How do you design a character? ;(

I'm trying to design a pixel character, and I want to do it by first hand-drawing a sketch on paper, and then drawing over it with pixels on my PC after scanning the paper.

I have absolutely no idea what goes into character design. And every single time I want to design a character, all I do is just imagine a really good looking finished concept in my head, but then I just start drawing mindlessly, hoping to get something that works. I have no idea what to think about before drawing anything, and how to even make my character look semi-normal.

I go with the basic shapes like all tutorials tell you, but I just end up making it look like it has minecraft hands, and really big jeans, which then forces me to rub it out completely, and start over, which then gets me very frustrated since I can't even draw basic shapes to make it look like a human being. And I really don't want to pay someone to make character sprites that I will most likely want to change later. ;(

Can someone please tell me what I'm supposed to be taking into consideration when thinking about what the character should look like?

EDIT: That sad face in the title was accidental.

EDIT2: Okay so I got a new tactic. I'll just draw stickmen for the motion, and edit the base character sprite to fit those positions. But I still need to know how to figure out what the character should look like. (I was originally going to redraw the character on paper, for every frame)

 

If you can't draw at all, I don't think there is much likelihood that you will make decent animated character sprites. Pixel art is not inherently easier than other art. And drawing well isn't something somebody can tell you how to do; it is a skill, like programming or playing the violin, that just comes from years of practice.

So, options:

1. be satisfied with your cruddy programmer art
2. find animated sprites from somewhere like OpenGameArt.org
3. hire an artist to make the sprites for you
4. make your sprites from 3D models (here's a page I wrote ages ago about that, but there are modern tools)
5. abandon sprites and use 3D models in your game

I think that about covers it. Good luck!

 

Also, a great program for Pixel art, the best imo, is Pyxel.
http://pyxeledit.com/

The price is astounding.

Anyhow, pixel art is like any other visual art. If you don't have a strong understanding of the fundamentals, you won't get very far. It reminds me of people who want to draw anime, but have never drawn actual people. If you don't do muscle, bone, and visual studies of actual people, how do you expect to draw cartoon people? Some people get away with it, but they are permanently handicapped.

I suggest if you want a rapid grip on visual arts, here is the cheapest way to proceed. I had great success. The first is Riven Phoenix. He is not the best artist in the world, but every person I've had go through this course has quickly picked up form.

http://www.alienthink.com/
http://drawabox.com/

Once you've gone through these, this is the best $20/month you could possibly spend:

http://www.drawing-tutorials-online.com/

If you go really hard, you could pick up the essentials and be drawing well in around 2 years. With consistent practice.

 

I myself am more than a little artistically challenged, but when I approach it as a designer, my first instinct is "function before form." So I would start by identifying what this character is going to need to do, and this will preclude some art styles from thought.

If I need the character to emote, I either need to make the face big enough to show expression, or the body needs to be such that I can manipulate it to be expressive enough through body language.

If I need the character to be athletic or physical, I'm going to need to proportion the body in such a way to allow that kind of physicality. Longer limbs, more joints, etc.

What little I know of art design tells me:

Round curves are "soft" and speak to gentleness or um... cuteness? I guess. If I want a character to be instantly endearing, I probably want to give him rounder, smoother features.

Conversely, sharper angles are more harsh, edgy, and dangerous. If I want to make a character more serious, then maybe I would add sharper angles to his profile.

In 2D, silhouette is everything- your stickmen tactic is a good idea. You might be able to get away with roughing in the silhouettes and tackling the detail later. Once again, function comes before form.

Having worked with an artist before, I know that specifics are like gold to them- if you plan on hiring an artist later, Your work narrowing down the functionality and silhouttes and basic design will do a lot to cut down on the guesswork, and will save you money.

 

This sounds a lot more like "help, I suck at art" more than "help, I suck at character ideas," but whatever. For someone still struggling with the basics, I would highly suggest working all digital, using multiple layers, and using crappy brushes. There is nothing more empowering to a novice artist than to realize you are not making the end result immediately.

Michelangelo didn't make David out of stone. David was already in the stone, and the turtle's job was to free David from the stone. Make sense?

Don't forget smexy. Curves are super smexy.

The irony there is most people underestimate how realistic anime styles actually are. Most people just see the eyes and face details (or lack thereof), and immediately perceive it as unrealistic.

 

Yeah, you're 100% right.

Non-artist and novices see the simplified structure of anime or toons in general and think, "Oh boy this must be easier." when in reality, the more simplified the shapes and toning becomes, the more exponentially difficult representing that thing is.

 

A sorta figured out a way of doing it that works for me. I drew a bunch of stickmen just now, and I picked the one that has the most realistic body part dimensions.

And what I can do now, is just draw the crappiest character ever, but since this is pixel art, I can just apply the elements and features I had in my head, to the stickman, and make it not look absolutely horrible.

Most people could probably do that without drawing it first, but when it comes to small pixel sprites, being able to look at something physical rather than from my head, helps me a lot.

 

As someone who struggled to draw people for years (and still isn't an authority on it) my only advice is to take a life drawing class. If you're serious about jacking up your skills, you won't regret it.

 

Right on point.

 

One solution could be to find a 3d model (base mesh), to deform and pose the model, then trace it and adding /removing details as please. TO design, just take inspiration to similar character by changing enough details it doesn't come out as an original character do not steal. After mass effect is basically "star wars + final fantasy the spirit within + a max of sci fi tropes + star trek", star wars itself copied many classic from chambara to ww2 footage to flash gordon and even some more medieval epic, if you copy one source you are plagiarizing, if you copy a massive amount of sources you are potentially a genius (I don't believe that but it has worked consistently for many hi profile people, the advice is sound).

 

Alex Nichiporchik recently posted a good article on Punch Club's Guide to Pixel Art. It contains a lot of good, practical tips and inspiration.

 

A little late to reply - but some might find help from this.

When creating concept for - anything - especially characters, stay loose with the concept at first. Similar to @RockoDyne link, keep the sketch rough and loose. If you mess up - just keep going, get a good silhouette of the base character, and don't worry about detail that much.
When working digitally flip the drawing regularly. This helps to show inaccuracies in stance, perspective, and silhouette.

Sketching on paper and later scanning is admiral and some artists think it's a good traditional approach to begin with.
I still draw on paper and large butcher pad or sketch pad often, but not really for character design. It's just too slow.
If I do sketch out a rough character, I'll take a picture and fix it up in Photoshop and add layers to it to refine the design and keep on tightening up the rough sketch until it represents something I want to keep.

With pixel art - a lot of detail will be square pixelated representations of the initial detail (unless the art will be like Slain).
Since a lot of the detail will be lost when translating to pixel art - I think adding it to the concept is kinda wasteful. However I really like seeing the base concepts of characters like Link and Simon Belmont and then comparing them to the actual character sprites they ended up as.
Its good to look at past and present professionals - checking the concept art that is used to promote the games and comparing it to actual character sprites that are used in the game.

 

I'll second Joe's idea about using 3D models to make sprites. There are a number of tools (DAZ, MikuMiku Dance, Comipo: Manga Maker, and DoGA CGA L3 come to mind) out there that can help you design/assemble a character and then render it in a variety of poses and angles. You can then post process the images to get the look that you want. Having artistic ability is nice, but some of us just don't have the eye for it.

 

on blendswap.com theres an AMAZING thingy that renders 3d models as a pixelart-like sprite
its AMAZING
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/77870

guess there's this too... didnt try that one..
http://www.blendswap.com/blends/view/79861

 

By the way, the current Humble Bundle offering (11 days left as of 12/29/2016) is for game dev tools, including various pixel editors such as Pyxel Edit.

 

Being an artist myself. I know that feeling.
Especially when I started drawing again.

Okay, my suggestion, is not to watch too many art drawing vids.
Otherwise, doing so might confuse you and give you too much to think about.

The same advice applies, if you're making music.
Don't watch too many music tutorial vids.
We give that advice to people and newbies, on the Lmms Forums.

And even if your art, looks like minecraft, it means that at least you're
at a good start.

Draw whatever you see first in your mind, then continue from there.
And continue drawing, even if it looks like complete crap in the end.

Then the next day, look at your drawing, and then try to redraw it, but better.
And then repeat the process again, and again, until you end up with something
that looks really good.

It's sometimes a tough process, with a good bit of frustration.
But at some point in time, you'll succeed.

 

You could use a 3D model and simply render it to create your sprites. That's what they did for Ori and the Blind Forest. Ori's a fully modeled 3D character, but during gameplay, you're actually shown a pre-rendered sprite. This technique has been used since the days of the Super Nintendo (Donkey Kong did this.)

 

Yep. Reminds me of this tutorial I wrote almost 20 years ago!

 

It's my question too
Is it good to draw characters with digital drawing?
I don't have any idea!
Actually,I want make assets by drawing.
How?

 

I draw all of my characters on paper.
Because for me, it's much easier to control all of the lines and curves as I draw.
Then, I would scan the drawing. Put it into gimp or photoshop, and darken the
outlines of the characters, and sometimes, colour them.

So far, I've only drawn, like a few characters 100% digitally.
But the majority of them, I draw on good ol' paper.

 

Another good way to design characters, is to look at some common house
hold objects, like a vase, or a fancy home decoration. And get some cool ideas
from it's shape and design etc.

Or, look at some fruit, look at it's shape, look at it's colour, examine the fruits
surface texture. Then, use your imagination, and make a character out of it.

Trust me when I say, designing characters, is lots of fun!

 

I for one applaud character designers that take inspiration from peaches... don't judge me.

 

LOL! Same here.
The big joke is, I was thinking of peaches and watermelons, when I wrote
that post above. And was planning to use them, especially peaches, as an example. Wow! What a coincidence.

 

that could a mushroom kingdom's princess, just saying

 

Ha! Ha! Princess Peach. Lol!

 

Yeah. And that same team, Rare, used that same technique, for the
Killer Instinct games too.

 

You can teach yourself, over the course of months to do pixel art... I would recommend starting with a limited palette (like the NES, 64 colors - you basically get dark... medium.. and bright of all the major colors along with a lot of grays.), then studying other games you enjoy and eyeballing them at a close zoom in something like Pyxel Edit. Study each frame. Then study how they use their tiles. From there, you could move to an SNES palette much easier. But it's something that takes years to kind of get your own style and feel as well. I'm no great artist but you do improve.

First thing you really want to understand is "lighting" - there are a million tutorials on making an NES style sphere with the light hitting it and the use of a "dithering" effect. Small example - your hero's shoulder pads have a light source, where it is lighter on the top but is darker around (bad explaining this).

I also have a Wacom tablet I will draw with, to get some initial animation ideas down then smooth around them. They are roughly 200 dollars I believe.

 

Personally, I don't like to flesh out a character and allow a natural evolution over the iterative process. I think that for the majority of the dev process, the characters should be largely placeholders. Whatever is the minimal requirement to demonstrate the behavior that you want to get across. This makes changing it later much much easier and you WILL make changes. You will come up to a situation where what you've done no longer fits what you need and you have two options: go back and redo all that work, or fit your game to your assets. Neither are good options, the former is better, but the latter is easier.

 

@newjerseyrunner Got to agree with you there. I'm working on a game and as I develop the world, I can imagine the protagonist more and more clearly with each major change. As the story unravels, their face and costume change drastically in my mind.