Character Concept Design Process

According to Kennedy, silhouette thumbnails are one of the most commonly used exercises in pre-production in the creative industry. People recognise objects and other humans by their silhouette long before they see details. Using silhouettes in addition to references can stimulate creativity and imagination, and produce a high number of concepts in a short amount of time. My own process follows more traditional media, sketching and scanning, which often takes longer as I tend to become precious about designs. I think adapting to this digital pipeline will not only help me overcome that and become more productive, it will raise my skills to that suited and expected of the industry.

Initial designs are discussed with the art team or director, and another batch is normally drawn, developing on the most popular previous designs and refining. The next step is to introduce detail, and using a greyscale value painting is a great way to convey the major abstract shapes of the details of the character. Sometimes, many iterations of a character is needed, as the first variation is almost never picked. With direction from the art team, a selection of the iterations may be chosen and have more detail and colour added to them.