions and poses should be appealing as well.
3. It should look as original as possible; not like something you've seen before.
             But as far as that last one goes - everyone has a different idea of that. Obviously my designs aren't exactly ground-breaking or shockingly fresh and original. But I do try very hard to make sure I'm not repeating something I've seen before. 
5. The character design should describe the personality of the character.


I'm a big believer in the idea that when you look at a design, you should get an immediate sense of what that character's personality is. It's just like in live-action: directors cast actors who are going to bring a physical presence to the role and look like what the audience expects the character to look like. 

There is a big difference between the types of actors cast as leading men and those who are "character actors" who tend to be cast in the supporting type of roles over and over. 

If the designs of your characters don't work well in telling the audience what type of personality they are then you have to do extra work in informing the audience what they are like. The best characters are ones in which the design, voice acting and animation are all unified and work together in concert to create a great character. The sooner the audience can hook into exactly what type of character they're dealing with, the quicker they can engage with the story and focus on the events that are unfolding instead of trying to decipher what type of character they're seeing.

Using Costume to tell a Story

STORY TELLING

Costume and wardrobe can be a really effective way of adding layers and meaning to the telling of a story

Costume is such a big part of what helps give personality to a character. What a person wears and how they wear it gives us an instant feeling about who they are and what they're like. It's especially powerful because we aren't always aware that we're even making those kind of judgements.

Great artists will use the clothes as an extension of the character's personality. Always avoid giving your characters bland and nondescript wardrobes. Be specific!

Adversaries that represent different ideals should have costumes that represent who they are and contrast with what their nemesis wears.

 - Mark Kennedy Using Costume to tell a Story

Scottie Young

Clothing can convey quite a bit of conscious and unconscious information to the reader, but it should never be doing 100% of the legwork.  Body language, shape and overall behavior all come into play when building a character, and the trick is to figure out what clothing can do that these other elements can’t.

SHAPE- Every character, no matter how complex, should be designed around an overall unique visual shape.  This theme should not repeat in any other character.  This shape should be readable enough that if you were to shrink all your characters into a super-simplified cartoony state, they should still be distinguishable. Core shapes and patterns should repeat on the outfit.

Enrique Fernandez

DETAIL - Character designs follow a hierarchy: you grab the reader’s attention with the most essential information and then invite them to investigate the details.  If important elements of your design are only evident in the details, then it needs to be reworked.  If your character is not completely distinguishable in silhouette, it needs to be reworked.  Detail should always radiate from the core theme.

Nico Marlet

UNIFORM - What does your character do?  In what way would their clothing reasonably convey how they spend their time? What is their job? social status? personality?

Peter De Seve

Scottie Yound

ATTITUDE - how does your character move? What are their default postures and body language?  A good outfit should accentuate the body movements that you deem most important.  If a character stoops and hunches a lot, their clothes can augment that behavior.

- Aaron Diaz Tips on character and Costume Design

Enrique Fernandez

Anatomy of Costume

THE ANATOMY OF COSTUME

Clothes Tell Stories!

Remember, the costume is just as much a part of your character as their hair or expression. DESIGN!

Clothing has a voice and give insight on the human life and conditions, of ideas, conceptions and thoughts, of customs and usages, of trade, crafts and fashion in all times everywhere in the world.

Clothes tell stories

It more than just cloth, leather or material - How does a peron wear it? are they comfortable? Mal a'laise?, how does what they wear or how show their personality?

Materials:

know what materials you are drawing. Is it leather? cotton? metal or silk?  Think about how gravity will act on each of these materials and also how they will interact with the softness of your characters. Understand how they fit together. where are the seams? are there zippers? buttons?  is this hand crafted or machine made? Is it heavy? how is it worn or attached? - even if the details arn't there (goodness, we don't necessarily want every button and seam drawn!) understand how it is put together.

If the cloth is thick - where and how will if bunch?

If the cloth is very fine, how and where will it drape?

History:

whether consciously or unconsciously our brain makes connections between ideas and images.  Even if we are seeing something we have never seen before, our brain will search for a frame of reference to make sense of what is seeing. As a designer, you can control this.

Look at reference and Historical costumes: what connotations go with these designs? how can you use or manipulate them?

Ex: Star Wars

Darth Vader - Samurai Armor = power, ruthlessness, skill, fear

Imperial officers - Nazi uniform = evil, unfeeling, stiff, military, slaughter, war

Jedi Robes - Spanish Monks = quiet, calm, serenity, peace, in control, steady, solid, oath bound

Leia - Greek Goddess = Beauty, order, regal, elegant, minimalist, bold 

Han Solo - Cowboy = gunslinger, tough, cocky, suave, witty, heroic

Check this out: for a great source on period dresses used in character design - pay attention to the different handling of different cloth and materials - http://drawthisdress.tumblr.com/

Costume - "What would..."

What would this character do if presented with this clothing?

Consider the following characters and ask yourself...

Would they feel comfortable? un comfortable?
embarrassed? would they hide?
Proud? confident? feel good? feel special?
would they alter it? how?
would they even wear it?
etc.

This is one way to start your storytelling or make sure that your costume is telling a story

Present each of these characters:

A baseball hat
A top hat
A belt
A fancy dress or suit
Striped stockings
A leather Jacket
etc.