Abstract

Character design is the process of translating a character’s personality and story role into a visual form. This article explains the technical and artistic steps used to create a personality-driven design. It begins with the conceptual foundation of shape language, detailing how circles, squares, and triangles are used to create subconscious associations of friendliness, stability, or danger. It then discusses the importance of a strong, recognizable silhouette as a test of a design’s clarity. The article also covers how specific details, such as costume and facial features, are used to provide facts about a character’s background and attitude. Finally, it explains the transition from a single drawing to a production-ready asset. This involves creating technical documents like the model sheet (or character turnaround) and expression sheets. These blueprints ensure that a character’s design and proportions remain consistent (“on-model”) when drawn by a large team of animators.

Keywords

Character Design, Animation, Shape Language, Model Sheet, Visual Storytelling

Character design is the process of translating personality traits into a visual form. An animator’s goal is to make a character’s history, attitude, and role in the story readable at a glance. This process moves from abstract concepts to a final technical blueprint that can be used by an entire production team.

The foundation of personality: shape language

The first step in a design is often to establish its shape language. This is a concept in art that uses basic geometric forms to communicate meaning and personality to an audience. The three primary shapes are:

  • Circles and Ovals: These shapes lack sharp corners and feel soft. They are commonly used to design characters who are meant to be seen as safe, friendly, approachable, or innocent.
  • Squares and Rectangles: These are stable, structural shapes. They convey strength, stability, and reliability. They often form the base for characters who are strong, dependable, or stubborn.
  • Triangles and Sharp Angles: These shapes are dynamic and directional. They feel sharp and can imply danger or speed. Triangles are frequently used to design villains, tricksters, or unpredictable, high-energy characters.

A character’s personality brief is translated through this visual vocabulary. A “friendly robot sidekick” will likely be built from circles, while an “evil alien general” will be based on triangles.

Testing the design: the silhouette

After establishing a basic shape, designers test the silhouette. This is the character’s entire outline, viewed as a solid black shape with no internal details. A strong silhouette is a key test of a successful design because it proves the character is recognizable on its own. It clearly communicates the character’s most identifiable features and pose. Many famous characters are instantly recognizable from their silhouette alone.

Adding history: costume and details

With the silhouette set, the designer adds details that reinforce the personality. These choices are not random decoration; they are visual facts that tell the audience about the character’s life.

A character’s costume reveals their background. A clean, pressed uniform suggests order and discipline. A faded, patched jacket suggests a long history of travel or poverty. Facial features and default expressions are also defined. A character with wide, round eyes may read as curious, while a character with narrow, angular eyes may read as suspicious.

From sketch to screen: the model sheet

A single approved design must be drawn consistently by a large team of animators. To make this possible, the designer creates a model sheet, also known as a character turnaround. This is a technical document that shows the character from multiple standardized angles: typically front, 3/4 front, side, 3/4 back, and back.

The model sheet uses construction lines to ensure all proportions, like the distance from the top of the head to the eyes, remain identical from every view. This keeps the character “on-model.”

Designers also create expression sheets to show how the character displays key emotions. Action pose sheets may be used to demonstrate how the character’s body moves, sits, or runs. These documents are the final step in translating a creative sketch into a functional asset for the animation pipeline.