KVCC: AAMT 132 - Character Design
(And World Building)
AAMT 173 - Storyboarding
Explore the foundations of how to translate a story idea to a visually animated scene.
AAMT 132 - Character Design
Discover how to populate your story with likable characters and a believable world.
AAMT 111 - 2D Animation
Explore the process of putting your ideas into an actual 2D-Animation workflow.
AAMT 131 - 3D Animation
Find out how to translate your ideas into a working 3D-Animation pipeline.
Character Design Breakdown
WHAT
Character Design is the process of creating and fleshing out characters withing a narrative. It often goes hand-in-hand with World Building, which is the process of fleshing out the locations and setting of a narrative.
WHEN
Character Design & World Building are generally one of the first parts of the animation pipeline. However, as ideas come up later on in the pipeline, characters and settings will often be revisited for further fleshing out.
HOW
Character Design & World Building are mostly a narrative process, where personalities, motivations, culture, etc are defined.
This process does typically include the “physical appearance” of a character or location, but is not limited to that.
For example, as part of this process, we determine “WHY does this character look this way? WHY do they wear that type of clothing? WHAT is their past that lead them to have the personality, motives, goals, and friendships that they have?”
WHY
More often than not, the ultimate goal of any given piece of animation is to tell a story. The story of a society, the story of a character, the story of a moment in time.
And more often than not, a good story doesn’t happen by chance. It’s the result of careful thought, preparation, and planning.
If you’re telling a huge epic, you want characters that feel grounded and believable within their world. If you’re telling an action story, you want characters that feel like they could actually accomplish exciting physical feats and overcome real dangers.
Examples
