Designing Characters
Character Designs from my current freelance children book project - due for kick starter launch by summer ’21!
The Approach
At the start of the current year, I began working on a children book project written for 7 to 10 years age group. The author approached with a requirement to design 4 interesting characters along with the environment for her book. As always, its quite an investigation to understand the characters from the creator’s point of view. I believe such a learning gives a very strong foundation on which the characters can be developed further by the artist. There have been past projects where I bombarded the authors with the character designs that were completely generated from my point of view. It used to lead to an overwhelming experience for the author and could not zero down upon the character for a very long time of the project. Hence, I tend to follow is CO-CREATION approach where I ask the author to share the what they think about the characters with a help of some character definitions.
CHARACTER DESIGNS BASED ON CHARACTER DEFINITIONS
1. COMMANDER BEAR
Hyper-active, energetic, very expressive, emotional, loves to talk, tends go off-track in conversations. Dresses up like a general, leader of the pack of 3, looks funny and goofy
2. VEGAN EAGLE
(Internally) Composed, calm, highly intelligent, developed social/communication skills. (Externally) Suave, slick, wears a Burberry trench coat, had very short wings and cannot fly, wears a turtle neck, has a halo on his head to show divine/spiritual element, a spectacle to further enhance his intelligence
3. PRETTY BUNNY
(Internally) Has autism spectrum disorder, deficits in communication and social interaction, difficulty in recognising others emotions, consuming interest in a specific topic/object. (Externally) Super pretty with big eye lashes, very smart, has fluffiest white fur, wears the body hugging smart team outfit
4. LONE BOY
(Internally) Guarded, overlooked by parents, sad inside. (Externally) Bad boy (tough) appearance, camouflage gear, wears a bandana
