Creative presense report

Creative Presence 2016 Report During the year I discovered my interests on character design, I decided to approach practitioners specialised in either character design or character animators, although unfortunately I did not got replies from most of the practitioners that I tried to contact by E-mail and social networks. The interview I included in the report is from a practitioner specialised in visual development and character design for both animations and games, who is now working as a freelance artist doing layout and character designs.

I prepared the questions before the interview based on both my interests and the area that is specialised.

Q: What makes a good character design?

A: The most important is to match the theme, match the context. If it is about robotic and future, it needs to be based on reality, to research about robot physics. For example, if you intend to do a character design for the Iron Man, it is necessary to learn the mechanical turning around of joints.

Q: What skills is needed to become a character designer?

A: On general, it is to expand the horizon not only on design aspects, therefore the character design would be worth of scrutiny. Not only would the appearance be aesthetically good-looking, but when studying the details, there would be track to follow, reference to support the reliability, and meaningful, thought-provoking. Down the ages, the style and appearance of costumes has been constantly changing, for example, why would people of medieval period wear cloaks? If the character design involves a certain historical period, it is necessary to be informed by the knowledge of that period, therefore the essential design could be expanded.

Q: What is your usual steps towards a finished character design?

A: Firstly, search for references, study the references, do a large quantity of sketches based on the references, and progress to the next step to design the character based on the knowledge constructed by the previous studies, with rational exaggerations. Eventually reinsure to improve and perfect the design.

Q: How would you describe the process of completing a character?

A: It is a non-liner process, would involves a variety of conceptions of world. It is important to put yourself into it, pretend you are one of the character live inside the world. For instance, if it is a world based on an Iceland or other similar situations, it is necessary to ensure the rationality of the design, such as the costume and the equipment of the character.

Q: How to make the character to be more suitable for an animation?

A: It depends on the style of the animation, the scale of the characters, in order to be adapted into the production of a certain animation. The main aspects of character design can be divided into two, one is the proportion and the drawing style, giving the subjective appearance of the character, while the other one is the costumes and characteristic or the personality, providing the spirit to make it alive.