Now THIS is real masterclass on design that I've been looking for on UA-cam! Most youtubers are so eager to get into the weeds of silhouettes and shape language and hyperspecific technical details, but the number one thing that dictates literally everything about the design - the design brief - is always missing! Absolutely amazing breakdown of the entire decision making process and what makes each design tick for each specific medium you looked at. These are the questions to always keep in mind - what is the design for? What is its function? How does it fit into the rest of that world/product/problem/thing we're contributing to!
What can a stundent ask more, than having a great art teacher with an amazing style on top of that? I really appreciate your effort and you enhance the whole art community. Thanks
This approach makes Akira Toriyamas approach to dragon ball make more sense. At least why characters like Gohan, goku, vegeta, tien, yamacha, all have the same face details, head shape and all, but the subtle difference in internal silhouettes, as well as their hair, was enough for us to differentiate them easily and still enjoy all their unique quirks. Small characters like chaotzo, Korin, oolong, garlic jr., young krillin, emperor pilaf, all have similiar outward silhouettes and shape language but different inward silhouettes, different colors. But all still easily identifiable. Glad you shed light more light on this thought process. Toriyama even repeated a lot of patterns like the saiyan armor, clothing, trees & foliage and technological design shapes were similiar to their respective categories. It’s easier on the budget, but also keeps the world very cohesive.
Am I the lucky one ? I just decided to hop into character design and now I have this long ass video which I think is going to be the best video for character It's all calculated
Haha same for me. Tim's channel was recommended over a year and half ago, right back as I got into drawing again, and just two or three of his videos have helped me figure out certain things about my state of things. I don't draw as much as I would, and I have a decent grasp on the basics, and his channel has helped me cementing some more of the things I knew but didn't fully understand while pointing out certain flaws and things I lacked.
Thank you so much for this video! I'm having trouble with designing a certain character and most videos/sources only consider tips that work for the purpose of highly stylized fantasy or sci-fi video games or comics and I find it difficult to apply them for something more mundane like this particular project of mine. I'm glad I can always count on you and your channels for different and more nuanced information and approaches, it's highly appreciated!
I think this was incredibly helpful because as an artist trying to learn all these fundamentals and build a potential portfolio for after college, I have had trouble having the confidence and clear path I’d want to take going forward. Doomerism around AI and layoffs, hella hours working for low pay, and companies not being the best overall can really demoralize you, on top of all the hours spent practicing your craft whilst seeing the whole world on social media “outpace” your growth. It’s a huge mental load. But having clearer answers like a video like this really really helps to take away some of that fear and hesitation. So thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Tim, for providing such a detailed and insightful crash course on the dynamics and nuances of character design. I truly appreciate it!
Space Marine armor is a good example how the purpose is shaping the design because all its quirks go back to requirements for miniature making. Large shoulder pads are perfect for hiding seams between the arms and the body. It looks good in this almost iconic half-squat crouched posture they often had on minis and on a mini you don't have to worry about animating it. Helmets make characters faceless, but the late eighties miniatures weren't exactly killing it with facial sculpts and fidelity of casting so it was better to have characters with their faces covered. They have relatively few surface details and simple geometry except for those decorations that are added on top of the armor surface, but it makes them look very crisp on a small plastic miniatures whilst still being easy to assemble/paint. It is a very purposeful design. Very driven by what is required for production. But a 3d artist probably would prefer to work on animating very much anything else.
It also makes for fantastic storytelling when their outlandish armor and stature is contrasted against regular human beings. They are posthuman walking tanks that can turn a regular human being into paste by just running through them - so when some handful of their number take off their helmets, kneel down, try to act approachable and friendly - it's a very strong impression that stands out. When the stories about the space marines lean into this contrast between them and regular humans, they work great. When it's just space marines - that's where things blur out and get a bit lost!
Great video, i was more formally introduced to design briefs when I was studying ID. Every project was presented on a brief was an NDA. To get us used to design briefs and also because virtually every design project was sponsored by a local company. What it took years for me to realize is that designing characters for games, vs illustration, vs live action was different. I appreciate the video never thought about whats needed for comic book.
One thing that makes me unable to improve quicker is the aspect of "functionality" in concept art, there are some schools of thought that say rule of cool and design is king and that simply using photo reference is enough and other with people like Feng Zhu saying that they do teach their students a little bit of engineering which just makes me wonder what would be some good resources for teaching designer-friendly functionality without outright looking up engineering blueprints
Honestly, it's best to have some interests in something tangentially related to that field you're trying to depict. Once I had a very big difficulty in imagining why do all soldiers look so similar across media, what's with the pouches and kneepads and gloves... until I served myself and learned just what a massive difference it makes to dive on the ground with gloves and kneepads vs just raw fatigues and bare hands! Wearing a chest rig helped me to understand how useful (but subtly cumbersome) they are, crawling and climbing through bootcamp grounds in fatigues helped me to understand why they are always baggy, etc. Now, I'm not suggesting to join the military to learn what makes a functional soldier uniform - but you can certainly try something adjacent! Doing some airsoft or paintball, or if you want to learn more about mechanical design, just pick up some scale models and assemble a plane or a tank, something that has these nuts and bolts and layers of intentional functionality to it. If you're interested in mecha and robots, you'll do yourself a service by picking up a Gundam kit that you build up from its skeleton all the way to the armored final form! Having even just a little bit of experience in the thing you try to depict, however distant and approximate, is far better than having none and just guessing - it's really the same as gathering references for your regular daily artworks! The more tangible and tactile, the better!
Awesome video, Tim, great timing too. I've been doing a lot of character thumbnailing lately, but I was struck by the fact it can be hard to make exaggerated silhouettes for humans with similar/realistic anatomy and proprtion, but that bit about internal silhouette was useful, also the emphasis on faces as I'm likely using the designs for personal comic project. Saying, that I also have a game project that benefits more from this iconagraphic approach too. Anyway thanks for the video dude o7
Great stuff, Tim. As a comic book artist who always struggled to apply the video game advice "MORE! EXAGGERATE!" that I've been fed, I've been looking for a video like this for years. The obvious next question is, how do you showcase the skill of designing to a brief in a portfolio?
"Space marines designs make it difficult to emote". My brother, that's why you take off the helmet. Hah-- but fr challenge accepted. A space marine comic/my own version of something similar is definitely on a creative checklist. You're right tho and I wish I understood this earlier. Game design/animation design/comic design have their own paths with what works and what doesn't.
I was thinking a cool way of working with this issue in places where you can't have helmets off would be to do that sort of camera in the helmet shot you often see in movies - like their face close up possibly even reflecting in hud or something, could be cool.
I'd argue you don't need to remove the helmet, emoting with body language is more fitting for the stoic and mission oriented personality of a space marine's (its more related to animation than comics tho).
I learned my understanding of design by designing games, failing, then gradually succeeding: naive game design is very much like naive character design - change one arbitrary element from an existing design and see what happens. To get a more holistic, thought-through design you start juggling a lot of overlapping concepts and trying to stomp out the contradictions that arise(e.g. "if the character is huge, how will they fit through this door?"). So I always point to Venn diagramming now as a starting point, because the finished design has to accommodate the center(the most abstract, philosophical questions in the work) through the concrete details(e.g. giving the character power armor for a distinctive silhouette - which overlaps story questions with visual questions). When the diagram works, the final result won't have any contradictions, which ensures that it communicates something coherent at every level of the hierarchy, from the broad sweep of "what is the pitch for this comic," down to the narrow, panel-by-panel stuff. I've spent a lot of time studying characters in an isolated sense, but lately I've been engrossed in landscape(working with the Jack Hamm "Landscapes and Seascapes" book, which is excellent), and I'm starting to notice now how landscapes help explain the abstract, compositional principles that take place with the visual design of characters - all the stuff with quick reads, eye tracking, simplified shapes and values. In the context of landscape it's easier to rapidly relate the fundamental to the subject matter, because there isn't a story or scenario getting in the way: the Hamm book is full of diagrams showing a topic like "distance" and all the different ways of doing it - overlap, perspective lines, values, etc. So now I go back to doing character drawing and think "oh, well I can address this character as a little landscape, and use this idea of distance to push them towards a certain visual for the *purpose of the story*". It helps me break out of the feeling of style needing to be either "strict representation" or "wacky and extreme".
Thinking about starting my own comic. Ive been a self taught artist for over about 8 years now. I have little to no experience in comic making, any advice??
My design taste came from comics and the exaggerated silhouette type of design that is required for games was never my cup of tea. This is partly why even though I was strongly interested in concept art in the past I never really wanted to specialize in characters. Some games are exceptions but they are quite rare. From what I see majority seem to try to look like Fortnite or Overwatch now.
You're doing a fantastic job! Just a quick off-topic question: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How should I go about transferring them to Binance?
Now THIS is real masterclass on design that I've been looking for on UA-cam! Most youtubers are so eager to get into the weeds of silhouettes and shape language and hyperspecific technical details, but the number one thing that dictates literally everything about the design - the design brief - is always missing!
Absolutely amazing breakdown of the entire decision making process and what makes each design tick for each specific medium you looked at. These are the questions to always keep in mind - what is the design for? What is its function? How does it fit into the rest of that world/product/problem/thing we're contributing to!
What can a stundent ask more, than having a great art teacher
with an amazing style on top of that? I really appreciate your effort and
you enhance the whole art community. Thanks
This approach makes Akira Toriyamas approach to dragon ball make more sense. At least why characters like Gohan, goku, vegeta, tien, yamacha, all have the same face details, head shape and all, but the subtle difference in internal silhouettes, as well as their hair, was enough for us to differentiate them easily and still enjoy all their unique quirks. Small characters like chaotzo, Korin, oolong, garlic jr., young krillin, emperor pilaf, all have similiar outward silhouettes and shape language but different inward silhouettes, different colors. But all still easily identifiable. Glad you shed light more light on this thought process. Toriyama even repeated a lot of patterns like the saiyan armor, clothing, trees & foliage and technological design shapes were similiar to their respective categories. It’s easier on the budget, but also keeps the world very cohesive.
Am I the lucky one ?
I just decided to hop into character design and now I have this long ass video which I think is going to be the best video for character
It's all calculated
Everybody gets a turn to be that lucky person.
Haha same for me. Tim's channel was recommended over a year and half ago, right back as I got into drawing again, and just two or three of his videos have helped me figure out certain things about my state of things. I don't draw as much as I would, and I have a decent grasp on the basics, and his channel has helped me cementing some more of the things I knew but didn't fully understand while pointing out certain flaws and things I lacked.
you are a true artist, really genuine and generous when sharing information, guys like you are rare in internet those days
I feel like I shoul've paid real money for this information, thank you so much for sharing!
О, нифига себе, привет!
Thank you so much for this video! I'm having trouble with designing a certain character and most videos/sources only consider tips that work for the purpose of highly stylized fantasy or sci-fi video games or comics and I find it difficult to apply them for something more mundane like this particular project of mine. I'm glad I can always count on you and your channels for different and more nuanced information and approaches, it's highly appreciated!
I think this was incredibly helpful because as an artist trying to learn all these fundamentals and build a potential portfolio for after college, I have had trouble having the confidence and clear path I’d want to take going forward.
Doomerism around AI and layoffs, hella hours working for low pay, and companies not being the best overall can really demoralize you, on top of all the hours spent practicing your craft whilst seeing the whole world on social media “outpace” your growth. It’s a huge mental load.
But having clearer answers like a video like this really really helps to take away some of that fear and hesitation. So thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Tim, for providing such a detailed and insightful crash course on the dynamics and nuances of character design. I truly appreciate it!
Thank you for the video it really add something to everything we often hear.
Space Marine armor is a good example how the purpose is shaping the design because all its quirks go back to requirements for miniature making.
Large shoulder pads are perfect for hiding seams between the arms and the body. It looks good in this almost iconic half-squat crouched posture they often had on minis and on a mini you don't have to worry about animating it.
Helmets make characters faceless, but the late eighties miniatures weren't exactly killing it with facial sculpts and fidelity of casting so it was better to have characters with their faces covered.
They have relatively few surface details and simple geometry except for those decorations that are added on top of the armor surface, but it makes them look very crisp on a small plastic miniatures whilst still being easy to assemble/paint.
It is a very purposeful design. Very driven by what is required for production. But a 3d artist probably would prefer to work on animating very much anything else.
It also makes for fantastic storytelling when their outlandish armor and stature is contrasted against regular human beings. They are posthuman walking tanks that can turn a regular human being into paste by just running through them - so when some handful of their number take off their helmets, kneel down, try to act approachable and friendly - it's a very strong impression that stands out. When the stories about the space marines lean into this contrast between them and regular humans, they work great. When it's just space marines - that's where things blur out and get a bit lost!
Man i'd love to see a 5-10 second animation of one of your work man, it looks so amazing! I wish you could make a animation movie or something.
Super informative, never heard anyone talk about this aspect of character design! So glad I started following this channel :)
Great video, i was more formally introduced to design briefs when I was studying ID. Every project was presented on a brief was an NDA. To get us used to design briefs and also because virtually every design project was sponsored by a local company. What it took years for me to realize is that designing characters for games, vs illustration, vs live action was different. I appreciate the video never thought about whats needed for comic book.
One thing that makes me unable to improve quicker is the aspect of "functionality" in concept art, there are some schools of thought that say rule of cool and design is king and that simply using photo reference is enough and other with people like Feng Zhu saying that they do teach their students a little bit of engineering which just makes me wonder what would be some good resources for teaching designer-friendly functionality without outright looking up engineering blueprints
Honestly, it's best to have some interests in something tangentially related to that field you're trying to depict. Once I had a very big difficulty in imagining why do all soldiers look so similar across media, what's with the pouches and kneepads and gloves... until I served myself and learned just what a massive difference it makes to dive on the ground with gloves and kneepads vs just raw fatigues and bare hands! Wearing a chest rig helped me to understand how useful (but subtly cumbersome) they are, crawling and climbing through bootcamp grounds in fatigues helped me to understand why they are always baggy, etc.
Now, I'm not suggesting to join the military to learn what makes a functional soldier uniform - but you can certainly try something adjacent! Doing some airsoft or paintball, or if you want to learn more about mechanical design, just pick up some scale models and assemble a plane or a tank, something that has these nuts and bolts and layers of intentional functionality to it. If you're interested in mecha and robots, you'll do yourself a service by picking up a Gundam kit that you build up from its skeleton all the way to the armored final form!
Having even just a little bit of experience in the thing you try to depict, however distant and approximate, is far better than having none and just guessing - it's really the same as gathering references for your regular daily artworks! The more tangible and tactile, the better!
thanks ,very good advice and good reminder, sometimes I forget several tips that are essential
Great video, Tim! Thank you!
Awesome video, Tim, great timing too. I've been doing a lot of character thumbnailing lately, but I was struck by the fact it can be hard to make exaggerated silhouettes for humans with similar/realistic anatomy and proprtion, but that bit about internal silhouette was useful, also the emphasis on faces as I'm likely using the designs for personal comic project. Saying, that I also have a game project that benefits more from this iconagraphic approach too. Anyway thanks for the video dude o7
Great stuff, Tim. As a comic book artist who always struggled to apply the video game advice "MORE! EXAGGERATE!" that I've been fed, I've been looking for a video like this for years. The obvious next question is, how do you showcase the skill of designing to a brief in a portfolio?
This is a tremendously insightful video. Thank you!
Great Video!!!
"Space marines designs make it difficult to emote". My brother, that's why you take off the helmet. Hah-- but fr challenge accepted. A space marine comic/my own version of something similar is definitely on a creative checklist. You're right tho and I wish I understood this earlier. Game design/animation design/comic design have their own paths with what works and what doesn't.
You can try and use tokusatsu acting for characters wearing helmets!
@@snoot6629 I'm not familiar-- I'll have to look into it-- thanks!
I was thinking a cool way of working with this issue in places where you can't have helmets off would be to do that sort of camera in the helmet shot you often see in movies - like their face close up possibly even reflecting in hud or something, could be cool.
I'd argue you don't need to remove the helmet, emoting with body language is more fitting for the stoic and mission oriented personality of a space marine's (its more related to animation than comics tho).
We need a master cut of all the “bom bom” 14:23
Yes!
I learned my understanding of design by designing games, failing, then gradually succeeding: naive game design is very much like naive character design - change one arbitrary element from an existing design and see what happens. To get a more holistic, thought-through design you start juggling a lot of overlapping concepts and trying to stomp out the contradictions that arise(e.g. "if the character is huge, how will they fit through this door?"). So I always point to Venn diagramming now as a starting point, because the finished design has to accommodate the center(the most abstract, philosophical questions in the work) through the concrete details(e.g. giving the character power armor for a distinctive silhouette - which overlaps story questions with visual questions). When the diagram works, the final result won't have any contradictions, which ensures that it communicates something coherent at every level of the hierarchy, from the broad sweep of "what is the pitch for this comic," down to the narrow, panel-by-panel stuff.
I've spent a lot of time studying characters in an isolated sense, but lately I've been engrossed in landscape(working with the Jack Hamm "Landscapes and Seascapes" book, which is excellent), and I'm starting to notice now how landscapes help explain the abstract, compositional principles that take place with the visual design of characters - all the stuff with quick reads, eye tracking, simplified shapes and values. In the context of landscape it's easier to rapidly relate the fundamental to the subject matter, because there isn't a story or scenario getting in the way: the Hamm book is full of diagrams showing a topic like "distance" and all the different ways of doing it - overlap, perspective lines, values, etc. So now I go back to doing character drawing and think "oh, well I can address this character as a little landscape, and use this idea of distance to push them towards a certain visual for the *purpose of the story*". It helps me break out of the feeling of style needing to be either "strict representation" or "wacky and extreme".
Tim, I love your style. Mentor me please!
Thinking about starting my own comic. Ive been a self taught artist for over about 8 years now. I have little to no experience in comic making, any advice??
Thanks for this info from a fellow artist!
This is good info
My design taste came from comics and the exaggerated silhouette type of design that is required for games was never my cup of tea. This is partly why even though I was strongly interested in concept art in the past I never really wanted to specialize in characters. Some games are exceptions but they are quite rare. From what I see majority seem to try to look like Fortnite or Overwatch now.
You're doing a fantastic job! Just a quick off-topic question: My OKX wallet holds some USDT, and I have the seed phrase. (alarm fetch churn bridge exercise tape speak race clerk couch crater letter). How should I go about transferring them to Binance?
Dude you're crazy giving your account to people online
I love pretending to be a professional artist on you tube
What do you mean by that